“Wondrous is the time of tribulation if your heart is burning for the word of Christ,” Elder Arsenie (Papacioc).

Ultimate and essential freedom is not primarily an external reality. True freedom is found within the human person. In its fundamental existence it is not a parcel that is measured out by worldly authorities, for its origins are outside of their domain. Although outward ideological systems and governments may certainly regulate and constrict outward movements and actions, they have no authority over the inner man, unless a person cedes it. The Lord Jesus says clearly, “You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free” (Jn 8:32). This ontological reality is set well beyond the confines of worldly power, although it ofttimes desperately seeks to find a way of controlling it. True freedom is ultimately an eternal and spiritual reality because it flows from God Himself.

It seems redundant to say that it is a blessing to have an outward structure (government) that respects the Godly freedom which is gifted to mankind from the Lord. Lamentably, most modern structures of government are obsessed with the project of controlling humanity, and for no truly good purpose (yes, even “democracy”). Most of them are fervently laboring to gain domination over even the inner chamber of the heart, that sacred place set apart most of all in the believing person. It’s a demonic obsession. And if they are not able to gain possession of a person’s inner chamber, they at least strive to create a system that keeps people completely externalized and existing in materialism.

The Burning Bush movement was founded upon the inner freedom of true Christian living. This article is part two of two on the subject, if you have yet to read the first one, I encourage you to read it here.

Into the Inferno

Although it is not the primary focus of this article, many of the members of the Burning Bush after their arrest were subject to some of the most terrible psychological experiments and tortures known to man. The center of these experiments took place at the communist prison in Pitesti, Romania. There, through demonically brutal and barbaric means, it was undertaken to completely rewrite the inner personality of each prisoner. The gulags are an extreme example of this demonic desire for control, they are a highly concentrated application of modern psychological ideologies.¹ Today, to a large degree, these underlying methodologies are deluded and served to the general populations of the world through a variety of means. The iron fist now dons a velvet glove. We also may contemplate the warning of Elder Ignatius of Harbin, “What began in Russia,” that is the extreme application of godless government, “Will end in America,” at times I wonder if “will be perfected in America,” may be the better interpretation. The massive amount of psychological manipulation at work in the modern world is overwhelming.

During the 1940s, while the Burning Bush movement gathered at Antim monastery, the world was quickly closing in around them. Each member could sense the constricting grasp of the Soviet beast growing tighter, as it was breathing heavily down their necks. Everything that was beautiful in Romanian culture was being mercilessly trampled by the communist beast, as had earlier happened in Russia. As the outside world constricted into terrible physical and spiritual slavery, the members of the Burning Bush were left with one place to go – within. For many, this was a journey that began at the gatherings of the Burning Bush but was brought to a deeper perfection in the fiery furnace of tribulation within the prison camps.

In the introduction to the profound work by St. Dumitru Staniloae, Orthodox Spirituality, it says, “Fenced in by the Iron Curtain and controlled by a rigid, state-enforced atheist social ideology, the tacit, if not always open, ideological opposition of Christian spirituality to official Marxism was, at best, only marginally tolerated, and any official publication of religious texts subject to rigid censorship. In that context, the symbolic message of spirituality was not without significance for those who taught and those who learned: the authentic ‘Orthodox spirituality’ of the Church, in a very real sense, stood in understated opposition to an all-encompassing pressure of a patently ‘false spirituality’ propagated by the social and religious doctrine of Marxist scientific atheism, a battle standard, as it were, that permitted not only resistance and survival in a hostile environment, but also the inner struggle for victory,” Fr. Alexander Golubov.²

The Journey Within

The ancient Christian journey into the inner heart is not escapist in nature at all. It is a fleeing into the citadel of Jesus Christ. There, a person enters eternity and begins to expand, for the inner universe is much vaster than the multitude of galaxies; “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you” (cf. Lk. 17:21). Then, over time, a person may begin to act truly because he is moving from the foundation of the “solid rock” (cf. Matt 7:24ff). To do this the Christian must “dig and go deep” (cf. Lk. 6:48). Then when the inevitable external storms rage, his house will stand. Even from the vista of today, by which we look back on history, the distinctly satanic storm of Sovietism overturned so much; yet everything, every person, founded on the Rock of Christ has remained, and shall for all eternity. It is an understatement to say that the passage of the members of the Burning Bush through that storm was extremely perilous, but they came through because they had the desire and the fortitude to “dig deep.” Thus, for us today, we must be digging deep into the true life that is only in Christ Jesus.

