Interview with Father Roman Braga: God Is Always With You
Ms. Jessica Precop traveled to the Dormition
of the Mother of God Monastery in Rives Junction, Michigan to interview Father
Roman Braga, who grew up and served in Romania under a communist regime. We are
very thankful to Ms. Precop, Father Roman, and the Sisterhood at the Monastery
for making this interview possible.
Father, to start with, what can you tell us
about the monastic way of life?
This is a
good question. First, however, you have to understand the Romanian cultural
environment when I was young – in the 1920’s -1950’s. The Romanian people, I
think, were always inclined toward the monastic way of life, because being
monastic and leading a monastic type life does not mean only to go and live in
a monastery. When Jesus was preaching the gospel: “…if you love your mother and
father more than Me you are not worthy of Me…” or when Jesus said “…if you
don’t take your cross and follow Me you are not worthy of Me…,” Jesus was not
speaking to monks; monks did not exist at that time. Jesus was speaking to
people, single people, married people, everybody. So in a way, regarding the
virtues, there is no difference between monks and lay people. The monastic
virtues are for everyone. I will give you an example: those who want to
dedicate their lives to Jesus, to the Church and who want to save their souls
through the monastic way of life, become at times at odds with the parents
wishes who may want their children to lead a secular life. But remember, God
comes first in our life, then come the parents and the family.
First we
must listen to God because He is the father of all of us. So there is a
monastic element in that. Abstinence, for example, is not just for monks. In general
married people need to exercise more abstinence than single people. Lay people
as well need to exercise more abstinence than monastics. Abstinence means to
abstain from food, from alcohol, from many other things. Or, in our culture
here in America, we abstain from certain things only when we are forced into it
by medical conditions. But God wants us to abstain from certain things so that
we are not dominated by material things; to be free of material things. The
material things are temporary; we cannot take them with us. As persons we have
to grow. We cease to be a person when we are dominated by material things. Sex,
drugs, alcohol, smoking, over-eating, and many other things like that make you a slave; you are no longer a free
person. Well, God wants us to be free because He made us free and this is our
likeness with God: “Let us make men
according to our own image.”
So the
virtues are the same for married people as they are for monastics; The only
difference is that the monastics go to a monastery, living in communities
because they want to dedicate their lives to God without the social
obligations. Monastics do not marry, instead they take a vow of virginity and
of poverty. Why? Because they do not
want to depend on possessions. Monks do not own land, do not own anything,
other than their personal belongings. In the monasteries, the monks wear a
habit- a special uniform if you wish – because they are considered the army of
the Church, the soldiers of the Church. The Church depends on them.
As we
speak, there is a session of the OCA Holy Synod at our monastery today. The
Holy Synod of a Church is made up of bishops. The Church needs bishops. The
bishops cannot be married, and they should be from among the monks. If the
leaders of the Church come and tell you: “we need you for a bishop,” you cannot
say no because you have to be obedient to the Church. Along with the vow of
chastity and poverty the monk takes the also the vow of obedience. Or if the
Church needs to send you somewhere to start a church you have to go. You don’t
have possessions, a house to worry about: “oh I have a house, what to do with
my house?” You have just a suitcase and you put in the necessary things and
immediately you go. So obedience is another vow that the monks take.
As I said
before, monks wear a habit. They wear long clothes and robes. This is outer
monk, the monk that everybody sees. This “outer monk” so to speak is not for
everyone. The inner monk is for everybody, in other words, the virtues of,
abstinence, sacrifice, those are the same for the professed monk as well as for
the lay person. So those monastic virtues; to deny yourself to take your cross,
to abstain, these are for everybody. The virtues are the same and we go to the
same place, married people and monks. And marriage is not an easy task. One needs
much asceticism in marriage. You have three, four, five children, sometime you
do not even eat, just let them eat, as you sacrifice yourself for them and
others. So this is the difference between monks and lay people.
Romania
has about 500 monasteries. There were always many monks and nuns in Romania.
They are not cloistered; they go shopping, they go to the market. Romania is a
small country, the size of the state of Ohio, and monks and nuns are influenced
by the culture of the country. Even now the monasteries of Romania are full of
nuns and monks. So it depends on the culture in which you live and the way you
understand the gospel.
Can you tell us what led you to the monastic
life?
