Finger of the Saint Cross

The Clinical Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery

( Article published in the Formula AS magazine, nr 484 1-8 October 2001 )

The most bizarre transplant from the history of medicine took place under God's sign

An unexpected proposal

A few weeks ago, at the entrance of the Hospital of Clinical Urgency from Iasi ,a young monk made his way through with his bag on his shoulders. His presence caused curiosity among the others.He came from far away ,all the way from the Petru Voda Monastery, from the Neamt Mountains , and he immediately asked the nurses to bring him right away to professor Teodor Stamate, the famous surgeon from Iasi , the chief of the clinical center of plastic and reconstructive surgery. Entering the professor's office, he put his both hands on the table, and without no further introductions, he told the doctor : "Doctor, you are my only chance!".

The Monk was missing the forefinger from his right hand. He lost his forefinger 4 years ago, caused by an accident ,and when time passed, knowing that soon he might become a priest, it made him feel like "half a man". 'What priest can not do the cross sign, in the sign of the three-in-one and that blesses just with one finger?' he said. The monk's decision was strong, no way back : he wanted the doctor to cut his forefinger from the left hand and transplant it to his right hand.

This case has amazed the whole medical department from Iasi . We must specificate that such an operation: transferring the finger of an nondominant hand to a dominant hand, and give back its functions is rare on global level. Besides that, in plastic surgery, the motivation of the pacient is very important for accepting or not accepting the intervention with such a high risk. Being a very faithful man himself, professor Stamate was a little bit confused in this moment. But the motivation, total dedication to God's work, and the mad courage of the pacient determined the professor to think no more. Though he warned him that it is possible that the operation to not turn out successful, the monk didn't care. He said that for him his left hand doesn't have half of the importance of a single finger, that he assumes responsibility for all the risks, because this is his only hope.

Life, his destiny depended on the forefinger of the right hand

Professor Stamate admits that he has never met another pacient with such strong will. "Without no doubt, a religious motivation in the transfer of microsurgery is unique in the world. First, it was an invitation to refuse. How could I ruin a good hand for an apparently absurd cause? To adorn the right hand it would have been enough to put a plastic prosthesis, but it wouldn't of helped the pacient with nothing, because he needed to move his finger. I could have been able to transfer a finger from the foot to the hand, as I have done many reconstructions like these, but in his case, of course, it was not an option. If he was catholic, again, it wouldn't have been a problem, knowing that catholics priests bless and do the cross sign with the whole hand. For orthodox, the blessing is done like this: the index finger and the middle finger are held up, in positions relatively parallel, the haunch of the thumb is cleaved to the haunch of the ring finger,and the pinky finger is bended. As for the cross sign, it can be realized, by putting together the haunches of the first three fingers in the same plan.

So, for an orthodox priest, the right hand without a finger can be a problem more serious than it may seem. Only so, through that religious motivation, realizing that this man can not fulfill two fundamental gestures, the intervention finally became justified. I accepted to do the operation, firstly because I felt that I must help him. Secondly, because his case was for me a motive for meditation, reflection. A thing totally out of common, but mostly very important is that I accepted the operation because that man had faith in me."

The pacient that the professor is talking about is named Merlusca Gheorghe, Ghelasie after that monk baptism. I spent four evenings, one after another with him, in a hospital room, and these four autumn days revealed a life story, that I have never heard before. After he was hospitalized, nobody came to visit. He felt alone, estranged, maybe that is why I became his friend .If it happened for him to walk out of the room for a little bit, he left word to the others that he will come back immediately and I should wait for him. So I couldn't wait to hear the reprise of his stories. But let us start with the beginning...

The monk from room 5

Room 5 is situated at the second floor of the old building from the hospital, the place where the most urgent cases of accidents are brought. Long and very narrow, with all the windows on the left side. Starting from the entrance, two rows of bed with suffering people on them, separated by narrow corridor, bodies muffeld in bandages, a true convoy of suffering, stuporous in an eternal waiting. Nobody was looking towards me, nobody wasn't interested that in the room a stranger walked in. The pacients had their eyes fixed on the tenebrous ceiling, people that almost can't number the passing of days and nights, for whom there are no more surprises or miracles. Their destiny can have only two choices : life or death.

