For almost four years, from 2009 to 2014, I was a farewell pilgrim. I participated in dozens of such events, including in the Prislop monastery, where the tomb of Father Arseniy Bok is located, and saw its exponential development from year to year.

I stayed for hours, queuing, in huge pilgrimages, such as the one in Iasi, Sfânta Parascheva, or the more modest ones, Curtea de Argeş, such as Sfânta Filofteia. A lot of time, effort and financial resources to answer some important questions: Why has pilgrimage become a favorite form of religiosity for Romanians 25 years after the fall of communism?

What is the real motivation of these people to go on the road, except for stereotyped answers mechanically recited in front of television cameras, such as “for health, for family and children.” After all, how does the “official” Church, the administrator of the shrine and the main organizer treat them.

The result was a volume called The Need for a Miracle. The Phenomenon of Pilgrimage in Modern Romania” (Editura Polirom, 2015), in which I openly express – I do it now – about the complexity of understanding pilgrimage, which has become a total social phenomenon, a real litmus test of the functioning of modern Romania – not only religious, obviously.

I couldn’t help but be intrigued by Alexandru Solomon’s new film Arsenius Afterlife for several reasons.

First of all, I am very interested in pilgrimages, their evolution, exactly as I mentioned above, how they are perceived and reproduced in public space not only by historians-theologians-sociologists, but also by artists or cinematographers. And when the source is Alexandru Solomon, one of the most important Romanian documentarians, the opportunity becomes one that cannot be missed.

Secondly, for a long time, I followed the complex process of “transformation of the saint”, faithful to Arseny Bok, in which the tension and constant rearrangement of the relationship between popular religiosity (free, turbulent, creative) and the official one, the Church, is felt, which tries to keep such phenomena under control

The hall was filled with the smell of room air freshener, very strong, like vanilla-scented bleach. I vaguely recall the irritation caused by the expression “make holy” when I wrote a report from Prislop a few years ago, which shows the extreme delicacy of the subject. Well, even this recent film contributes, with or without the will of the author, to the process mentioned above.

Another personal, slightly nostalgic note: I saw the film at Cinema Europa, the last Mohican of “old style” cinema in Bucharest and perhaps in the country. Eight people in the room. Five pensioners who, after the end of the projection, all collapsed in their seats, and two young IT people (I don’t know if they worked in this field, IT, but I needed a classification category), thin cheeks, fancy beards, expensive phones. And the author of these lines is difficult to rank.

The hall was filled with the smell of room air freshener, very strong, like vanilla-scented bleach. It was probably used to hide another unpleasant smell, on the principle that the light of a flashlight covers the flame of a candle. It is certain that at the end of the session we all had tears in our eyes, irritated throats and clothes soaked in the impossible “European” smell of the hall. Aitists left the hall after a quarter of an hour.

The movie itself. Alexander Solomon makes things clear right from the start. In his calm, even, slightly hypnotic voice, he tells us, I quote exactly, I was making some tortured notes in the darkness of the cinema hall, which in 2018 is simply suffocating due to the excessive representation of religion in public life, “and the emblem of this influence was the handsome monk Arseniy Boka.”

The controversial artistic “performance” of the author also dates from that time, fragments of which also appear at the end of our film: during a pilgrimage from the Patriarchal Mountain (St. Dimitry the New) in October 2017, he severely mutilated himself by cutting himself. took his left palm with a clerical knife, then began to throw money on the floor – in passing, fortunately for the little beggars around him, in general, there is no shortage of such things in pilgrimages. The Gendarmerie responded instantly and the culture was loaded back into the van and taken to the Obregia Psychiatric Hospital.

From a purely personal note, I did not understand, neither then nor now, the usefulness, place and role of this act both in the economy of the film and in the artistic trajectory of Alexander Solomon; kitsch, violent, gratuitous syncopation. The director of the film also says that at the first stage he tried to understand the phenomenon of Arseniy Boka, personally participating as a pilgrim in Prislop, but he understood that “in this way he could not get close to the pilgrims, nor decipher why Arseniy Boka became the icon of their hope”.

The solution he found is unusual, effective: he organized his own bus pilgrimage, as we can find with dozens

Pilgrim contestants were selected based on their sensitivity to Father Boca (“pietete” is a term that can be used in a different context) and previous casting experience, familiarity with the camera. The carriage, transformed into a set for a caravan, reaches the main points on the spatial and spiritual map drawn by the cult dedicated to him, namely: Prislop monastery (but you can’t shoot at his grave), Vatsa de Sous, Hunedoara, his birthplace, an obscure village that became a place of pilgrimage at night, the monastery of Sambeta de Sus, the church of Draganescu in the county of Giurgiu (or rather its surroundings, he also fails to shoot here) and somewhere along the Poarta Albă Canal, the site of the famous and controversial double site Father Boka’s stay since 1950, when he managed to go to his mother’s funeral while imprisoned in this penitentiary.