I didn’t
go to the monastery when I was young. I was in prison twice and after my first
imprisonment I became a monk because I got more mature while in prison. When
you experience suffering then you start meditating. I was a teacher. I was
teaching in a high school in Bucharest. I was mature enough to understand life
and to ask myself: “why am I not married
at 30? and should I marry or not?” So the imprisonment gave me time to meditate
and think: “What is better for me, should I marry and have a family or should I
choose the monastic life?” And I decided that monastic life is for me to
follow.
As a
young boy I lived in a monastery, at the Seminary of Cernica in Bucharest and I
loved monastic life, so for me monasticism was a natural way of life.
Can you talk about what it was like as a
Christian to live under a communist regime?
As a
Christian you had to make many compromises. For example, you have children and
they go to school. And they are told in school there is no God and you do not
have to pray and you do not have to have crosses around the neck and not to go
to church. The children went home and grandma was praying with them and making
the sign of the cross. We kept this Christian life in the family. Nothing could
be manifest. You were not allowed to manifest your Christian life.
What happened to the churches and monasteries
under the communist regime?
The
churches were tolerated because Romania was basically a massive Orthodox
country. The Church was very strong and the communist regime did not want to
risk anything. Many monasteries, however, were closed. Only those that were
declared historical monuments remained open, and Romanians were happy because
almost all the monasteries were historical monuments. The communist regime
transformed the monasteries into museums and they kept a few monks or nuns as
tour guides to keep and take care of the museums and the huge libraries and
archives that the monasteries possessed. And so the churches of the monasteries
were also kept open. There was however a decree, decree #410 by the communist
government to close all the monasteries who are not historic monuments and to
force all monks and nuns under 50 years of age to leave the monasteries and go
to work for the state. Only the old monks were allowed to stay in the
monasteries to keep them open as historical monuments, and they kept the
liturgical cycle of the Church: matins and vespers and liturgies, and they kept
these all and they took care of themselves. Because people in Romania were
Christians, they went to church in the monasteries and they helped these old
monks and nuns. The communists couldn’t
control that, and they were not so much interested in the simple folks; they
were interested especially in the intellectual class because the intellectual
class creates the habits, the culture.
The
communist regime persecuted mostly the Roman Catholic Church because it was the
minority and it was mostly for foreigners. Romania is 90% Orthodox so they
persecuted mostly the other denominations by taking their property and
kicking them out. With Orthodoxy they
didn’t dare to go too far, so they pulled out young people from the monasteries
but the old people still remained there and the churches of the monasteries
were open and the liturgical cycles continued uninterrupted. During these times
the monastic life was still going; it was not striving, was not growing, but at
least it was maintained.
How did your own struggles with the communist
government impact your spiritual life?
The communists could not control what is
inside of you, but you couldn’t express what you were thinking, you were not
able to express your opinion. And this not only as a a monk or as a priest or
as a Christian, but as an intellectual in general. Not all intellectuals in
Romania during the communist regime were communists. In order to survive they
were forced to say one thing but they believed something else in themselves. So
they had a double life. It was one thing what they had in their mind and in their
soul – their convictions, and another what they were expressing aloud. It was
all a matter of survival. So that was a very, very difficult life. It was not
like here where you are not afraid of anything. You are not afraid to express
yourself; it was not like this. People were saying exactly what the government
asked them to say in order to be able to have a job, to be a teacher, to have a
profession, to be able to provide for their family their daily bread. But what
they thought and believed the communist couldn’t control.
We were
happy in prison in a way. Let aside all the physical tortures Physical tortures are nothing. You suffer
from them even, you can even die. But the communist imprisonment is worse than
physical torture. They want to keep you at the limit of normal and abnormal,
but they couldn’t control what is inside of you. In a way, for a priest the
communist prison was good because there in prison we were praying. Once you are
convicted (of “crimes” you did not commit) you are placed in a cell, there is
nothing else. They put the intellectuals and especially the priests in solitary
confinement at least one or two years, and in a way that was very good for us.
Not having anywhere to go or even look out a window because there were no
windows in those cells of solitary confinement you have to look, to go
somewhere; and so you go inside yourself, inside your heart and inside your
mind to examine yourself, to see who you are and why God brought you into this
world. You question whether God even exists, and what is your relationship with
God.
