In 1948, the new Communist regime outlawed his church, and the authorities' efforts to compromise him failed. In October 1948 Aftenie severely reprimanded the 36 former Greek-Catholic priests who had signed up for Orthodoxy and arrived from Cluj to the Patriarchate of Bucharest to bring their so-called adherence to the Romanian Orthodox Church, abandoning the Romanian Church United with Rome. The delegates from Cluj were at the Capşa restaurant when Bishop Vasile Aftenie scolded them in public. More later, many of them have confessed that they were pressed to do it. Being a man of dialogue and sincere goodwill, therefore wrongly considered compliant by the regime, he was even offered, in exchange for his "conversion", to become Orthodox patriarch of Bucharest. He replied: "Neither my faith nor my nation is for sale". Aftenie was arrested on 28 or 29 October 1948 on the Piața Romană, just after leaving the St. Basil's church, and taken, together with the other five Greek-Catholic bishops, to Dragoslavele and since February 1949 to Căldăruşani Monastery, which had been refashioned into a prison. On 10 May 1949 he was taken to the Interior Ministry, held in isolation and tortured on the orders of General Alexandru Nicolschi, a Securitate member. Mutilated, crippled, mentally broken but steadfast in faith he was thrown into Văcăreşti prison, where he died on 10 May 1950. It is also reported that he was shot by a Securitate officer. Because he was very tall and did not fit in the wooden box in which he was seated, his legs were cut and fitted. Initially, authorities ordered the body to be burned, but Aftenie was buried in the Bellu cemetery following a service held by a Roman Catholic priest from the Bucharest Bărăția and he conducted the rites in secret several days after Aftenie was buried by night under the eyes of the Securitate secret police. Another priest brought a cross permitted by the communist authorities at his grave with his initials and the year of his death several days after that written: "VA = 1950". In 1990, a white marble tombstone with a picture of the bishop was erected for him; his grave became a place of pilgrimage and is adorned with candles and flowers, he is called for help and assistance.
The beatification process
Soon after, his tomb became a place of pilgrimage. Thousands of people come and pray to his grave. It is said that wonders happened here, to the prayers of the pilgrims, in response from God. The cause for the beatification and canonization of Vasile Aftenie and 6 other Romanian bishops began on 28 January 1997. The diocesan inquiry is closed in 2010 and sent to Rome for study by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. Since each bishop has the right to be buried in the church he served, the bones of Bishop Vasile Aftenie were exhumed in 2010, and his remains taken from Bellu cemetery to a Greek-Catholic church in Bucharest for storage on 13 May 2010, a request for his beatification having been submitted the year before. On 19 March 2019 Pope Francis approved the beatification of Aftenie and six other Greek-Catholic martyr bishops killed by the communist regime in Romania in the mid-20th century. On 25 March it was announced that Pope Francis himself would beatify Aftenie and the other six bishops on 2 June 2019 at Blaj's Liberty Field. He was beatified with the other six Bishops on that day in Blaj's Liberty Field.