The Burning Bush set as primary, “An anthropological system based on the journals of prayer, that is, the experience of the Eastern Church Fathers on the art of descending within ourselves and the intimate meeting with God at the ontological center of our being, which is, in fact, also the center of the human personality.”³

In a beautiful book about Fr. Roman Braga, it says, “In a time when the spiritual and political were being dangerously conflated, the prophetic call for a deeper, authentic, and pure spiritual renewal emerged in the person of the contentious, formerly atheist journalist and poet, Sandu Tudor. Rather than succumbing to the temptation to act in the public arena by lecturing, organizing, and inspiring large groups of students, the young intellectuals Roman Braga and Nicolae Bordasiu were advised to pursue what was and remains truly revolutionary–to turn inward and discover the kingdom of heaven within themselves through the practice of continual prayer. The rout to spiritual renewal of the nation not through political action but through a journey of discovery and transformation within each person–through an encounter with the ineffable God who beyond words must ultimately be known in silence.”⁴

This primary focus on the inner Christian journey does not preclude outward actions, even the outward resistance against evil. Yet, for the Christian, the principle is outward actions must have their starting point in the deep center of the heart planted in Christ Jesus. If this is not the case then even the seemingly beneficial external actions will eventually be eroded because they have no lasting and solid foundation. The Burning Bush group, firmly founding itself upon inner action in Christ, also cultivated outward action of spiritual development such as fellowship, talks, and lectures on deeply Orthodox topics, together with topics of philosophy and culture. The goal was to cultivate a whole person, founded in the heart and refined in the mind. Fr. Roman and others were arrested for the first time because they would not implement communist teaching in their classrooms (at that time Fr. Roman was a student/teacher). They resisted the demonic communist propaganda. When external action is flowing from the foundation of Christ in the heart, then it has substance. Thus, the vital Christian movement within is the indispensable foundation from which all authentic outward movement must emanate. Authentic outward movement begins with the movement within.

“Materialism decapitates man and makes him sterile,” Fr. Daniel (Tudor). The world seeks to scatter and fragment human persons, pulling them in a thousand directions. In such a constant state of flux, a person is unable to gather himself in a unified manner. He works from a multipolar stance, which is predominately external and brings great psychological fatigue. Such a state is a constant state of spiritual weakness and confusion. Yet, the goal of life in Christ Jesus is to be recreated and renewed: our person gathered and focused on the “one thing needful.” Here a person is collected and unified; both the inner and outer energies of his person work from the gathered center point of the heart, the nous – the heart collected in Jesus Christ and acquiring the Holy Spirit. This Christian reality of being whole is called uniting the mind and the heart. These, of course, relate to realities that transcend our physical organs. One way of understanding views the mind as a faculty that interacts with the outward and the heart is the center point of the inward activities of a person, although neither exclusively. Both these spiritual points of operation must become healed and unified in a person through the energizing of the Divine life.

Fr. Roman frequently states that the goal of the Communist physiological experiment was to keep a person in the tension point between the normal and the abnormal. It could be rephrased in more recent terminology, the normal and the new-normal. Such a place exhausts the spirit of man.

The Burning Bush of the Heart

The holy Elder Sofian teaches, “For this is the aim of the Jesus Prayer: to unite the mind and heart, these two centers of our inner being which work separately nearly all of our life. That is why so many falsities, flatteries, and lies are uttered. You can speak very convincingly, with beautiful words, but your heart remains very far from what your mouth says. However, when this union takes place, when the mind descends into the heart, a person becomes unified in all that he thinks, in all that he says, in all that he does. After a long time of repeating the Jesus Prayer with attention, this inner settling takes place and an extraordinary peace is born, a kind of warmth around this center, and a person feels a very great joy, a serenity, and an increase of faith, of trust in God. You feel the presence of the God of our fathers. You feel God and you love Him very much. Additionally, you feel a very pure and holy love for all human beings and for all creation (a love that is very different from cold, intellectual love).”⁵

