Archbishop Victorin Ursache, who led the Romanian Orthodox Missionary Archdiocese in America and Canada from 1966 to 2001, was commemorated at Putna Monastery on Saturday, 18 July, marking 25 years since his repose in the Lord.
His Grace Damaschin of Dorna, Assistant Bishop of the Archdiocese of Suceava and Rădăuți, officiated a memorial service in the monastery’s princely church and then spoke about three essential virtues of the late hierarch. The first was his respect for proper ecclesiastical order.
“Raised in a family of faithful people, he preserved throughout his life what he had learned there. He never forgot what he had acquired at Neamț Monastery, where he entered as a novice, received the monastic tonsure and was ordained deacon and priest, wherever God later appointed him to serve the Church—neither in Jerusalem nor during his nearly 50 years in America,” the bishop emphasised.
Order, self-sacrifice and fidelity
The second virtue of Archbishop Victorin was his spirit of self-sacrifice, Bishop Damaschin continued. This was evident both in the family of nine siblings in which he grew up and during the pioneering years of his missionary work in the Holy Land and later in America.
“He frequently travelled hundreds of kilometres across the vast American continent to Romanian parishes—scattered and few in number at first—to celebrate services and meet Romanians, with a simplicity accompanied by faithful observance of his spiritual rule,” the Assistant Bishop explained.
“Sometimes he would hear that a few Romanians were living in a particular town or city. He did not know them. He would travel there by bus and search the telephone directory for Romanian names—one or two names. In this way, he would meet them, offer them guidance, and a community, a Romanian parish, would gradually begin to take shape.”
Bishop Damaschin added that the third virtue of Archbishop Victorin Ursache was his fidelity to the Romanian Orthodox Church, in a context in which Romanians in America were divided ecclesiastically.
Metropolitan Nicolae’s message
After the service in the church, Bishop Damaschin celebrated a Trisagion at the hierarch’s grave in the cemetery of Putna Monastery. Archimandrite Melchisedec Velnic then read a message sent by Metropolitan Nicolae of the Americas.
“There are people whom God places in history to become landmarks for a generation and foundations for those who will follow. Their lives are not confined to the period in which they lived, but continue to bear fruit through the work they accomplished, the faith they confessed and the example they left behind,” Metropolitan Nicolae said.
“Such a person was the ever-memorable Archbishop Victorin Ursache, shepherd, missionary, monk and spiritual father of Romanian Orthodox Christians in North America. Today, 25 years later, his memory remains alive in our hearts, and with great joy and gratitude, we gather the fruits of his life and ministry.”
“Looking today at the legacy he left us, we understand that his true strength did not lie in the authority of the office he held, but in the authenticity of his life,” Metropolitan Nicolae stressed.
“Until the end, he remained the monk formed in the spirit of Moldavia’s great lavras, preserving unaltered the discipline of prayer, obedience and humility. Although he carried upon his shoulders responsibility for a vast diocese during difficult times, he never ceased to be the monk who placed all his hope in God.”
Biographical volume
In his message, the Romanian Orthodox Metropolitan of the Americas also referred to the book dedicated to Archbishop Victorin Ursache by Archimandrite Ieremia Berbec, abbot of the Romanian Orthodox Monastery of St Demetrius the New in Middletown, New York, and a former monk of Putna.
“Through the archival documents used, the correspondence published and the numerous testimonies collected, readers have the opportunity to discover not only the biography of a hierarch, but also the drama, beauty and complexity of the history of Romanian Orthodoxy in North America during the second half of the twentieth century,” Metropolitan Nicolae said.
“Its pages contain not only the deeds of one man, but also the struggle of a generation that sought to preserve the ancestral faith in a new and often unfavourable world.”
Archimandrite Dosoftei Dijmărescu, a member of the Putna monastic community, then presented the book. The volume was produced as part of a project funded by Romania’s State Secretariat for Religious Affairs to mark 560 years since the laying of the foundation stone of Putna Monastery and was printed with the support of the Cultural Department of the Archdiocese of Suceava and Rădăuți.
“This book shows very clearly how Archbishop Victorin united truth and love,” Archimandrite Dosoftei Dijmărescu said. “We come to understand the circumstances in which he served Christ, became united with Christ and sanctified his life.”
The book on the life of Archbishop Victorin Ursache, published by Putna Monastery’s Nicodim Caligraful Publishing House, may be downloaded in full from the monastery’s website.
Photo: Putna Monastery
