# article by Ioan Vladuca, excerpt from the Magazine Attitudes, no. 6
The New Martyr Daniela, from Bucharest
(the 6-th of April)
„ The
Holy Remembrance of the Martyrs sanctifies with the Holy Spirit all those who
sanctify it with Orthodoxy” (Octoih, voice 6, Monday at Matins)
This chosen flower
appeared on Romanian soil in 1967.
Still uncanonized,
she is called the Holy Martyr Daniela
(Paximade) (b. 1967- † April 6, 2004) by Christians who know her troubled past.
She was raised in
the spirit of Christian love by her mother, but she has the misfortune of
living with an atheist father.
As a child, she
was very close to God. When he left school, she always went to Church. For this
she was rebuked very harshly by her father: “Where have you been? All day at Church?
To your priests? What has God given you? ” And she said nothing, only
tears streaming down her cheeks.
She was pious and
prayed for a long time. She didn't want to go to the high school banquet. Her
teacher begged her: "Come on, Danuta, come with us!", but she said:
"I can't, but you know that I love you all very much, but I can't come to
the banquet. … forgive me!” She was very gentle and very kind to everyone. She
studied very well and helps classmates with lessons; she spent also nights
writing for them. She loved to work. All her clothes were made by her.
After 1989, she
was admitted to the Polytechnic. She became a disciple of the Pious Father
Sofian Boghiu from the Antim Monastery. With his blessing, she held some
particularly harsh fasts. She prayed a lot for those in need.
Prayers and
fasting were intertwined with good deeds. During the college, she spent whole
nights writing essays for her colleagues with poorer grades. She was leaving home
early in the morning and passed by a paralyzed old woman, forgotten by all - mother
Ioana, whom she took care of.
The pious Daniela
goes to her every day: in the morning, before college and in the evening. It
was quite a journey and a lot of hard work. She washed her, took care of her,
did her shopping. From her scholarship she also set aside for mother Ioana. She
washed his clothes, read to her, sang to her, and brought joy to the old
woman's soul. She did all this in secret, without the knowledge of her family,
without payment.
She was very
gentle and very kind. Father Sofian's gentleness was evident in her. She was
never upset to someone. She always blames herself and apologizes the others.
Once, someone beat
Daniela hard, even though she wasn't guilty. After enduring the beating in
silence, she bent down to the ground, knelt down, and kissed the leg that had
hit her wildly.
Some people in the family were trying to persuade her to marry, and she said: "No,
no. I want to stay with God”. "But you can be with God and be
married", she was told. "Yes, but if I grow up, it means I'm putting
God aside a little and I can't do that, I don't want to. I want to give
everything to God".
She spent many
hours at night doing her prayer rule. She never went to bed without doing her
prayer rule. And her brethren cried unto her: “What God hath given thee? That
you soured us with your priests. What does your Faith do to you? Dad gives you
food … Why did you go to college, to go to the Monastery?”
When she finished the
college, she ran to the Monastery. Her father searched for her for a long time,
found her, beat her and brought her home. She ran several times. Each time she
was forcibly brought home and severely beaten.
Once, on the night
before her last departure to the Monastery, she wept and prayed incessantly. She
made 1000 methanes, with many tears, asking for enlightenment from the Mother
of God. By daybreak she was asleep.
When she woke up,
she took the Icon with the Mother of God, which she had received from Father
Sofian. She made the Sign of the Cross, kissed the Icon, and very resolutely
packed her things for departure. Then she left a letter to a friend for Father
Sofian. Here is the content of the letter:
"I
dreamed, Father, of the Icon of the Mother of God. And I saw that the Icon came
to life, and the Mother of God was watching me intently, and I was praying in
front of her and asking, "What should I do?" And I saw her looking at
me with a lot of pain. And I saw tears on Her cheek. And suddenly she stretched
out her hands in prayer, and a tear from her eyes dripped down my hand. She,
too, with her hands up, prayed and wept. When her tear touched me, I woke up.
And I decided to leave ".
And she left. On
the way of the Cross, in the Footsteps of the Savior Christ.
But her father
found her again. When he brought her from the Monastery, he beat her terribly.
Then, he cut off her monastic robes with scissors and threw them in the trash.
He snatched the Crucifix from her neck and shouted at her:
"Priests,
priests, and the Church …" Then she fainted. And when she woke up,
she was praying to her father: “Please, leave me my Icons! I can't live
without them. Please! … ” And he put them under his feet, and trampled
on them, and took them all. Then she said: "Okay, you took everything from
me, but you can't take my soul, here (in my soul) is everything".
And since then she
has been praying only this way: “Mother of God, help me, do not leave me!
Lord Jesus Christ … ”
Her father, seeing
that he could not divert her from the path of Orthodox life, devised a
diabolical solution. He found some doctors like him and diagnosed her with
"paranoid schizophrenia with mystical delirium". Until the end of her
earthly life, she was forced to take "reassuring" medicines. She
spent the last 2 years in hospitals with infusions. She was unconscious most of
the time because of medication. Her father guarded her from early in the
morning until 10 pm to 11 pm, so that she would not be in touch with faithful
people.
The immobilization
in bed and the medication received from the psychiatrist caused her almost
complete paralysis and paralytic ileus (intestinal pseudoobstruction). In these
torments she passed to the Lord on Tuesday, April 6, 2004, during the Holy
Week.
It happened at 10
o'clock. And because her father would not accept the call of a priest, God
wonderfully ordered Father Constantine to find out about her. Arriving at the
hospital at 11 o'clock, he did her funeral service. For the first time, her father
was missing, even though he had been seen in the hospital in the morning …
Miracles began to
be performed at her honorable grave.
The tomb of Saint
Daniela is located in the Andronache Cemetery, Colentina District, in
Bucharest.
The first known
miracle is the healing of a young man who has been suffering from intestinal
pseudoobstruction with repeated seizures for 8 years. He was healed on
Wednesday, May 12, 2004. Since then, young believers, who have learned of their
sister's life and martyrdom, have gained even more piety and spiritual zeal for
her honor and remembrance.
The second miracle
is the healing of a student with a vascular condition (2004), and the third is
the healing of a young man who had an appendicitis attack (2005).
For the prayers of
the Holy Pious Martyr Daniela, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, strengthen us on
the Way of Orthodoxy and save us! Amen!
Bibliographical
sources:
- https://apologeticum.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/sf-daniela.jpg?w=720;
- http://sfantaortodoxie.blogspot.com/2011/01/mucenita-danielao-floare-aleasa-din.html;
- http://www.maica.ro/daniela-paximade-%E2%80%A06-04-2004/;
- https://www.tpu.ro/religie/marturii-zguduitoare-din-viata-mucenitei-daniela-din-bucuresti-aceasta-floare-aleasa-a-rasarit-pe-pamantul-romanesc-in/
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