Preotul Mărturisitor Gavriil Zob (1915-1997) din Gherla – ctitor de suflete și de biserici în vremea regimului comunist. Model pastoral de credință, curaj și demnitate
Priest Confessor Gavriil Zob (1915-1997) from Gherla – founder of souls and churches during the communist regime. Pastoral model of faith, courage and dignity.

Author(s): Sergiu V. Meleg
Subject(s): Theology and Religion, History of Religion
Published by: Editura Doxologia
Keywords: missionary model; communist regime; communist prisons; faith in God; church; fearless priest:
Summary/Abstract: Father Gavriil Zob is a spiritual figure and a true missionary model of the 20th century. Although he had a rich missionary and pastoral activity during the difficult period of the communist regime, his personality and model of holiness are little known. The priest endured the hell of communist prisons for 14 years because of the following words he said to an acquaintance, which expressed the turmoil of a soul who loved his country and his faith: ‘What can our people do, so kneecapped and so mocked by the communist invaders from the East, who are now taking away everything we hold dear, our faith in God and all the riches of the Romanian land...’ After being released from prison and working for a period as an unskilled labourer in a factory, he was sent as a priest to the village of Hăsdate, near Gherla, where he built the village's current church from the ground up. Then he was sent to Gherla, where he built another church from scratch, a veritable cathedral, the current Orthodox Parish of St. Nicholas. While churches were being demolished in other areas, this fearless priest managed to build two churches from scratch, in the midst of the communist regime, and to keep people close to Christ. He was the priest who performed the first religious service in a Romanian prison after the fall of the communist regime, on Easter Night in 1990.

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