The only one who isn't lying in bed is monk Ghelasie. I see him standing somewhere in the back, on the last bed of the right row, a young,thin man, staying with his knees in his chest and his back leaning on the wall. He has both hands covered in a thick layer of bandages and gesso, he can barely grab his book with prayings, from where he sometimes mumbles with a wanly voice. Comparing his appearance to the other pacients, his face looks dominated by an everlasting puzzle, very pale, with skinny cheeks, scruffy beard, round eyes, always largely opened, surprised as if every sequence from around him is part of a miracle. He was never hospitalized such a long time, and he never believed that there is a place where there is so much suffering.

From time to time,he gets up to help the others.He has a rangy walk,with his chest always in the front and maybe because he has to keep his arms always bended,with the palm of this hands up,he looks as if he is ceaselessly praying for the others around him.He is bringing them water,helping them eat or turn their mutilated bodies from a side to the other,sometimes he reads to them from a book or talks to them about God.

If the pacients can't use their feet, he goes and answers the phone calls from their relatives, and even thought it may not turn out in the good way, he even encourages them and telling them that everything will be just fine, and they should not worry about anything .With a night before, he convinced a man that was in another bed close to his, not to put end to his life. Simple, authoritative, without the grace of gentleness. The poor man wanted to swallow the whole box with pain killers, just to finish with the pain from the legs recently amputated. On the bed from the left entrance there was prisoner held for crime. He has his entire head covered in bandages, without one eye, moreover, his legs are in chains and he is supervised day and night by a police man. Once, the monk offered him a pretzel, and in the eye of the prisoner tears started falling. In that day, he confessed all his sins, that were pressing his soul.In another day, another pacient asked the monk to help him stand. He wanted to see the sun before he died.

The dream from the Holy Week

Monk Ghelasie tells me to sit next to him. I ask him how he feels, and he tells that he misses the monastery and his brothers from the mountains. He is, without any doubt, a simple man, modest and sincere, that isn't good at spinning words. He has a moldavian accent, a manly and brusque voice, he has his own way of precision when it comes to talking, that I have met before only at the harsh monks from the hermitages of Neamt mountains, probably at priest Cleopa. He makes me understand that under the gesso a miracle is hidden. His confessor told him once what greatness represents the fingers of a monk. The three fingers that are put together, are the ears of wheat, and the two fingers that touch the heads of the believers, blessing them, are Adam and Eve, the beginning of life and a new life within Christ.

Away from the monastery, in that big unknown city, on a hospital bed, though he is still afflicted by that horrible pain, the monk starts to tell me leisurely ,his shattering life story: ‘I am originally from a village called Asau, from Bacau county, all my life I have been a carpenter and a sculptor, and from this occupation I had the accident with the finger. I am thirty-three years old and I entered the life of a monk in “96.I would have entered earlier, but I had a very ungodly life, very sinful. When I stayed home, I didn't go to church…"His eyes glisten, he grits his teeth and his lips become white, pale . ‘I was a big sinner. A sinner I say! A rotten man, I don't know how God left me alive on Earth all this time!I smoked almost 16 years, I drank, I was married until '95, but I had some problems so I divorced. I stayed alone. And after that I was tempted ,I got into trouble with other women, I even started beating ,scandals after scandals, drinking, plus,there was a restaurant in our village, and that's where I spent all my money.

Once, I asked myself. One week flied away, from Monday to Monday, I stayed closed in my own house, alone and I thought of what to do. What to do, what to do? I was smoking three packages of Carpati cigarettes every night, I didn't move ,I was trying to see where to go. Wednesday ,I had a dream. I dreamt that somebody told me that there are only two places .I don't know who it was, and I didn't even see too good .He just told me : <<Gheorghita, there are only two places>> . I woke up confused, scared and sweaty."

