Tanacu exorcism

The Tanacu exorcism was a case in which Maricica Irina Cornici, a mentally ill nun at the Romanian Orthodox Church monastery of Tanacu in Vaslui County, Romania, was killed during an exorcism by priest Daniel Petre Corogeanu with the help of four other nuns. The case was widely publicized in the Romanian media and, following a lengthy trial, the five were convicted for murder.

Background

In January 2005, 23-year-old Maricica Irina Cornici moved to the Tanacu monastery.^[1] She was born into a broken family, and, following her father's suicide, she and her brother grew up in an orphanage. When she was 19, she worked as a nanny in Germany, and then for a family in Banat.^[1] A friend of hers from the orphanage became a nun at the Tanacu monastery and she encouraged her to also become a nun.^[1]

Soon after, she began giggling during Mass and, by April, her mental state deteriorated and the doctors at the local psychiatric hospital diagnosed her disease as schizophrenia and, after a two-week treatment, they released her into the care of the monastery.^[1]

Daniel Petre Corogeanu was the 29-year-old priest of the monastery. A decade before the events, he was a football player in Vaslui, his home town. He began following religious studies at the Iași University after he failed to get into the Bucharest University, where he wanted to study sports or law.^[1] A year later, a businessman from his home town recruited him to help build a monastery in the hills near the city. He was ordained by the local bishop, who expected that he would continue his studies. Nevertheless, he gave up his university education in order to devote himself to running the monastery.^[1]

In 2003, Father Corogeanu had some disputes with the diocese and the bishop came to read him the canon law, he argued that the rules are "19th century innovations" made by the Freemasonry.^[1] The original community of monks broke as they left to become priests and, instead, Corogeanu organized a community of nuns, who were, according to all accounts, "completely devout to him".^[1]

The exorcism

Father Corogeanu thought that it was not just a mental illness, but rather Cornici was possessed by Satan.^[1] He would later claim that "you can't take the Devil out of people with pills" and that an exorcism was necessary.^[1]

The nuns bound her hands and feet and locked her in her room while they celebrated the Ascension of Jesus. A few days later, they chained her to a cross with her arms stretched and they carried her into the church. Her wrists and her forehead were anointed with holy oil and she was kept in the church for three days.^[1] They put a towel into her mouth to stop her from cursing and they prayed to cast out the Devil as they wet her lips with holy water.^[1]

Cornici was then moved to her room and they removed the chains. She was, according to Father Corogeanu, "cured". When the nuns could not wake her up and sensed that her pulse was weak, they called an ambulance, but, by the time she reached the hospital, she was dead.^[1]

Aftermath

The police were notified by the doctors at the hospital, who noticed the marks that were left on her wrists and ankles by the chains. The autopsy found that she died of dehydration, exhaustion and a lack of oxygen.^[1]

The Romanian Orthodox Church closed down the monastery and had Corogeanu defrocked.^[1]

Father Corogeanu and the four nuns that helped him were charged with murder and depriving a person of liberty.^[1] Prosecutors sought a life sentence for Corogeanu, but he was sentenced in 2007 to 14 years in prison, while the nuns to between 5 and 8 years.^[2] The Court of Appeals reduced his sentence to 7 years^[3] and Corogeanu was freed on parole in November 2011 after serving two-thirds of his punishment.^[4]

The case had dominated Romania's news coverage, prompting headlines such as "Romania in the Middle Ages".^[1] The 2012 movie Beyond the Hills directed by Cristian Mungiu was based on the novels written by Tatiana Niculescu Bran and inspired by the Tanacu case.

References