Teologi şi teologie în vremuri de persecuţie – mărturiile Preotului Gavril Costan din Deva
Theologians and theology in the time of persecution – the confession of the priest Gavril Costan from Deva

Summary/Abstract: The complete establishment of the atheist communist regime in Romania in the late of 1947 was followed by an endless series of atrocities committed in the name of the ideal of creation “the new man”, ideal that supposed complete elimination of the notions about God, church and faith from the social life. The Church, being put to cope with these ideological changes, had to adapt itself, reducing its main domains of activity. With regard to the theological education, in 1948 all theological seminaries were disbanded, being replaced with simple church singing schools; gradually, the ones in Caransebeş, Cluj- Napoca, Neamţ, Buzău, Bucharest and Craiova were re-opened. It was at the same time that the Academy of Church Music of Bucharest and the Theological Academies of Caransebeş, Arad and Oradea closed their doors; in 1952, the Theological Academy of Cluj had the same fate. Excluded from the state education system, they remained under the supervision and maintenance of the Church; cult inspectors became ubiquitous. In true chronicle-like pages, nonagenarian retired priest Gavril Costan of Deva describes in an engaging manuscript of memoirs, entitled My Travels Around the Parts of Arad and Hunedoara in Times of Sorrow both the period of the abusive eradication of the Theological Academy of Arad, and the difficulties of continuing his studies in Cluj-Napoca and Sibiu.

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