When we
were free we did not have time to ask ourselves these questions. Our faith was
superficial because you can learn a lot of things and can have a mind like an
Encyclopedia full of all the knowledge, but if you don’t know yourself and who
you are!. Even if you know everything in the world you are superficial if you
do not ask yourself who am I? Why do I exist? What is the destiny of my life?
Why did God create me? If I believe in God what does God want from me? These
things when you live in freedom you do not ask yourself because you are in a
hurry to do a lot of things, to read a lot of books and you become the slave of
the books, the slave of the knowledge, of concepts of philosophy and so on. But
you do not have the time to meditate on who you are. When you are free you are
made out of quotations from books. We were not allowed in prison to have any
books. In 11 years I did not see a pencil or a piece of paper, or a book, and
not only myself, but all the intellectuals and all the priests. The communists
gave books and papers to read to simple folks because they wanted to convince
them to become communists. They wanted, however, that the intellectuals be
transformed into beasts, become like animals. The interesting think is that it
did not happen. Instead you became yourself because you started to examine
yourself. Once you were out of prison, they were interested that you do not make propaganda to tell
others what happened in prison, and so on and so many of us were expelled from
the country just so we do not to tell the others what was going on in prison.
How did you witness Christ is prison?
In prison
most of the time you were by yourself. I was in a forced labor camp too. In the
forced labor camp we had our groups of prayer and we had priests that were
hearing confessions. Each priest had a group around him. We witnessed Christ
more in the forced labor camp because there was not too much control there. It
was a large community and the communists were interested in how much you
worked. In prison it was impossible to witness Christ, even if you were alone
or maybe two in the same cell. Sometimes there were four in the same cell, but
you only talked to a small group of people. In the force labor camps we even had
the liturgy there because we had priests, without vestments and without
anything else other than a piece of bread, and some tonic wine that the doctors
in the hospital provided. I was in a
forced labor camp with 16,000 people, and there was a hospital and the doctors
were from among the prisoners so they provided tonic wine for us for the
liturgy and we spared two pieces of bread from breakfast and so we had liturgy.
The guards did not know we had liturgy; as they were passing by, they thought
we were just babbling; we sure did not show it. I remember in prison though, in
the cell, a priest had liturgy under the blanket; when the guard entered he
covered everything with the blanket.
Why is suffering important as a Christian?
Suffering
is good not only for Christians but for everybody. Because if you do not suffer
you do not understand anything. Suffering is a good experience. And in the
scriptures it says that suffering is a sign that God loves you. In the Epistle
to Hebrew Chapter 13, St. Paul says that if you do not suffer you are not
children of God. Who is the Father who does not chastise His children? He
punishes His children because He loves them. If you do not suffer you are not
the sons of God. After you experience suffering, you understand more and better
things in this world, much deeper than the others who do not experience any
suffering. So suffering is maturing you
in your spiritual life. You should not avoid suffering but you should not look
for it. God takes care of that. There is a lot of suffering in the world. So
many families who have children in the hospital. My doctor has a daughter 11
years of age with bone cancer; they are young, what a suffering for that family
whose daughter may be dying. We ask ourselves why?
God
allows into this world to have beggars and crippled people and all this because
otherwise we would not be able to be charitable. We have to exercise our love
because love is not just the word, is it something that we must do. And you do
things for those who need them. So that is why there are orphan children and
crippled people and so many other things, for us to exercise our love for our
neighbor because Jesus said love God with your whole heart and whole mind but
love your neighbor as you love yourself. But if my neighbor does not need my
love what is love? Just a hand shake? That is not love. Or to give him a hug?
That is nothing. Go there and take a crippled person on the street and give him
a hug and ask him what can I do for you? That is love. Not to live for yourself;
to live for others and always to deny yourself; to forget yourself and remember
that others exist. That is Christian life. Not to say “what about me, and me,
and I;” Who are you? You are nobody. Try not to pay too much attention to you.
But when you say can I do something for you? Maybe you need me? That is
meaningful Christian love. So suffering in this world is permitted by God that
other Christians might concentrate their love on those suffering people and do
something for them, to sacrifice themselves for them. In our own life suffering
is permitted so we understand why Jesus was crucified.
I am able
to forgive. I pray for those guards that tortured us in prison. I am not
against them because I understand they were forced to do that. And you forgive
only when you suffer. When you do not suffer you do not want to forgive, then
you are condemned. There was a movie-maker who came and made a movie with me
and Fr. Calciu. The interviewer said “how can you forgive them?” Well why not?
