Dimitrie Bejan

Dimitrie Bejan, born on 26 October 1909 at Hârlău, was a priest, a former prisoner in Russia and in the communist prisons of Romania, author of the memoirs The Great Blizzard and The Joys of Suffering. He died in 1995. He is venerated by the faithful as a confessor, without synodal canonization; the sources available to us do not give the exact date of his death.

He was the only boy of a family of free peasants with six children. He attended the Theological Seminary at Iași, then Theology and History at Bucharest, where Nicolae Iorga was his professor. Ordained priest before the war, he was a military priest and reached Stalingrad. Captured in 1942, together with thousands of Romanians, he stayed in captivity until 1948, in forced labour in Siberia, which he described in The Great Blizzard.

After his return he was arrested and in 1950 sentenced by the Bucharest Military Tribunal to seven years, for plotting against the social order. He was held at Jilava, Văcărești, Aiud, at the Canal and at Cavnic, between 1949 and 1956, then was under forced residence in the Bărăgan (1956-1958). Sentenced again in 1959, he was released in 1964 by the general pardon decree. He later served as priest at Ghindăoani, where he was tried by a church council and the right to serve was withdrawn. He remained under forced residence, at his parents' house in Hârlău, until the fall of the communist regime. Former prisoners describe him as a man of prayer and joy, and he himself wrote of Traian Trifan, whom he saw at the Liturgy always on his knees.

He wrote The Joys of Suffering, with testimonies from prison, The Great Blizzard and The Cursed Village. He died in 1995. Among former prisoners there are akathists and icons in his honour; the Church has not canonized him.