Warning: This story contains allegations of sexual assault and talk of suicide.

Shelley Trubiak says she suffered in silence for 52 years — but two years ago she decided she couldn’t do it anymore after she started having flashbacks of abuse by a priest she says she suffered through growing up in his small community in western Manitoba.

Trubiak, now 66, went to the RCMP in 2022, sparking a two-year investigation that led to an arrest warrant being issued in August for Constantin Turcoane, then 81.

The retired priest was charged with rape and sexual intercourse with a person under 14 after Trubiak alleged he sexually assaulted her in the early 1970s when she was 12 and a parishioner at his church in Lennard, Man.

“I was scared and I was scared — I’ve been going through this my whole life,” Trubiak, who now lives in Saskatchewan, told CBC News this week. “I have to heal from this, (and) this is the only way I could.

“I just want to tell my story.”

None of the allegations against Turcoane have been tested in court. No court date has been set for his charges.

Turcoane’s lawyer told CBC News his client denies the charges and will plead not guilty if the case goes to trial. He did not comment further because the case is before the courts.

The retired priest, who was living in Regina at the time, turned himself in to police after being charged in August and has since been released from custody.

Turcoane served as a priest in the early 1970s at the Romanian Orthodox Church of St. Elijah from Lennard, a small community near the Saskatchewan border and about 300 kilometers northwest of Winnipeg.

The Canadian Orthodox History Project website Turcoane says he worked with the parish in 1970-71.

Trubiak said he remembers Turcoane moving to Lennard in the winter of 1969, but doesn’t remember speaking to him outside of church until the summer of 1970.

She said she and her friends were playing hide and seek in the cemetery behind the church when the priest approached her and started talking to her. She claims he grabbed her chest.

“Back then I didn’t even have breasts and he held me so tight. He used to choke me,” Trubiak said. “I’ll never forget that.”

Trubiak alleges that Turcoane frequently engaged in unwanted touching and other sexual acts at church and at home, where he sometimes cared for his daughter.

“He always used to say, ‘Oh, Daddy loves you, so that’s good, that’s all right. Daddy loves you,” she said.

“He took my life, my childhood”

Trubiak says the priest told her to shut up and keep the alleged sexual abuse between the two to a secret.

A year later, she said she overheard her mother talking to another church member about complaints about Turcoane’s involvement in other alleged abuse. That’s when he decided to tell his mother.

The priest was eventually removed from the church.

Despite this, Trubiak said she felt like no one in the community believed her, and her family was isolated.

With little support, she said she began to believe she deserved what happened to her. He later tried to take his own life, she said.

“Most kids have good memories, good memories. I have terrible memories of my childhood,” Trubiak said. “He took my life, my childhood.”

Her life went into a downward spiral and she began using drugs, alcohol and sex to numb her pain, she said.

She ran away from home several times, sometimes for months at a time, as she struggled to cope in her teenage years, including after having a child at the age of 16.

Trubiak says that while the memories of her abuse never left her mind, she learned how to deal with them through counseling.

In 2016, she moved to Saskatchewan to care for her dying mother and began to struggle with flashbacks.

“I was in so much pain,” she said. “It’s like being poisoned. I have to get this out of me.”

A choice for survivors: expert

Experts say it’s very common for abuse survivors to share their stories years — or even decades — after the fact.

“When someone has faced a violation, such as sexual violence, where choice and consent has been taken away from that person, they reclaim it when they can choose to come forward in their own way,” said Kara Neustaedter, who oversees a program. at Winnipeg’s Community Health Clinic that helps survivors of sexual abuse.

Neustaedter said coming forward is ultimately a choice, not a responsibility, and people have different reasons for sharing their experiences.

RCMP told CBC News they haven’t heard from any other people who have come forward to say they were abused by Turcoane since the charges were laid in August, but several witnesses in Trubiak’s case have given statements to police, helping with the investigation.

In the meantime, Trubiak hopes that sharing her story publicly will help other survivors of sexual abuse come forward.

“You don’t have to take these ugly things to your grave,” she said. “Please come, not just for me, but for the other women as well.”

For anyone who has been sexually assaulted, support is available through crisis lines and local support services Government of Canada website or the Ending Violence Association of Canada database. If you are in immediate danger or fear for your safety or the safety of others, please call 911.