Nicolae Moldoveanu went to be with the Lord in 2007.
Snippets from his personal autobiography - http://www.freddieandkandee.com/blog_detail.php?article=32
Life continued on. 1959 was a year when my life was split in two – my life as well as the life of my family.
Daniela was five years old. The work of the Lord needed men who were tested. Gold and silver are purified through the fire of the furnace (Prov. 17:3, 27:21). In July I was arrested. Dorz was arrested earlier, in the month of March. It was a Monday morning and I was sitting at the table with my morning tea. Two officers of the secret police came to search the house. They confiscated all of the books of music (a large suitcase and briefcase). They took our first draft of Songs of the Bible. The investigation was five months long and took place with the secret police in Cluj. I was charged with art. 209 from the penal code: Working against the social order. The crime for which I was convicted was that I composed songs and psalms from which I’d made “propaganda”, this being “extremely grave”. Those in power then had all things under control except for the power of faith. They were unable to control the spirit of man. This made it difficult to introduce communist ideology and atheism.
I was unable to eat breakfast the morning that they came to arrest me and so I left home hungry. I asked that I be allowed to pray with my wife before I left. They allowed me to do this, but the door was left ajar so that they could hear. This is how we separated! I didn’t have clothes with me. My wife forgot, due to the shock she suffered, to put some food in a package for me. I was taken and presented to the commander of the secret police; all of the police had been called to the office. Before this time, the secret police had requested that I collaborate with them, that I serve them. I refused to do this. Now they said to me, “You didn’t want to help us, now you won’t find mercy, understanding or patience here! Take him and put him in the cell.” After I arrived in the cell, the sky covered in clouds and it started to rain torrentially. I prayed to the Lord and I thanked Him for the grace that He had given me to suffer for Him. After about an hour, another inmate asked me why I’d been arrested. “For my faith” I answered. “For your faith?!” He was amazed. “Oh, they’re going to let you go.” I asked him why he’d been arrested. “Because they found some gold coins at my house,” he said. They let him go soon afterwards and I never saw him again.
I sat on the bed and I prayed to the Lord. All of the sudden, a guard flew into the cell, furious, and grabbed me asking why I was sitting on the bed. “Why haven’t you read the rules?” he asked. He told me to stand. I stood there until the evening crying for joy because I had the grace to suffer for His name’s sake. I was hungry because I’d not eaten since the day before, but I wasn’t given food in prison on my first day because I had yet to be numbered among the prisoners. The next day, I had been rushed and I didn’t have an opportunity to eat because a guard came and took me. “Come with me! Take out your shoelaces! Don’t say anything!” – he demanded. Then he asked for my handkerchief with which he blindfolded me. I got in the car in which there were already two men. I was taken to Brasov. I still hadn’t eaten anything. We were each taken into different cells and I was at interrogated until the evening. That evening I arrived in a cell where there were three men standing with their backs toward the entrance into the cell. This was the rule when someone entered the cell. After the door was closed, they turned around and asked why I was imprisoned. I told them the reason. One was a lawyer from an opposing political party, the second had been arrested for participating in a meeting of the Legionnaires, and the last – a young man – had tried to cross the border and leave the country.
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In the month of April they called me and told me to pack my bags. It was raining. I was taken into another cellblock. In the first room, there was a light on and two civilians at a desk. I told them who I was. They asked what sentence I’d received. I told them twelve years. “What for?” they said. “For faith.” “For faith?! Here we don’t sentence people for their faith. How many years of your sentence have you served?” “Five.” “Look, the party and the government acquit you of the rest of your sentence, but don’t continue to do what you’ve done in the past or we’ll bring you right back here.” I said, “Well you know, I’m just as I was five years ago. I haven’t changed. Rather than me having to come back and start all over again with interrogations, it’s better for me just to stay here and not leave.” “Forget it. Take your bags and leave.” My clothes were very wrinkled. I met Brother Chisu from Cluj in the waiting room for those who were leaving the prison. He ironed my clothes and the brim of my hat and I left for home. We were talking about how we would get home because we didn’t have any money to get from the train station to our homes. A baron with whom I’d been a cellmate gave me some money. I changed it and called my neighbor to see how everyone was doing at my house. Everyone was waiting for me. It was a wonderful homecoming!
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