In each of these places, pilgrim actors are called to play their own role or interpret the characters of the era: policemen, nuns, prisoners, etc. Just as the color coming from an artist’s tube becomes the vibrant spirit of a painting, so they take on individuality and meaning throughout the film. They are all the same, united by their state of pilgrims, but each different in their own way: we have the seekers of miracles at any cost, the people of the new age (energies, energetic presence, fluid existence), nostalgic for the communism that faith gave them the meaning of life, just curious. Yes, they are well chosen, it is part of such a colorful and exciting world of pilgrimage. I care very much for them as they are; I was pleased that the film did not make fun of them, did not make fun of their life or religious choices. He “uses” them (quotes again), but does so respectfully.

In most pictures and scenes, a deliberately chosen character appears, as he is very similar to the young father of Arseniy Boku. Like this one, he is dressed in his famous white tunic girt with a wide black monk’s belt, a symbol of bodily restraint, an image inspired by surviving ancient photographs.

If, from the artistic point of view and the economy of the film, the presentation of this “living icon”, the recreation of the character of Arseny Bock is justified, for those who truly believe in him and honor his memory, I think that this approach was quite disturbing until unbearable, especially since it, the film, also touches on those controversial aspects of the existence of the famous father, which happened after his expulsion from monasticism.

On this red thread of the pilgrimage action, Alexandra Solomon introduces several topics and reasons related to the cult of Father Arseniy Bok in the public space and, in general, to the place and role of religion in modern times. The trade in Arseny Bock brand religious items (I expected the film to have an intellectual property rights controversy on this, also emblematic of the phenomenon), the place and role of the media in the creation of a cult. , our “stars” are everyday, plastered with pixels and botox, suddenly seized by the excitement of faith, as well as serious, deep topics, such as the memory of communism in the public space and of the dead Legionary movement, which appears, vaguely and indistinctly, in Father’s biography.

In the scene, filmed on the Poarta Albă-Midia channel, one of the main problems of the recovery and cultivation of religious memory, related to the convicts of the communist period, is touched upon. How do we treat them? The difference in approach is very great, from the “legionaires” who deserve their fate (but in this case it means that communist justice was fair), to the competing, active and militant memory of the Holy Prisons, to those who seek become autonomous. outside the official framework of BOR..

I would also like to note the unsurpassed beauty, cinematically speaking, of some shots from the film, for example, shot in the abandoned photovoltaic park in Gelar, a place as if from another planet, where one of the pilgrims visualizes the presence of holy, astral forces, energy belts. Or the enigmatic look of bison from the Hatseg reserve, their watery and heavy, extraterrestrial-alien eye.

At the end of the film, Alexander Solomon admits that his initial “anger” was drowned in the ocean of confusion, and the attempt to contrast the myth with the facts did not lead to anything. The last quote from an unknown informant, found in the archives of the Security Service, is also given, a paradoxical statement typical of him: “Arsenius expressed his desire to wave a red flag at the Vatican.”

In the last shot of the film, a red flag is also flying and an avatar of Father Boka throws money to the pilgrims who have played their part in the film, just as the director did in the fatal fall of 2017 on the Patriarchal Mountain.

Let me add and explain the fact that the “ocean of confusion” arose, among other things, because the initial approach to the film was shaky, fragile.

Arseniy Boka is a pure product of folk religiosity with all its characteristic features: folkloric, thirsty for miracles, free, creative with the past, with its own rules and customs, often in tension with the “official” religion of the Church. . The latter sought to mitigate this phenomenon, which appeared as if out of nowhere (of course, until the 2000s, no one had heard of Pryslop), to reduce popular fervor and canonically discipline it. Aspects related to the financial recipe, which is a consequence of the cult of Father Arseniy Bock or, more broadly, the pilgrimage, become secondary if we look at things in this way.

I had the opportunity to write about the “phenomenon” of Arseny Bok. Why he had such success and such development: because he, a complex and difficult personality, was a modern adventurer and well understood the torments and advantages of our time. It is a saint that can be understood and used by anyone, even a talented director, who is looking for answers to serious questions related to the place and role of religion in a society that does not find its way, moves chaotically, 32 years after the fall of communism. And, dare I say it at the end, burdened with his own spiritual dilemmas, even as he keeps trying to claim otherwise. It is worth watching this film to understand the world we live in and, above all, the one we don’t live in.

N. Red: Mirel Banika is a researcher in the field of anthropology of religions.