The nobility of a humble man

“In the martyr shines the face of the true human being: in the executioner lies the  disfigured face of the sinner”. The words of cardinal Angelo Amato, pronounced in the homily of the Mass celebrated August 31st in Bucharest, invite us to gaze at the large portraits of Blessed Beato Vladimir Ghika, showcased in a crowded Romexpo. His deep eyes, his candid hair, the long white beard, the consumed cassock, his “looks” – as one of say using contemporary language – in his presence across European cities, in apostolic journeys and in the world and also in the path of suffering experienced at the age of 80 in the prison of Jilava, where he died in 1954. The nobility of the Gospel. He had never given up his noble origins – in fact his book- covers bear the description “Prince Vladimir Ghika” – but he had elevated this nobility to the heights of the Gospel, translating it into humbleness. Nobility and humbleness are today in the faces of a people celebrating their “monsignor”, as he was affectionately called. The diocese of Bucharest celebrated a beatification for the very first time: the executioners, judged by history, failed to erase the faith of a people. Latin-Catholic and Greek-Catholic priests and bishops were torches whose light has shone beyond the darkness of prisons. A dream of unity. Card. Amato recalled the “ecumenical heart” of Vladimir Ghika, who from Orthodoxy converted to Catholicism. “He dreamed Church unity. He considered sanctity an indispensable means to promote Christian unity. He saw in the practice of charity a noble emulation for all Christians. Ecumenism thus was to be based on the apostolate of love whilst respecting the freedom and the bona fide of others, thereby shunning harmful and useless polemics. Moreover, he considered the martyrdom of millions of persecuted Orthodox Christians, especially in Russia and Eastern Europe by communist regimes, the assurance of true resurrection, which in the light of the paschal mystery was to lead to the restoration of unity”. A message to Europe. The love of Vladimir Ghika for his Country was also the love for Europe and for the rest of the world. “The European scope of his pastoral, cultural and charitable service – points out Monsignor Ioan Robu, archbishop of Bucharest, determined initiator of the beatification cause – highlights the topical relevance of the appeal of the Blessed Ghika to a weary, indifferent Europe, that it may return to the faith and recover its identity and its vocation to solidarity, peace and justice, that can be realized only in God’s loving plan for mankind”. “Welcomed like a king in all cultural circles of Europe – the archbishop added – Vladimir Ghika gave up everything to serve the Lord, he even slept on the bench of a shack in the suburbs of Paris”.  The Church of Paris, where in 1923 the Blessed became priest at the age of 50, is represented by a delegation led by archbishop cardinal André Ving-Trois. To them a heartfelt welcome reverberated in the Cathedral of Saint Joseph on September 1st during the thanksgiving Mass, with a special thought of gratitude to Pope Francis who remembered Blessed Vladimir Ghika at the end of the Angelus prayer. Faith is encounter. “Thanks to him the word “humanity” returned to be a central part of our vocabulary, as he placed man at the centre of his service” said Monsignor Mihai Fratila, Greek-Catholic bishop from the Vicarage of Bucharest, adding that in Msgr. Ghika faith was not the result of doctrine but of the encounter with God. An encounter that he opened to all of mankind: the Blessed said that we are equally Romanian, Europeans, ecumenical and universal”. On the parvis of the small Greek-Catholic church of Saint Vasile in Bucharest, resounds the suggestive melody of the Akathistos, the hymn of praise to the Blessed, and also in this community are rekindled the memories of so many bishops and Greek-Catholic priests who were tortured and put to death by the communist regime. Bishop Ioan Ploscaru collected their testimonies in the book “Chains and terror”. Two of many thoughts. The day after the beatification, two of many thoughts come back to mind. The first is by the archbishop Ioan Robu who referring to an image of Pope Francis said: “Msgr. Ghika stood amidst his flock to the extent that he absorbed their scent and the flock incorporated a whiff of his sanctity”. The other recollection is by Cardinal Angelo Amato, who said that this beatification “should be viewed as a prophetic sign of reconciliation and peace, the memory of a sad past that must never happen again, and a commitment to build a future of hope, fraternal communion, freedom and joy”.