They are the image of God. We know that in that kind of regime they were forced
to kill us, to torture us, to do what they were told to do, otherwise their
families would not have bread to eat. You are able to forgive when you suffer.
When you do not suffer you are not able to forgive. You say “no, no, no, you
should not do such and such a thing and if you do you should be punished
because you did it”. So suffering is very important in Christian life.
How is life in America different than your
experience in Romania?
I thought
I came to a free country. And that is true; you have the freedom to do anything
you want, as long as you do not to hurt anybody. If you hurt anybody for sure
you have to suffer the consequences. Speaking of the freedom of conscious and
thought, I doubt that we are free because
being free to do everything you can destroy yourself if you are not
mature. Freedom without responsibility is not freedom. Only when you are
prevented of doing what you want to do, then you understand freedom. But when
you say “I want to do everything I want” you are not free. Think about Genesis,
the first book in the Bible, when God created man, he did not understand what
freedom was until God told him you cannot touch this tree; the tree is a
symbol, it is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So if God created man free, then you ask why He
gave him a limit: “do not touch this.” Without this limit man cannot understand
what freedom is. Freedom is just a word if you do not have restrictions. So
freedom without discipline is not freedom. And many in our culture here in
America think that they do not have to respect anything or anybody; they are
free to do everything. This is not freedom.
What are some ways we can find Christ today,
in the American society?
Well
Christ first of all is in you. Christ is not just some nice guy. He is God and
God is within you. God is in our conscious, in our heart, in our minds, is not
something material you see outside of yourself. You find God in yourself. You
descend in your personality. We are eternal, we never die, the body is going to
the cemetery but the conscious, the person is continually living. So when you
descend into yourself, your conscious is infinite. And this infinity is the
temple of the living God. St. Paul says many times you are the temple of the
living God because God lives within you. You find God when you know yourself,
when you know who you are. If you neglect that, “I don’t have time to think
about myself” you will never find God because God is not something material, you
do not find him in a specific place. God is always with you if you want Him to
be with you. You find God when you find yourself. “Who am I?” Pay attention to
these verses of the scriptures: “you are
the temple of the living God because God lives within you.” And Jesus said:
“remain in Me and I in you. I am the vine and you are the branches” if you do
not remain in me you do not have sap to feed yourself and you dry up. People
who complain they do not feel God they are dry branches. They have to remain in
Christ and to accept Christ by saying: “Lord, come, I am here. You created me.
Open my heart because You created this heart. You created the door, enter
please.”
You have
to talk with God everywhere you are. Walking on the street, driving the car,
you can say “Lord You are in the front seat, I know that You are here tell me
something. Why did You create me?” You have a lot of things, an infinite number
of things to converse with God and God wants you to talk with Him because
prayer is not as much as you read in the book or how long you are kneeling,
prayer is the whole life. When you eat, when you drink, when you drive the car,
when you discipline your children: You are in a state of prayer. Life is a
liturgy. It is not only in church that liturgy takes place, the liturgy is
outside the church building too. The whole life should be a liturgy- if you
have the feeling of the existence of God. But you have to get that feeling of
the existence of God… how? I always say, especially to young people, have a
dialogue, a permanent dialogue with God. Sure you are busy: you eat, you
prepare your exam if you are a student, you work and you are very busy but
always say: “Lord I know You are here I didn’t forget You. Look at me and do
not abandon me.” See many times this permanent dialogue with God becomes a
prayer because prayer is a communication between man and God.
Prayer is
not just a short time and you say “I finished my prayer” and that’s it; you
never finish your prayer. The definition of prayer is this: the feeling of the
presence of God in you. And if you have this feeling of the presence of God you
are in a continual prayer. If you pray only when you pray you don’t pray at all
one of the monks said. So don’t pray only when you pray, you pray all the time
because prayer is not “give me, give me.” Prayer is to say I love you and I
want to spend time with you. Ask God something. And don’t worry God is
answering you even if you don’t think it. He’s giving you good hints and good
suggestions on how to resolve your problems. So to find God in our culture here
is to be conscious that God exists first and God exists not outside of yourself
but inside. And God is always with you and you can get the feeling of the
existence of God.
Source: http://pemptousia.com/2016/09/god-is-always-with-you/
