Obscure Occurrences : The Tanacu exorcism

 On the morning of 15 June 2005, a team of paramedics was called to the Holy Trinity Monastery in Tanacu, a small remote village situated amidst the hills and forests of Eastern Romania. When they arrived, they saw the lifeless body of a young woman who was dressed up as a nun and laid on an extemporary cross. They were not aware of the fact that the 23-year-old woman had just been through a three-day-long exorcism led by Father Daniel Petre Corogean who with the assistance of four nuns of the monastery, he had attempted to drive out a demon that he claimed, had possessed her.

 The name of this dead woman was Maricica Irina Cornici and her exorcism turned out to become one of the most publicised and highly debated instances of exorcism in the 21^st century. The exorcism was indeed a terrifying battle for Irina but, having lived through a long string of battles with separation, abuse and inner demons, it was only her last one.

Irina Moves into the Monastery

 Irina was born in 1981 to a poor unmarried couple from Vaslui County in Eastern Romania. At only three years old, she witnessed her father, a troubled brawler, hang himself from a beam of the house after which her mother was deemed financially unfit to take care of her and her two siblings. Thus, she and her younger brother Vasile were left under the care of an extremely corrupt orphanage owned by the state. While growing up, they suffered unspeakable abuse at the hands of those entrusted to be their caregivers but this, by all accounts, did not hinder Irina’s physical and psychological development. Similar to most of the other girls raised in Romanian orphanages at that time, she was tough, hardworking and wary of men.

 She took self-defence classes at a young age and developed a passion for karate which, she often used to protect her friends. Also, she spoke with a deep intimidating voice and only felt comfortable dressed in sportswear. Her limited education gave her limited options for her future and so when she sought employment when she was 19 years old, she worked as a nanny in Germany. While away from her hometown, Irina was in close touch with her brother and her best friend from the orphanage, Paraskeva.

 Wanting to escape her turbulent past, Paraskeva joined the order of the Holy Trinity Monastery of Tanacu in 2003. In her letters to Irina, she wrote about Father Daniel Petre Corogean, the abbot of the monastery, whom she claimed was a great man. She said that she felt relieved after confessing her sins to him. Promising that it would give her the peace and relief she had always desired, she invited Irina to the monastery for confession and holy communion. Thus, at the beginning of April 2005, Irina and her brother visited Sister Paraskeva with plans to return to Germany in June of the same year. For Father Corogean their visit was a blessing. With the abbey still under construction, he started counting on their help at the monastery.

Story of Father Corogean

 Before becoming a priest, Father Corogean was pursuing religious studies at the University of Iași. While he was still studying, he was recruited by a businessman from his hometown for building the Holy Trinity Monastery. The construction commenced in the year 2000, the same year in which Father Corogean was hastily ordained by the local bishop before finishing his religious studies. This raised a lot of eyebrows as according to the laws of the Orthodox Church, one has to be a graduate of religious studies before ordination.

 Unlike the Catholic Church, exorcisms in the Orthodox Church can be performed without seeking approval from the higher ranks. Thus, with the decision left to their own discretion, exorcisms were quite common in Eastern Romania and they were performed by bishops and priests. Although the Orthodox Church frowned upon public exorcisms, they were habitually performed by priests during service. The priests who performed them were often regarded as religious celebrities. Inspired by these priests, Father Corogean, who was given the right to exorcism along with his ordination, started performing his own devil-banishing services at the Monastery.

 In 2003, Father Corogean ran into a problem with the diocese because the county bishop constantly refused to bless the church in the monastery as the conventional iconography was not painted on its walls. Considering the blessing of the bishop only a formality, he continued to hold his service inside the church for the parishioners, the nuns who were devout to him and now his new guests Irina and her brother.

Portrait of Maricica Irina Cornici (Left) and Daniel Petre Corogean (Right)

Backstory

 Irina was elated to be reunited with her best friend and spent the following days, attending service, doing chores and reminiscing. Allured by the secure and peaceful life the monastery provided, Irina slowly started to consider staying there but little did she know it was only the calm before the storm.

 Pressured by Sister Paraskeva, Irina decided to confess her sins on the 8^th of April. Having a rough idea about the trauma the young woman had been through, Father Corogean helped her ease into the confession by asking her up first about her life in Germany. After exhausting this topic, Irina is said to have become distressed and she started retreating. Seeing her lost in her own thoughts, Father Corogean advised her to leave Germany and settle somewhere close to the monastery. After asking her a few more questions, he gave her his blessing and penance which she promised to complete before her holy communion which was scheduled for the next day.

 So, the next morning, she joined the sisters at mass to receive her holy communion. Dressed up in a skirt and blouse with a scarf covering her head, she felt extremely uncomfortable abandoning her usual clothes but the excitement of receiving her holy communion overshadowed it. After the communion, she felt that something had allegedly changed inside of her. She felt light as she walked gently around the monastery humming a song to herself which according to her own account, “filled her being”.

 Later that evening, the nuns of the monastery started beating the semantron before the beginning of the evening prayers and its rhythm pulled Irina towards the church. This seemed to be a mystifying experience for the young woman but soon turned into an unsettling one as she suddenly started feeling a sense of dread within her. Just before she almost entered the church, she started feeling increasingly uncomfortable with the skirt she was wearing. So, she turned around and started walking back to change into her regular attire. On her way, she stopped by some of the nuns who needed her help but she yelled at them uncharacteristically and continued walking back. She was again stopped by Sister Nicoleta, the mother superior, who attempted to appease her but she continued to walk away mumbling to herself.