No matter how much he tries, the monk can't remember not even today who spoke to him in that dream that changed his life. It wasn't an angel, and no saint either. Just a white, blurry apparition, with a drowsily voice that came from nowhere. "Now I was thinking what are the two places? Monday night I smoke and drank like I never did before, and suddenly I realized : it's either Heaven ,or Hell. These are the two places, it couldn't of been something else .At night I smoke and drank again, and Tuesday I woke up in the morning and I went at the Sihastria monastery, where I remained for a whole year. That's where I cut my finger."

Nights with father Cleopa

He was then taught by the most severe monks from the mountains. He learnt from them that you can't live “warm” on half measures, and that in God u can only believe “with fortitude”. He realized that life is, more simple that it looks and that we are making it more complicated with our own hand, with disappointments and apologies. For father Ghelasie, there is only Heaven and Hell, goodness or sin, demon and saint. For the others, it depends on every person. ‘At Sihastria, they didn't send me at the carpentry from the first time. They sent me to work with : cows, pigs and on the field, they could of even put me into the traces, I was working hard so they couldn't send me away from the monastery. I wrote my parents a letter so they wouldn't cry for me, and I let them come and see me only after 9 months. The most hard thing for me was to get my mind of the cigarettes. There, where workers ,that used to make constructions, and when I saw them smoking, I always covered my eyes, I was ashamed, I ran fast in the church and fell on my knees in front of the holy icons.

For four months my hands and legs were shaking like I was possessed, I was so sinful and impure that one day when everything was over my head, I saw an old man with a white beard that stopped in front of me, blessed me and said to me with a pure, soft voice : ‘Oooo, my dear child, your battle is just starting'. How did that old man know what is in my mind? he didn't even see me until then. The others told me that it was father Cleopa, and every night, after we came from the field, we used to gather at the father's cell, on the steps, and I listened carefully how he spoke to us, we all asked for advices and spent hours there until midnight. I had never confessed to him, but every word he said was like a medicine for the soul.

When the abbot found out that I had never confessed, never been to communion or church he immediately sent me to father Antim, the most severe father from Sihastria. He was so astringent, that under his stole you couldn't dare to go twice with the same sin. You couldn't tell your confession as if it was a poem, to tell him what you did that day or last Friday. One day, on the hallway in his cell, a group of young women gathered, wearing make-up and talking non stop. There were even laity brothers and some monks. A lot of people were talking, but when the father opened his door and his moldavian voice fill the whole room, they all made silence. “I am father Antim, the most canonical father from Sihastria! Those who believe that can not do the canon that I will give, get away from my door!>> and when he came out again from his cell,it was just me and two other monks standing at his door. It wasn't a joke ,and now, I still have him as my superior. He guides me, I don't do a step without his knowledge. Time passed by, and finally the abbot allowed me to go at the carpentry and that is the place where I lost my finger.

The sacred "godfather" : Father Iustin from Petru Voda

After a year, I went to Sihastria.I passed a mountain and arrived on another one,at Petru Voda monastery. There I met another important priest : Father Iustin Parvu. Father Iustin named me monk.I was dressed in a long white shirt,with my hair loose and the next second the father asked me incisively : ‘Did you abandon your family? Your mom? Your dad? Your brothers and sisters?' My parents were in the church crying. It was really hard for me.

Father Ghelasie froze for a little bit,as if in this part of the discussion, when it came to talk about the great father Iustin Parvu,u might consider meditating for a while,not passing by so quickly.He told me that after all the suffering he had been through : diseases, retiracy , years spent in the prison house,my finger is nothing compared to what he had and that he even feels ashamed that I talk so much about myself. He is afraid of many words and of the pride sin,he always wants to destroy his personality, to quarrel with his own self, to disappear from everyone's attention.This thing can be easily observed, especially from his behaviour or from the hospital.Every little thing that the pacients,nurses or the orderly ask he does immediately,without asking further questions,and with the same wonder,as if he wants to be forgived for not noticing all this earlier.

