BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) - Cardinal Alexandru Todea, who became a symbol of Catholic resistance after spending over 16 years in Communist prisons for refusing to give up his religion, has died, the Eastern Rite Catholic Church said Wednesday. He was 89.
Todea died Tuesday in a hospital in the Transylvanian city of Targu Mures after being paralyzed for 10 years from a brain stroke, the church said in a statement.
On Wednesday, Pope John Paul II sent a telegram of sympathy to the Romanian Eastern Rite Church on Todea's death. The pope recalled Todea's "active work'' in supporting the Catholic church, giving "testimony to faith'' under the "tyrannical regime.''
A funeral service was scheduled to take place on May 28 at the Metropolitan Cathedral in Blaj, 300 kilometers (about 185 miles) northwest of Bucharest.
Born in 1912 in a Transylvanian village, Todea studied theology in Rome and was ordained as a priest in 1939. A year later, he received a Ph.D. in theology at a Catholic university, also in Rome.
He returned to Romania in 1940 as a priest and a teacher of Latin and Italian.
Todea's ordeal started in 1946 when the Communist regime which came to power after the war imprisoned hundreds of thousands of priests, intellectuals, peasants and politicians deemed to be "dangerous and impossible to convert to communist ideals.''
Between 1946 and 1948 Todea was imprisoned and released five times.
The Communist state officially banned the Eastern Rite Catholic Church in 1948 and declared all priests who refuse to give up their religion enemies of the state.
In 1948, Todea was again arrested by the Securitate, the Communist secret police. He escaped from prison and remained in hiding for three years.
During those years he was secretly made a bishop at a meeting of church leaders, and was arrested again in 1951.
After a mock trial in 1952, Todea was handed a life sentence to forced labor in Communist prisons. He was released 12 years later, when Communist leader Gheorghe Gheorghiu Dej amnestied all political prisoners.
After his release, Todea continued to fight for religious freedom, writing over 30 petitions to Communist authorities.
At a secret meeting in 1986, the church's bishops elected Todea leader of the church, giving him the rank of Metropolitan.
After the collapse of communism in Romania in 1989, the church was recognized by the state. In 1990, Pope John Paul II recognizes Todea as the leader of the Romanian Eastern Rite Church. A year later the Vatican gave Todea the rank of cardinal.
Todea retired from the executive leadership of the church in 1992 after suffering a brain stroke which left him paralyzed in his bed. Eastern Rite Catholics follow the Orthodox ritual, but the church's authority is in Rome. Almost 90 percent of Romania's 23 million people are Orthodox and about 1 percent are Eastern Rite Catholics. - AP