This is the eternal Christian way. It is commonly known as Hesychasm or Hesychia. Hesychia is the heart of Christian living for everyone in whatever vocation of life they may be in. It is also synonymous with prayer of the heart. Each Christian must be striving to center his person upon the unmovable, still, and calm foundation of Christ. In setting hesychia as the foremost goal, the Burning Bush group was far from novel or innovative. This has been the method of Christianity from the very beginning. The Burning Bush was applying this cardinal ancient Christian therapy in the context of the times in which they found themselves; this is of great value for us because we are still in the progression of those times and the method of application is very instructive for us. Hysechia is thus understood to be the most potent means of healing “modern man.” “Hesychasm was the method of healing modern man’s insanity, whose tragedy lies in fleeing from himself, fleeing from a confrontation with God, to the confused daze of the outside world’s mirage. According to the eastern mystics, the flight from oneself is equal to the expulsion from paradise,” instructs Fr. Roman Braga.

Although it seems easy for humanity to abide in the external, it does seem that this tendency has been compounded and perfected in the modern era. In times past, even in non-Christian societies, the inner life of man was given an important focus and value, even if still obscured. Modernity has no value for the inner life and thus it is finely tuned to drag every person and bind them on the roller coaster of external existence. It is not too extreme to say that the modern world is anti-inner life. That is, it has as its goal to make man a slave of the unruly passions by uniting all his care to outward instabilities. In a constant state of agitation and noise (distraction), a person cannot hear or see reality or truth. Fr. Roman makes a profound observation, “The crisis of modern man is arrhythmia.”6 That is, a spiritual arrhythmia in which we can no longer hear the heart of God, the Divine rhythm. We cannot hear the heart of God because it has become tedious for us to “go within;” we no longer even truly hear our own hearts. Moderns flee from silence and many times even dread being alone. “During prayer, man enters the Divine rhythm, the rhythm of the Holy Spirit.”⁷

“Jesus longs to abide in your heart. Open it! Your heart will be a small divine heaven,”⁸ Elder Arsenie entreats of us.

The revolution begins within. This is not a revolution of European “enlightenment” that obliterates beauty and makes man a slave of the external, revolving his orientation to the void of nonexistence. No, rather, this is the veritable revolution that rotates, turns, orients man back to the center of Life. It collects and gathers him into true personhood, founded up the infinite Divine Logos; it is the journey from non-being to true being. It is the revolution of repentance and hesychia. It is the planting of the burning bush of the heart.

It is precisely this revolution that was (and is) so terrifying to the European doctrines of secularism as manifested in Communism (and elsewhere). As noted in the first article, they feared the relatively small Burning Bush movement more than the large armed resistance groups, for “What could be done about this ‘center’ in man that cannot be controlled?”

Modern systems of control dread the mystical inner life in Christ that frees a person from the confines of materialism and its collectivized dissidence.

The seeming end of the Burning Bush Fellowship

One source offers this information about the seeming final end of the Burning Bush movement, “Despite their insistence on non-violent and non-political means of expression, state propaganda branded Burning Bush members ‘socially deviant people, with mystical tendencies.’ Marxist ideology persecuted free speech, especially because Christians believed in the metaphysical power of the Logos. On June 13, 1958, most of the group’s members were arrested by the secret police, the Securitate [Romanian Communist secret police equivalent to the KGB and such, my note], and jailed on the charge of “religious obscurantism” and “counter-revolutionary activity.” On September 3, the Communist regime sentenced Fr. Stăniloae to five years of solitary confinement. Behind bars, these Christian believers became either victims or eyewitnesses of sadistic acts of barbarism. Sandu Tudor (or monk Daniil) was sentenced to 25 years of hard labor and tortured to death. Roman Braga (who, after 1972, served as a priest in Ohio and Michigan) was sentenced to 18 years in prison. Many were physically abused. Fr. Stăniloae spent most of his time in the dreadful prison of Aiud, where he used prayer (“Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me”) to combat negative thoughts. On January 15, 1963, he was released and a year later, under increasing pressure exerted by international bodies, the political prisoners – most of whom were old and crippled – left the jails.”⁹

