Visarion Puiu

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this
article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged
and removed. (June 2011)
Visarion Puiu (born Victor Puiu on 27 February 1879, Pacani, Romania - 10 August 1964,
Viels-Maisons, France) was a metropolitan bishop of the Romanian Orthodox Church.
After attending primary school in his native town, Puiu studied at seminaries in Roman (1893-
1896) and Iai (1896-1900), and later at the Bucharest Faculty of Theology, where he received a
licentiate in 1905. On 22 December 1905, he became a monk at Roman, being ordained a deacon
three days later. From January 1907 to July 1908, he studied at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.
From 1905 to 1908, he was, as a deacon, attached to the Cathedral of the Holy Voievods,
Roman, while in 1908 he was transferred to the Cathedral of Saint Nicholas, Galai. There, on 6
December 1908, he was ordained a priest, being elevated to the dignity of Archimandrite on 1
January 1909. Three months later, he was named director of the Galai Theological Seminary and
Vicar of the Archbishopric of the Lower Danube. On 1 September 1918, he became director of
the Chiinu Theological Seminary, being named Exarch of Bessarabia's monasteries two
months later (soon after that province united with the Kingdom of Romania).
[1][2]

On 17 March 1921, Puiu was elected Bishop of Arge. He was consecrated in that position on 25
March by Metropolitan of Wallachia Miron Cristea in the Bucharest Metropolitan Cathedral and
invested into the office that day by King Ferdinand. Two days later he was installed in the
episcopal chair at Curtea de Arge Cathedral; he remained there for two years. In 1923 he
became bishop of Hotin, where he remained until 1935. During his time in that position, he
undertook a number of actions to try and improve the lives of the inhabitants of the Bli area,
his seat being in that city. On 17 October of that year, he was elected Archbishop of Cernui and
Metropolitan of Bukovina, being seated on 10 November. In May 1940, he left that position and
retired to a monastery (Puiu later claimed that this was due to a conflict with King Carol II due to
the latter's alleged attempts to take Bukovina's riches for himself). While Metropolitan of
Bukovina, Puiu had tens of churches changed from wooden construction to concrete, repaired a
few hundred others, established eateries for foresters, and gave free wood to peasants (which
helped rebuild the ski resort of Vatra Dornei).
[3]

Romania entered World War II in 1941, and Puiu served as Metropolitan of Transnistria at
Odessa from 16 November 1942 to 14 December 1943. There, he reopened churches closed by
the Soviet authorities, helped the needy, the poor and children, and helped educate people in the
Orthodox faith.
[3]
In August 1944, he was in Zagreb (present-day Croatia) for the ordination of an
Orthodox bishop there, accompanied by a handful of Romanian priests. He sent the priests back
to Romania, sure they would be safe, but decided to flee to the west, fearing punishment from the
Soviets for his wartime religious activity in Transnistria.
[1]
Indeed, a pro-Communist Romanian
People's Tribunal sentenced him to death in absentia for war crimes on 21 February 1946.
[3]

For several years Puiu wandered around Europe, living for short periods in Vienna, Germany,
Switzerland, Venice, Draguignan and Auvergne, before settling for good in Viels-Maisons, a
village on the Marne River 96 km east of Paris. At one point during these travels, self-
proclaimed Iron Guard leader Horia Sima offered Puiu the post of Minister of Religious Affairs
in his government in exile, but the latter declined.
[1]

From 1948 to 1958 Puiu headed the Romanian Orthodox Church in France. Still a bishop, his
church was subordinated to the ROCOR Metropolitan in New York City, and he used the
Romanian Orthodox parish in Paris (established in the 19th century) as his cathedral. On 28
February 1950, the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church in Bucharest, headed by
Patriarch Justinian Marina and under pressure from the Communist authorities,
[2]
deposed Puiu
from his ecclesiastical position; he was rehabilitated on 25 September 1990. Among the reasons
cited for this action was an allegedly pro-Catholic 1925 article he had written; for this, he was
branded an "imperialist agent".
[1]

As of 1 April 1958, Puiu disbanded the Paris Archdiocese he had established a decade earlier.
There were three main reasons for this action. First, its goal of uniting all Romanian Orthodox
believers in Western Europe completely failed, as it never had more than one parish. Second, the
church faced a constant clergy and financial shortfall. Third, its subordination to ROCOR
isolated it within the wider Orthodox world. On top of all this, the church was riven by the
political factionalism that marked the Romanian exile community. Thus, the church was returned
to the priests who had led it before Puiu's arrival, and the bishop retired to Viels-Maisons, where
he died six years later.
[1]
He was buried in that village but later moved to Montparnasse
Cemetery, where he lies today.
[2]