Romania Stunned by Nun's Death in Exorcism

TANACU, Romania - The whispers started in April in the mind of the 23-year-old nun. In the heart of an Orthodox convent in Romania's impoverished northeast, doctors say, Maricica Irina Cornici believed she heard the devil talking to her, telling her she was sinful. She was treated for schizophrenia, but when she relapsed, a monk and four nuns tried a different method: exorcism.

Last week, Cornici was bound to a cross, gagged with a towel and left in a dank room at the convent for three days without food — where she died of suffocation and dehydration.

The case has stunned this impoverished nation where rural youths, many raised in orphanages like Cornici, have flocked to Orthodox monasteries and convents for spiritual help or food and shelter. Polls show the Orthodox Church to be the nation's most trusted institution.

In April, Cornici was admitted to a psychiatric hospital in the northeast city of Vaslui.

The nun was given medication and released on April 20 to the care of the Holy Trinity convent in the nearby village of Tanacu, an isolated community of about 1,000 people in a hilly area cultivated with vineyards and corn.

Daniel Petru Corogeanu, a 29-year-old red-bearded monk who served as the convent's priest and allegedly led the exorcism, told the media he was trying to take devils out of the nun. He said she had to be restrained because she was violent and that she refused to drink holy water.

Corogeanu and the four nuns were charged with aggravated murder on Wednesday in Cornici's death after testifying for 11 hours to prosecutors. If found guilty, they could face up to 25 years in prison.

The monk said Friday outside the courtroom that he and the nuns were innocent and blamed media pressure for their arrests.

His lawyer has asked for the case to be moved to a different location, citing the intense media and public scrutiny in the area. Romania's Supreme Court is expected to rule on a location for the trial.

"I am scared that if I went to the monastery they would crucify me, too," said Ioan Hristea, a 52-year-old former welder who suffers from epilepsy and said he was hospitalized with Cornici.

Others said the prosecutors were swayed by the public pressure and went too far by charging the suspects with aggravated murder, and that a lesser charge of manslaughter would have been more appropriate.

"Aggravated murder implies intention and committing the crime with intentional sadism," said Aurelian Pavelescu, a lawyer and member of Romania's parliament. "But they believed they were helping the woman, that they were curing her from her pains."

In Cornici's native village of Perieni, about an hour drive from the convent, her relatives demanded justice for the young woman, who they said joined the convent just days before she was admitted to the hospital.

"She was disfigured, she had marks on her hands, her ankles and her stomach," said her aunt, Anisoara Antohi, 29, standing by Cornici's grave, marked with a simple wooden cross with the words "Sister Irina" scribbled on it.

"She was a good girl. It was too cruel, God, much too cruel," her great-uncle, Gheorghe Antohi, 53, said as he burst into tears. Those who allegedly killed her "should all be crucified like her."

In Tanacu, a couple said they met Corogeanu, the monk accused in the case, when he baptized their godson at the convent, a wooden building with a metal roof that overlooks a rolling hill.

"He held a beautiful service," said Petrica Pintilie. "Who knows what happened there?"

The church has closed the convent, and its gates were chained Friday. A nearby sign warns that no men are allowed in after 4 p.m. and that only Orthodox believers who are properly dressed can enter.

"Here we only talk to God and we sing with the angels in silence and with much prayer," says another sign posted on the convent's white fence.

The Orthodox Church has strongly condemned the exorcism ritual in Tanacu as "abominable." It has banned Corogeanu from the priesthood and excluded the four nuns from the church.

Orthodox monasteries and convents have flourished in Romania since the 1989 fall of Nicolae Ceausescu's brutal communist regime, which suppressed religion.

The Tanacu convent was built in 2001 by a private donor and had not yet been sanctified by the church.

Cornici's death and the revelation that Corogeanu was ordained as a priest without having finished his theological studies have prompted the church to impose stricter rules for entering monasteries, including psychological tests.

Last week, Cornici was bound to a cross, gagged with a towel and left in a dank room at the convent for three days without food — where she died of suffocation and dehydration.

And how is this not pre-meditated murder? The whole point of crucifixation is to induce suffocation due to pain and exhaustion. You simply can not breath when held in this position, unless you can stand up. The Romans sped the process up by driving a nail through the feet (ankles), making the ability to stand painful in the extreme. The Romanian clergy solved this problem by stuffing rags in the Nun's mouth.

In my humble opinion, this was a pre-meditated murder, committed with savage sadism. What was good enough for the victim, should be good enough for those who committed this heinous crime.

Murder, yes. But crucifixion? Not so sure. This may be the fault of "reporters." "Bound to a cross" doesn't necessarily mean what we recognize as crucifixion. We haven't even been told that the cross was vertical rather than horizontal. "Marks on her hands and her feet"? What kind of marks? And we've heard absolutely nothing about the results of an autopsy. Real crucifixion, as you say, doesn't depend on a gag, but on the victim's inability to breathe oxygen and dispel carbon dioxide. Drowning results. Yet, if the nun were horizontal, rather than vertical, the gag is the only cause of suffocation. No, absent the fact that the cross was vertical, the cross here was merely symbolic; and the victim didn't drown--she suffocated.

Christians should have regular and frequent Exorcism Conferences to learn the best techniques of "removing unwanted squatters" from our fleshly temple.

I might be a little silly in saying that, but I think every priest of every Rite should know how to properly conduct an exorcism. It's upon the command of Jesus to cast out demons that clergy must do this.

"She thought the devil was talking to her and told her that she was a sinful person," said Dr. Gheorghe Silvestrovici, a psychiatrist who treated her. "It's a symptom of schizophrenia, and she was probably having her first episode."

You get the impression that 50mg of haloperidol and rigorous therapy would have prevented this. Here, have some drugs--and for God's sake, stop talking this sin/devil nonsense!

Psychology and Original Sin are like oil and water.

D/O

You get the impression that 50mg of haloperidol and rigorous therapy would have prevented this. Here, have some drugs--and for God's sake, stop talking this sin/devil nonsense! Psychology and Original Sin are like oil and water.

Someone else comes to mind: Tom Cruise and his moronic comments made about psychotherapy. While I agree that we have the tendency to over-medicate, especially the kids, that does not mean that some people are in need of meds to control their mental disease. P.S. Ongoing therapy every 2 weeks of Risperdal would pro'lly been beneficial to this young victim as well.

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