10
August 1964 – Metropolitan VISARION PUIU (baptised Victor) passed away
in Viels-Maison, dep. Aisne, France (buried in Paris). Studies at the
Seminaries of Roman and Iași, at the Faculty of Bucharest (1900 – 1904)
and at the Spiritual Academy of Kiev. Tonsured in monasticism in 1905
and ordained hierodeacon for the episcopal cathedrals of Galați (1909 –
1918), director of the Seminary of Chișinău and exarch of the
monasteries of Bessarabia (1918 – 1921), Bishop of Argeș (1921 – 1923),
then of Hotin, seated in Bălți (1923 – 1935), Metropolitan of Bucovina,
seated in Cernăuți (1935 – 1940), dignity from which he retired in May
1940, then Metropolitan of Transnistria, seated in Odessa (1942 – 1943).
In August 1944, he left for Western Europe, where he remained till his
death (Austria, Italy, Switzerland, and since 1949 in Paris), where he
ran a Romanian eparchy for Western Europe till 1958. In 21 February
1946, “the people’s court” sentenced him to death “in his absence”.
Pressed by the communist authorities, the Holy Synod of the Romanian
Orthodox Church had to depose him from his dignity in1950; rehabilitated
in 1990, after the fall of the communist regime. He wrote several works
for counselling the priests, books of sermons, a monograph of the
“Monasteries of Bessarabia” (Chișinău, 1919); supervisor of the
spiritual cultural life in the eparchies he ran, the true “founder” of
the Cathedral of Bălți.