"The first time that father Iustin saw me, he comes directly at me and shouts : 'Hey,son why are you changing your place from a monastery to another, like sheep without a Shepard?Why did you leave from Sihastria?'. I was dirty from the whole trip,I had a long black jumper that got to the knees and he called me : 'Brother with the big jumper' . At the beginning, he didn't even offer me a place to sleep.I was wandering in the woods, around the monastery,but I swore not to leave until he welcomes me there…"

Two weeks the abbot left him wander all alone in the woods,to supervise the monastery from the distance and sometimes when the other brothers saw him they used to laugh of him with that school kind of humour :"Ha,ha look at the brother with the big jumper" Father Ghelasie laughs too of those times.But it so happened that they didn't have a carpenter there, so one day father Iustin says to the monk : "Look, you see that priest with the big jumper? He says that he is a carpenter,so bring him in the monastery' and after two more weeks, he called me in his sanctum,he gave me the keys and told me to go to the workhouse.I lived happy for three years until last year when I had my hair already cut as a monarch, I decided to become a priest.Since then, I have been thinking about professor Stamate, the only person on earth that can help me….

On the way to the hospital,I prayed all the time.I had the presence of God with me,and I had decided not to go back once I arrive there.I wasn't afraid not even a second until I was on the operation table.When I saw all the doctors above me I started crying.Yes I cried, I was afraid. But after that I fell asleep."

The arisen finger

The operation started on a Wednesday,29 August, at ten o'clock and it last for seven hours.Two teams of professional surgeons, governed by professor Stamate,were preoccupied with the monk's hands.One team removed his healthy finger,while the other team was preparing very attentive every detail : every artery, vein, tissue, muscle and tendon from the right hand,to be connected at the other finger. Moreover, they had to be put together perfectly, analyzing everything under the microscope, absolutely every nerve. The monk had to move his finger and feel it.

Father Ghelasie told that in all his life,he has never seen crying icons,healing fountations,and either people that raise from the dead.The only amazing thing he saw with his eyes is the success of this operation.

I woke up around eight o'clock in the evening,with horrible pains in both hands.They took me to reanimation and in the morning they took me here , in room number 5.The professor came to me,he put his hand on my finger and didn't say nothing.Only when he got out the room I saw that he made a sign at doctor Hermeziu,he winked at her and after that I realized that everything was going to be ok.The second time he came and analyzed my hand,he told me it's all over,that my finger is just fine.I don't know how to explain the joy that I felt in that moment,I couldn't even say a word of gratitude.I was staying in my bed and crying,I couldn't stop it,tears were coming down my cheeks.The doctor was laughing and asked me how I feel my finger. I told him :"Dear professor I feel that it hurts really bad. I was really happy that it hurt me, because I knew if it hurt that means I got it back, I feel it pulsing."

That is what I am going to tell to all the newspaper writers and everyone else : that doctor has a gift from God,he makes miracles.It's not because I want to thank him,of course he is very talented at his work.Even if my operation hadn't been successful,I would of said the same thing:'you feel that these kind of people are blessed'.You recognize a good doctor after his soul,he is like a priest.He doesn't heal you with the knife,he heals you with the warmth that he holds in his soul,with his sight and with his behaviour.When he asked me at the beginning : "what are you going to do if the operation isn't successful?" and I told him :'Dear Professor I am firmly convinced that it is going to be successful'. And he asked me again smiling : 'and why are you so convinced? '. I told him : "Because I know that God works through your hands doctor".

We, ordinary people can't see all this but through these doctors strong and holly miracles really happen and you start to think : "How can you not pray for these certain people? How can you not tell their names every time you pray? For me,even if my finger doesn't work as a normal one, I will pray for him until the end my days."

Bogdan Lupescu