Priest Ilie Lăcătusu will be canonized next year, along with Arsenie Boca and Father Constantin Sârbu. It is the decision of the Romanian Orthodox Church that believers throughout the country have been waiting for a long time.
Priest Ilie Lăcătusu was an opponent of the communist regime. Photo source: Facebook
Who was the priest Ilie Lăcătusu
Priest Ilie Lăcătușu was born in 1909 in the village of Crăpăturile, in Vâlcea county and died 74 years later, in 1983, in full communist regime. He had six brothers, but only he chose the path of faith, joining the Church. His father, a local teacher, was his model.
After finishing primary school, the young Ilie attended the theological seminary in Râmnicu-Vâlcea, and then enrolled at the Faculty of Theology in Bucharest, which he graduated in 1934. While he was still a student, he married Ecaterina Popescu, a teacher who gave him five children.
Ilie Lăcătușu became a priest on September 1, 1934, the moment when troubles began in his life. The communist regime tried to suppress his voice, which was considered a danger at the time. It is the reason why in 1952 he was arrested and subjected to hard labor at the Danube-Black Sea Canal. After a few months, due to his poor health, he was moved to Târgu Ocna prison. He spent two years of his life there, behind bars, and that without a written conviction.
After five years of freedom he receives a new sentence: 5 years of imprisonment. After leaving prison this time, the father serves at a church in Teleorman, and then in Giurgiu, where he retired.
The body of the priest remained almost intact. Photo source: Facebook
The “Living Dead” Prophecy
The father died seriously ill, admitted to the Panduri hospital in Bucharest, where he made a prophecy. On his deathbed he requested that his wife be buried next to him if and only if she died in 15 years. At that time no one gave much importance to this request. Only after these years had passed, his relatives and all those who appreciated and loved him realized the miracle: the priest predicted the death of the woman he loved. But only now does the story of saint Ilie Lăcătusu truly begin, because at his wife’s funeral, when the tomb was opened, all those present were speechless in amazement. The body of the priest, not at all rotten, was in an almost perfect state of preservation. Since then it is also called “The Living Dead”.
From then until today, the “Adormira maicii Domnului” Cemetery in the Giulesti district has become a place of pilgrimage for thousands of believers from the whole country.
The tomb of Saint Ilie Lăcătusu is in the cemetery in the Giulești neighborhood. Photo source: Facebook
Prayer to Saint Ilie Lăcătusu
Although he has not yet been canonized, people considered him and still consider him a miracle-working saint. And those who cannot come to pray at the crypt, do so on the Internet, on a specially created Facebook page.
People pray for their health and that of their loved ones, for luck in life, well-being, happiness and ask the saint to help them resist “devilish temptations”.
“Oh, Saint Elijah, great worker of miracles, to you we run now, as to a quick helper. See the littleness of our faith, see our weaknesses and inabilities. Do not let us be overcome by the work of diabolical powers, which seek to destroy us in every way. From the beginning of the Church, many followers of the Antichrist have appeared, spreading their errors and losing those who are weak in faith. And in our time their number has multiplied, and, because of them, churches are emptying and people are losing their souls, choosing the ways of perdition. We need your protection, Saint, to resist the temptations of every day. We need your intercession, saint, so that we do not lose divine help.
Pray to God for all pious families, for all Christian parents and their children. Pray for all the priests of the righteous Church, to confess the truth without fear. Pray for hierarchs everywhere, to shepherd their flocks with the fear of God. Pray, Saint Elijah, for all the monks and nuns, that God bestows His gifts on them for your prayers.
We pray to you and to all the new martyrs and confessors, do not forget in your prayers the Romanian nation, which is being tried as if more than ever. Protect him from enemies seen and unseen, through the gift you received from God. Help us, saints, now and in the time of testing our faith. Let us not forsake Christ, no matter how hard the trials we will go through will be. And if we fall, let us rise quickly through your intercessions. And through repentance, let us humble ourselves, asking the Good God to change our lives and receive us at the end of our lives in His heavenly kingdom, where you now praise Him together with all the angels and saints. Amen”.
Akathist of Saint Ilie Lăcătusu
Ilie Lăcătusu’s prayer for Romania
Priest Ilie Lăcătusu served in a troubled period of history, during the communist regime, against which he fought with all weapons. Great lover of nation and country, the father wrote a prayer for Romania.
“Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the One who came into the world to save us all, with souls full of piety, we pray to You like this: Have mercy, Lord, on our country and our people and help them find their , finally, the right path. May your Comforter Spirit cleanse them and return their meekness and fear of you, Lord. Enlighten the minds of those who, because of bitterness and humiliation, do not see the right path.
Warm, Lord, the hearts of those who, enamored by the devil, have forgotten to love their neighbors and forgive their enemies. Plant, Lord, in their souls the pride of honest work, the joy of earning their bread by the sweat of their brow. Free, Lord, our nation from the yoke of lies, hatred, hatred and selfishness. Teach them, Lord, to bear with one another as You bear with us all. Quench the lust of those who for their own good oppress their fellows.
Warm their hearts, Lord, heal their wounds and embrace them in Your undying love. Rest, O God, the souls of those who gave their most precious possessions for faith and justice. With bowed heads, bent knees and broken hearts, we raise this prayer to You, Lord, Good, and we cry out to You: Hear us, Lord, and send Your Mercy on our Romanian nation.
That only Yours is the power and the glory, and only You will return the rivers of our Nation to the ancient mother, so that Your name, of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, may be praised forever, Amen”.