 When Sister Nicoleta turned her attention away from her, Irina snuck behind her back and started making rude remarks and obscene gestures. Dumbfounded by her actions, Sister Nicoleta summoned Sister Paraskeva which made Irina flee. After the evening prayers concluded, she returned to the church entrance dressed in jeans and started hoping behind the sisters mimicking their walks and yelling profanities at them. According to Sister Paraskeva, she looked nothing like her original self and every time she heard the name of Jesus, she reacted badly.

 Upon seeing her behaviour, Father Corogean concluded that she must have kept something from him during confession which had thus compromised her holy communion. So, concerned for his penitent, he asked Sister Paraskeva to being Irina to him for a second confession. What followed was a rather unconventional confession where Sister Paraskeva confessed Irina’s sins instead of her. As Paraskeva revealed the concealed and traumatic past of Irina’s life, she started mimicking her and nodded dramatically.

 Father Corogean hoped that his penitent’s condition would improve after the second confession but right after the confession, Irina dropped to the ground and began squirming, one moment yelling that she wanted to leave the abbey while and the very next moment pleading with the nuns to let her stay. She started growing extremely reckless and started hurting herself. Shocked by what they were seeing, Father Corogean and Sister Nicoleta called for an ambulance but as they did not get a proper response, they tied her up with a rope and drove her to the Vaslui County hospital.

 Irina was diagnosed with “delusional hallucinatory flush” exhibiting “exhibiting psychomotor agitation and onset of major psychosis”. She was later transferred to the psychiatric ward where due to her violent outbursts, she had to be restrained and kept under medicated sleep. There, Irina was diagnosed with “disorganised schizophrenia” which by all accounts was a diagnosis meant only to facilitate the prescription of antipsychotic medication. Within four days on such medication, her health worsened and she was once again transferred to the intensive care unit. 12 days later, after it was concluded that she had recovered, Irina was released into the care of the Holy Trinity Monastery. During her time at the psychiatric ward, Irina often complained of hearing demonic voices but she was never taken seriously and these voices never stopped despite the hospital claiming that she had recovered.

 While Sister Nicoleta was supervising her in the monastery, she is said to have witnessed her screaming, singing and rocking back and forth at the edge of her bed while staring at the empty wall in front of her. According to her, Irina was demonically possessed and she felt the “shivers of hell” in her presence.

The Exorcism

 Soon, Irina made her third confession to Father Corogean and this time, it appeared to have worked. She was back to her original self and Father Corogean and the nuns of the monastery were happy about it. Inspired by her progress, Father Corogean told Irina that they could continue taking care of her at the monastery but that they would need more resources for her medication and accommodation for which he asked her to yield her savings to the church. She ended up doing it only to be filled with distress later.

 With a huge portion of her savings gone, her tantrums returned. She started cursing the nuns of the monastery and threatened to hurt them with her karate moves. With the situation worsening and her becoming more and more violent, Father Corogean pinned her down, tied her up, gagged her mouth with a towel and confined her to her room. While being confined to her room for two full days, Irina started screaming and yelling in fear claiming that the devil had come to take her. It was at this point, Father Corogean decided to exorcise her. 

 So, the nuns made an extemporary cross, chained Irina to it, taped her mouth and took her into the church to begin the exorcism ritual. According to Sister Nicoleta, if they hadn't chained her to the cross, she could have killed herself or someone else. Also, one of the other sisters who were involved claimed that Irina knew that she was possessed and she herself asked them to tie her up and help her.

 During the ritual, Father Corogean tried to give her holy water and blessed bread which she refused to take. This further enforced his belief that she was indeed possessed by the devil furthermore. After hours of relentless struggle not seeming to work, Irina was carried to the enclosed veranda of the church and placed on a quilt which she was still tied to the cross. The entire event repeated for two more nights and days before she was finally untied from the cross.

 On the morning of 15^th June, after Father Corogean claimed that she was "cured", Irina was untied from the cross after three long days and she was too weak to even stand on her own feet. Her mouth was severely wounded and she appeared to be completely dehydrated. The nuns tried to feed her bread soaked in warm tea but she soon became unresponsive. With her barely breathing and her pulse fast dropping, the paramedics were called. Before they arrived, the nuns prepared Irina for the hospital as they washed her body and dressed her like a nun and the whole time Irina was simply limp and quiet.

 When the paramedics finally arrived 30 minutes later and checked Irina, they concluded that she must have died a few hours prior to their arrival but Father Corogean and the nuns refused this. They claimed that they had given her tea and bread only an hour before. Overwhelmed by the situation, the paramedics drove Irina to the hospital and on their way, they attempted resuscitation by injecting her with adrenaline every few minutes. When they reached the hospital, it was concluded that the girl had already died. The doctor who examined her said that the young woman looked like a 60-year-old woman because of her injuries and intense dehydration. The authorities were informed about Irina’s death and a criminal investigation commenced.

Aftermath

 Father Corogean and the four nuns who helped him (Nicoleta, Adina, Elena and Simona) were charged with murder although they strongly claimed that Irina had died because of an overdose of adrenaline which was injected into her on her way to the hospital. Father Corogean was initially charged with aggravated murder and sentenced to fourteen years in prison while the four nuns were sentenced to between 5 and 8 years. But, upon appeal, Father Corogean’s sentence was later reduced to seven years. He was defrocked by the Romanian Orthodox church and the four nuns were relieved of their duties. 

 While some believe that Irina was suffering from mental illness, others including Irina’s brother still insist that Irina was possessed by the devil and that Father Corogean was trying his best to save her. So, was Irina’s final battle against the devil or a mental illness or a combination of both? I leave it to your own judgement.