Traian Trifan

Traian Trifan (3 November 1899 - 12 April 1990) was a lawyer, doctor of law, legionary prefect of Brașov in 1940-1941 and, in his years of detention, a spiritual guide of the group of "mystics" in the communist prisons. Many prisoners called him avva. He is venerated by some believers as a confessor, without synodal canonization.

He was born at Lancram, in Alba, and attended lyceum at Blaj and Brașov; in 1917 he was conscripted into the Austro-⁠Hungarian army. He studied Law at Cluj, took his doctorate and practiced as a lawyer at Sibiu, Sebeș, Satu Mare and, from 1927, Brașov. He married in 1933 and had two daughters. He entered the Legionary Movement through Ion Moța, was imprisoned at Jilava (1934) and in the camp at Vaslui (1938) and was prefect of Brașov county in the autumn of 1940, under the National Legionary State.

After January 1941 the Antonescu regime arrested him and, together with Traian Marian, sentenced him to long terms. At Aiud, where he met Valeriu Gafencu, Ioan Ianolide, Anghel Papacioc and others, he led a group oriented toward the prayer of the heart, Scripture and the Philokalia. Those who knew him describe a man of silence and the Jesus Prayer, gentle, balanced and upright; Dimitrie Bejan, who saw him in the village of his forced residence, says that at the Liturgy he always knelt. He passed through Aiud, the colonies of Galda (1946-1948), Văcărești, Popești-⁠Leordeni, Caransebeș, Brașov, Gherla, Culmea and Periprava. After serving his sentence he was not released but sent to forced residence in the Bărăgan, and in 1962 returned to Brașov.

He left the writing I Confess, regarded by those close to him as a course in theology. He died on 12 April 1990. His veneration rests on the testimony of former prisoners; he has no synodal canonization.