Fr. Roman offers this firsthand recollection, “The district attorneys opened by accusing us of wanting to burn the government on a bush, alluding to the title of the Burning Bush association. Then we were charged with gathering and commenting on inimical texts against the regime—texts by St. Basil the Great, John Climacus, and Gregory of Nyssa. I do not think it was ignorance on the part of the district attorney, but rather a diabolic cynicism specific to Communism. The sentences were long; for practicing the Prayer of the Heart, Hieroschemamonk Daniel was condemned to twenty-five years of forced labor at Aiud Prison, where he died a martyr’s death. We must never forget that during this regime of terror many people sacrificed their lives, not for politics but for God.”

The godless Communist authorities accuse the members of the Burning Bush of “mysticism, obstructionism, and fanaticism.” One study notes, “Beyond fictitious accusations, the communist files echo the hatred against the ‘mysticism’ and ‘fanaticism’ that alienated those accused from the communist system and bound them to Christ.”¹⁰ The godless powers viewed even prayer as a hostile act, which is not surprising since such godless systems have their inspiration in the demonic. It is not an exaggeration to say that Hesychasm itself was considered a subversive act. The historical records clearly indicate that the godless secular powers considered prayer to be an anti-government action. “Hesychasm and the practice of the unceasing prayer do not escape the vigilance of the Securitate either, being regarded as a ‘hostile’ act, directed ‘against the social order.’”¹¹

At the risk of slight redundancy, an account of Elder Arsenie (Papachioc) also records prayer as one of his heinous crimes, “The trial took two days and they were judged at night, “without defence”, as the Father confessed. The reasons of Father Arsenie’s condemnation to “20 years of forced labour and 10 years of civic disenfranchisement” were: his spiritual living, having the experience of the hesichastic life and of the Jesus Prayer, acts that the communist regime characterized as “mysticism and obscurantist bigotism”; his participation to the Burning Bush Movement, which the same regime considered “subversive association”¹²

As with most worldly authorities, such have the power to destroy the body and inflict pain and suffering on people. They can also crush souls. But when a person enters within and journeys to the inner chamber of the heart, he moves the center of his being to a place that is ultimately beyond the grasp of worldly power. This is why prayer itself is viewed as “hostile” by such authorities, most of all prayer of the heart. It is quite possible that due to the sacrifice willing made by many Christians, united with deep prayer, during the time of bestial and brutal communist persecution the world at large has not imploded in on itself just yet. Although the Burning Bush group’s visible and outward activities ceased due to savage persecution, the inner spiritual reality continues on and is eternal because it was founded on the everlasting Rock of Jesus Christ. Moreover, it is a living example for us today regarding the same “how” that faces us, how do we keep ourselves from becoming the formless masses that the godless powers desire?

The following account from the prison experience of one of the founding fathers of the Burning Bush, Fr. Daniel (Tudor), exemplifies to what profound depths and heights in Christ some of the members had journeyed. It testifies as to the very real reason the communists feared them so much. “One day in winter, they put him together with a friend in a storehouse – called the White or the Refrigerator – where it was minus 30 degrees. The storehouse had no windows, but a very dirty floor. People who were put in there would die of cold after no more than three days. Father Daniel lay down immediately with his face in the dirt and with open arms, and told the friend: “Sit on me, back to back with open arms and say only this, ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner!’” Immediately as they started to say this, the storehouse was filled by a very brilliant light, and thereafter they did not know what happened next. After eight days (without the two prisoners receiving any water or food, sleep or clothes), the guards came to take their carcasses, but they were alive and fine. When they touched Father Daniel he was hot, and what was around him had melted.”¹³

Spiritual Continuation

The unrelenting hatred and animosity that modern secular systems have for authentic Christian life is clearly evident. These systems even today strive to destroy true Christian life and replace it with an anti-Christianity, one that retains “A form of godliness, but denies the power thereof. From such turn away” (2 Tim. 3:5).

