Aspazia Oțel Petrescu died eight years ago, on January 23, 2018. She was among the women who bore witness to Orthodox Christianity during Romania’s communist era.
She was born on December 9, 1923, in Cotul Ostriței, in Northern Bukovina. Between 1944 and 1948, she studied at the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy of Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj.
During her time in Cluj-Napoca, she met the poet and philosopher Lucian Blaga, who encouraged her to develop her literary talent. From 1946 to 1948, she worked as a typist at the Centre for Transylvanian Studies.
Imprisonment
On July 9, 1948, she was sentenced to ten years of hard labour for her anti-communist convictions.
Her years in prison were extremely difficult, yet she later said that “prayer saved her life”, and that God strengthened her to endure the hardships.
In her testimony, God was “a spring that bathes creation” and “Beauty, the Absolute, the Mystery—everything we imagine about the Divine as it constantly passes by us”.
She served her sentence in several prisons, including Mislea, Dumbrăveni, Miercurea Ciuc, Jilava, Botoșani and Arad. At the end of her term, she received an additional four years of detention, again at Mislea Prison.
Cultural and religious work
After her release, she settled in Roman, where she married Ilie Alexandru Petrescu in 1964. Her husband died in 1998.
Following the 1989 Revolution, she took part in commemorations for the martyrs of Romania’s communist prisons. She was also among the founders of the chapel at Mislea, dedicated to the Mother of God and consecrated on November 12, 1994.
Aspazia Oțel Petrescu wrote and published books reflecting her interest in themes shared by Christianity and literature. She died on January 23, 2018, at the age of 94.
Patriarch Daniel of the Romanian Orthodox Church highlighted her sacrifice, saying: “She confessed and defended Orthodoxy at the cost of her freedom during the atheist communist regime.”
Photo: Doxologia
