„Potirul este viaţa mea”. Părintele Ioan Iovan cuminecătorul. Euharistie şi martiriu în viaţa unui preot român în închisorile comuniste
“The vessel is my life”. Father Ioan Iovan the communicator. Eucharist and martyrdom in the life of e Romanian priest inside the communist prisons.

Summary/Abstract: This paper offers a presentation of the most interesting figure in the Romanian ecclesial landscape engaged in the process of Eucharistic revival, Father Archimandrite Ioan Iovan (1922-2008), the autochtonous peer of the famous Russian Father, John of Kronstdat (1829-1908). The name of Father Ioan has been appraisingly mentioned in the famous report of the Tismăneanu Commission, and is synonymous to Christian dignity and spiritual resistance against communism. Theologically educated in the Transylvanian environment, between the model of the missionary bishop Nicolae Popovici and that of the charismatic hieromonk Arsenie Boca, Father Ioan was destined for the delicate mission of exploding the liturgical formalism and Eucharistic unrelish in Church life. His pastoral course covers a pan-Romanian itinerary: Transylvania (Cluj) – Moldova (Sihastru, Vladimireşti) – Muntenia (Bucureşti, Plumbuita): confessor of the Vladimiresti Monastery, sent by Fr Arsenie and ordained by his mentor, the bishop Nicolae Popovici, he was invested with a prophetic mission of opening a spiritual front in the face of the communist threat, armed with the sword of the word (missionary sermon) and the Eucharistic cure (frequent communion), cast away by the official Church (defrocked), Father Ioan would become a spiritual father in the hell of prisons, turned into the catacombs of an exceptional spiritual resistance against re-education by daily Christian service and ceaseless prayer; gradually rehabilitated, after the general amnesty and then after the fall of the regime, he returned to his Transylvanian homeland, by the special care of Archbishop Andrei Andreicuţ and Fr Professor Ilie Moldovan, where he would set up a nunnery at Recea, neighbouring the city of Targu Mureş, with a strong missionary role.

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