The spiritual resistance that the Burning Bush utilized was very effective, this is why it was so ruthlessly oppressed by the godless Communists. To some degree, even communism confesses that the world is not pure materialism. If it actually believed in that, it would have no concern about those praying and other such, in its eyes, useless endeavors. In reality, the secular spirit fears the Holy Spirit energizing in those who are seeking after Truth. “The reply given to communism by the Burning Bush proposed a counterattack to the Marxist indoctrination through moral and intellectual formation based on Christian principles and by spiritual ties created through prayer … Having originated in a spiritual, not just political understanding of communism, father Daniel’s ‘combat’ was lead with the weapons of the spirit; however, the threats caused by the ‘obscurantist mysticism’, the ‘Christian, idealist philosophy’ and mostly the Prayer of the Heart – ‘adverse and nocuous to the regime’ had become dangers that threatened the order of the regime. The instrumentalization of the accusations of the communist repression against the Burning Bush actually shows the communist hatred against a fully understood and entirely assumed Christian life.”¹⁴

Let us take up these weapons and continue in the spiritual legacy imparted to us by the holy Fathers of the Burning Bush fellowship.

In closing, a possible application

A small offering and practical possibility for a way to continue in the ethos of the Burning Bush is offered on the website “The Burning Bush Lamp.” It rightly states, “Today, there is a very great need for our sacrifice of prayer to be united with repentance. There is truly a need for a greater sacrifice of prayer from each of us. The greatest thing we can do to withstand the grave problems we confront as people, as families, as Orthodox scattered to all the corners of the world, the most significant thing we can do to strengthen the unity among believers and overcome the confusion of our times is to pray more, in a spirit of repentance.”

The site recommends gathering a number of dedicated people and committing to reciting the Psalter together the website provides a practical way to do this. You may read more about it here – The Burning Bush Lamp. Maybe some of the readers will be inspired to form such prayer groups as a small extra offering during these times, which indeed can use more prayer and the action borne out of it.

May we all commit ourselves to the Orthodox revolution of the heart.

1See my article “Mind Control, Standardized Masses, and Conditioned Reflexes” for a little more on this subject – Mind Control, Standardized Masses, and Conditioned Reflexes – The Inkless Pen

2 Staniloae, Dumitru. Orthodox Spirituality. St. Tikhon’s Seminary Press. 2002. Introduction, pg. 2

3 https://www.candelarugulaprins.ro/en/the-burning-bush-archimandrite-roman-braga-%E2%80%A02015/#:~:text=The%20Burning%20Bush%20Movement%20was%20a%20mystical%20volcano%20in%20Romania,experiencing%20a%20loss%20of%20values

4Hinshaw, Daniel. Journey to Simplicity, The Life and Wisdom of Archimandrite Roman Braga. St. Vladimir Seminary Press. 2023. pp. 55-56.

5https://romelders.substack.com/p/elder-sofian-may-the-whole-world

6https://www.candelarugulaprins.ro/en/the-burning-bush-archimandrite-roman-braga-%E2%80%A02015/#:~:text=The%20Burning%20Bush%20Movement%20was%20a%20mystical%20volcano%20in%20Romania,experiencing%20a%20loss%20of%20values

7Ibid.

8Papacioc, Arsenie. Every Sigh Can be a Prayer. St. Herman Press. pg. 131.

9https://www.acton.org/religion-liberty/volume-29-number-3/burning-bush-communist-desert

10 Ioana-Zoia Ursu. Prayer, Resistance, Repression: the “Burning Bush” from the Antim Monastery. pg. 6

11Ibid. pg. 9

12Ph.D. Ion Marian Croitoru. FATHER ARSENIE PAPACIOC AND THE PROPER ARRANGEMENT OF SPIRITUAL LIFE. GLIMPSES OF HIS EXPERIENCES IN THE COMMUNIST PRISONS. pg. 20.

13Abbot Daniel Tudor of the Romanian, the new confessor of Christ with the fiery prayer | iconandlight (wordpress.com)

14Ioana-Zoia Ursu. Prayer, Resistance, Repression: the “Burning Bush” from the Antim Monastery. pg. 15