Family photos - Show broadcast on 30.04.1997 on Târgu-Jiu TV Duration: 32 minutes Picture: Sorin Ionescu, Cristian Șorop Music: George Popa Picture editor: Oldrin Bărbulescu Director: Adina Andrițoiu June of 1935. While was grazing his sheep on the plain at the edge of the village of Maglavit, the shepherd Petre Lupu had a vision: at saw God who sent him to speak to the people about the right faith and to repent. God appeared to the shepherd three Fridays in a row. He, frightened, went to the village priest and told him the incident. Not believing him at first, Pope Budin sent him home, but the shepherd returned to the Sunday service and began to preach repentance and the right faith. At that time, Petrache Lupu was a poor man, rather marginalized by the village community. He had been rejected for the army medical examination on the grounds that he was deaf-mute and a bit of an idiot. Because of this, his words could not be believed by those who knew him. It is very likely that that meeting he had with the divinity changed him completely, because the defects he was born with disappeared when he met trustworthy people. I recorded such a testimony in 1997, in a recorded interview with the writer from Târgu Sabin Popescu-Lupu (with the literary pseudonym Sabin Velican), a former teacher. His moral probity and good faith cannot be questioned, and his accounts are downright amazing. .................................... The vision of Petrache Lupu appeared at a time when, on the Romanian political scene, confusion reigned. Peasants and liberals struggled in internal battles, social democrats and socialists could not unite in a single bloc. In parliament, the parties blamed each other for the concessions made to the rising legionnaires. The press, newspapers and magazines languished when they weren't attacking each other. The sharks of the Romanian media were Pamfil Șeicaru from "Curentul" and Stelian Popescu from "Universul". Their opponents were the journalists from "Dimineata" and "Adevărul". In this setting, the incident from Maglavit appeared, first told in "Dimineata" and immediately picked up by "Curentul" and "Universul". Sensing the possibility of creating a business around the incident, Pamfil Șeicaru from "Curentul" sends people to the area. Taking advantage of the shepherd's illiteracy, together with the village priest, he will squeeze everything he can out of this business. Learning of the vision, rivers of people began to flow towards Maglavit. At the time, Petrache Lupu, aged 28, was married and had a child, Alexandru. Every day, on the plain where God had appeared to him, he came and spoke to the people about repentance. ................................ Sabin Popescu-Lupu: I would like to draw the attention of those who will listen to these following words , that in everything I say there is no exaggeration, it is only and only the truth. Why did I give this explanation? Because I present certain events and phenomena that will surprise many people. I did not see Petrache Lupu at Maglavit, because I was not at Maglavit, but I was impressed by what he spoke at Maglavit. Being during the war, I was traveling from Bucharest to Chisinau. There were several of us there, in a compartment, and there were only good people: magistrates, officers. At that time there were not so many means of travel as today, when there are cars, that there is no place to walk because of them and other things. There was only one more place, that was the reserved places. A man in peasant dress enters. Everyone in the compartment stood up and said "Kiss your hand, St. Peter." I got up too, but I didn't say "kiss the hand" and I could never, when I met him, say "Saint Peter". And he greeted everyone and went towards me, took me in his arms and said: "You believed in me!". I sit and think when and where did I believe in him? And I remembered that when this phenomenon, Petrache Lupu from Maglavit took off, I thought about his statements. He said, “Be better! Love each other, remove hatred from your path, because if you don't straighten up, God will send fire on the earth!". I was impressed by these words, because he urged people to do good, and I wrote in the newspaper "Cuvantul Moldovenesc" from Chisinau about this, about this man's statements. I learned from the newspaper what he declared there and I also wrote through the newspaper, but he was illiterate. And even if he had read the newspaper, which would somehow, by some miracle, have reached him, how would he know that it was I who wrote them? You see, here is the peculiar phenomenon, that he recognized me without ever having known me!