Born into a peasant family in Szelistye (now Săliște, Romania), near Nagyszeben (now Sibiu), in Transylvania, Kingdom of Hungary, then part of Austria-Hungary.

Two years later, he married Veturia Nicolau [ro] (1889–1956), a lieder singer from Bucharest, who would follow him to Sibiu.

[2] Upon the close of World War II, with the outbreak of Soviet occupation, Ghibu was arrested on March 22, 1945 for anti-Soviet activity, and subsequently imprisoned in the internment camp at Caracal, where he spent 222 days.

Nevertheless, the seeds of future draconian measures were already planted: the camp authorities made it clear that the purpose of the internment was to "re-educate the bourgeoisie".

[3] After the establishment of the communist regime in Romania, he was again arrested on December 10, 1956,[2] and sentenced to 5 years in prison for organizing a rally of students at the seminary, which was inspired by the Hungarian Revolution and deemed an "action against the democratic people's regime of the People's Republic of Romania".