Proposed for canonization, Fr Alexandru Baltaga perished in the Gulag for voting unification of Bessarabia with Romania

Father Alexandru Baltaga was the representative of the Church in the House of Representatives in 1918, when he voted for the unification of Bessarabia with Romania. When the Soviets occupied Bessarabia, in 1941, aged 80, he was deported to a forced labour camp in Kazan, today’s Capital city of Tatarstan.

The priest had admitted to his interrogators that he did not agree to the Bolshevik Revolution and dissented the fact the Romanians had not been allowed to use their maternal language in religious services before the unification with Romania.

He was born on April 14, 1861, in a priest’s family and later became the parish priest of the “Aleksandr Nevski” Church in Călăraşi-sat, in today’s Republic of Moldova. He raised two adopted children, Vsevolod and Margareta.

He was a relentless promoter of Romanian culture and identity. Between 1903 and 1925, he was the chairman of the Eparchial Congress, and in 1917 he became the only representative of the Church in the House of Representatives. In this capacity, on March 27, 1918, he voted for the unification of Bessarabia with its historic motherland, Romania.

The Bessarabian clergy sometime in the 1930s: Fr. Al. Baltaga is on Metropolitan Gurie Grosu’s left. Photo source: Marturisitorii.ro

He was later appointed as a member of the Committee for the Unification of the churches of Greater Romania.

For his authority among clerics and for his work for the Church, Romanian writer Gala Galaction named him “the patriarch of Bessarabian priests”.

After Bessarabia was annexed by the Soviet Union, on June 28, 1940, he remained with his parishioners, even though the rest of his family had taken refuge on the other bank of the Prut river, in Romania.

He was quickly arrested and condemned for counter-revolutionary activity and an unfriendly attitude toward the Soviet Union. Asked by the inquisitor, Father Alexandru Baltaga admitted: “Indeed, I, Baltaga, was against the revolution and, to avoid it, I voted for unification”.

To another question, the cleric answered: “The clergy had an important role in making Bessarabia go away from Soviet Russia and join Romania. The goal of my whole subsequent activity was to consolidate the position of Romania in Bessarabia, I admit to this fact”.

11 orders and medals were confiscated from him upon his arrest. Photo source: Fericiticeiprigoniti.net

He was deported to Kazan, in today’s Tatarstan, where he soon died, on August 7, 1941.

11 orders and medals awarded by civil and Church authorities were confiscated from him upon his arrest.

Fr. Al. Baltaga never denied his pro-Romanian activity, to which he had dedicated his entire life. Photo source: Fototeca Ortodoxiei Românești

The Synod of the Metropolis of Bessarabia has recently announced that Martyr Father  Alexandru Baltaga was on the list for canonization by the Romanian Orthodox Church in 2025.

Photo source: Fototeca Ortodoxiei Românești (Fr. Al. Baltaga with stavrophoros mitre)
Source of information: Dr Mihai Tașcă in Timpul; Martiri pentru Hristos, din România, în perioada regimului comunist, Institutul Biblic și de Misiune al Bisericii Ortodoxe Române, București, 2007.

Follow our English-language News in Brief on Telegram: t.me/basilicanews

Facebook comments


Latest News