The Bible My Grandfather Receive- a treasure.

In my family there is a book that is not just a simple book. It is an Orthodox Bible from the year 1982, from the period when Romania was under the communist regime. It reached my grandfather in a very interesting way. When I look at it, I realize how time has passed and through what periods it has gone.

The cover is worn, and the pages that were once perfect are now worn. A dedication written especially for my great-grandfather is hidden in the first pages.

Its story begins like this.

When my grandfather was young, he met a priest. Even though he was passing through the years of youth, he was attentive like all the people in his parish. During the communist period in Romania, if you were religious, it was not always good for you. People did not have freedom. My grandfather always told me these things.

While he became friends with the priest, his dear friend made a gesture that remained in my grandfather’s soul, because it was not an ordinary gesture for those times.

It was winter when the priest called him to his house, and at that moment my grandfather said, “I still remember the cold,” probably as if he had lived it again. The priest confirmed this, and when the door was closed and they remained alone, he looked into his eyes. In that moment he went and brought the Bible, with black covers, and handed it to him, saying, “Keep it. Let it remain alive in your family, and may your first child cherish it even more.”

But for my dear grandfather, who had faith in his soul, it was a risk. Yet the love he felt for God was greater. When he took it home, he hid it, because it was not safe to leave it in sight. Arriving in the apartment, he began to think, saying, “Is there a suitable place for this gift?” Many questions were in his mind, but something shocking happened for him.

That same evening, he had a very disturbing dream. He dreamed of his friend, the priest, telling him that the Holy Book takes care of spiritual life and that it has to leave if it is not kept in the right place. Waking up, he went to check the place where the Bible was, but for a moment it was not there. He woke up his wife and asked her if she had moved something, but from her words she had not done anything. The next day, very upset, he wanted to confirm the “miracle,” but the book was in its place. Then he realized that nobody had moved it and that this event remained something magical for him.

When the year 1989 came and Romanians went out into the streets to end the dictatorship, my grandfather made a simple but important gesture: he placed the Bible in sight and remembered the priest’s words, “Do not lose your faith.” He began to read from it, and after the fall of Ceaușescu and his wife, religious freedom slowly returned.

For me, this story has always meant a lot. When he showed me the book, everything seemed to change, and today it is the only object that still connects me to him. When I open its pages, it is as if they tell me, “How many moments of history I have witnessed, and how many will follow.”

For me, it is not just a religious object, but also proof that my family’s history remains preserved.