In the summer of 1983, I was introduced to Bishop Iosif Gafton of Râmnic and Argeș – the two dioceses had been merged in 1948 – in the study of his residence. Although it was very hot outside, the bishop was wearing a flannel shirt under his grey cassock, and next to the armchair in which he was seated was a radiator with red-hot heating elements. Born in 1896, he was 87 years old. He was eerily thin: his fingers and wrists were bony, his hair thinning, his facial skin parchment-like… His voice, however, was deep and authoritative, his diction clear, measured and emphatic. He spoke with the refined eloquence of a well-read man. He was renowned for an episode from the unwritten annals of the Synod. During a meeting, a letter from the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople had been read out, containing a Modern Greek expression which even the seasoned Hellenist Iustin Moisescu did not recognise. Iosif Gafton explained it to them. It was a phrase from the field of shipping; he had learnt it from the Greeks in Galați when he was a student at the seminary there.
Bishop Iosif told me that he had heard him cursing an official. He said to him: ‘Well, if you acknowledge the existence of the devil, you must also acknowledge that of God, for it was He who created him.’ The passion with which he spoke suggested a volcanic temperament. He had been a preacher full of vivid imagery: ‘If God had intended man to smoke, He would have put a chimney on his head!’
Within Bishop Iosif Gafton’s diocese lay Frăsinei Monastery, founded by Saint Calinic of Cernica. The founder had forbidden, under penalty of a curse, both smoking and the entry of women into the monastery. The families of worshippers coming to Frăsinei would part ways one kilometre from the monastery gate. The girls and women would stay at a chapel near the village of Muiereasca de Sus, whilst the men would continue on their way to the monastery. This custom was maintained even during the communist regime, with Frăsinei Monastery being the only one with this status, apart from those on Mount Athos. To show that she was not afraid of the curse, a local activist disguised herself as a man and entered the monastery. Shortly afterwards, she lost her mind. Following a similar act, another woman took her own life.
Half an hour later, His Holiness Joseph extended the same slender, childlike hand to me and we left the palace. He was to pass away the following summer. He was the last of a generation of hierarchs. In February 1945, he had led our Church’s delegation to the enthronement of Patriarch Alexei I of Moscow and All Russia.
