During the
Soviet occupation, the religious life in
Bessarabia and Northern
Bukovina underwent a persecution similar to the one in
Russia between the two
World Wars. In the first days of occupation, certain population groups welcomed the Soviet power and some of them joined the newly established Soviet nomenklatura, including
NKVD, the Soviet
political police. The latter has used these locals to find and arrest numerous
priests.[1] Other priests were arrested and interrogated by the Soviet NKVD itself, then deported to the interior of the
USSR, and killed. Research on this subject is still at an early stage. As of 2007, the Christian Orthodox church has bestowed the
martyrdom to circa 50
clergymen who died in the first year of Soviet occupation (1940–1941).[1]
In 1940–1941, some
churches were sacked, looted, transformed into public or utility buildings, or closed. Taxes were set, which the believers were obliged to pay if they wanted to pray and be allowed to hold the
mass. When
Romanian authorities returned after June 1941, churches and
monasteries were rebuilt and opened again, but persecution resumed in 1944, when Soviet forces
reconquered the territory.[1][2][3]
The (incomplete) list below contains clergymen of any
denomination. Like the majority of the population of the region,[citation needed] most of the people named below were
RomanianChristian Orthodox. A person is listed below only if the church has officially used the term martyr in reference to the individual. In doing so,
Christian churches have to follow a three-step rule: martyrium materialiter (violent death), martyrium formaliter ex parte tyranni (for the faith on the part of the persecutors), martyrium formaliter ex parte victimae (conscious acceptance of God's will).
Alexandru Motescu, a Bessarabian Romanian Orthodox priest in the city of
Tighina. According to the deposition of several witnesses in face of the Comisia de triere in
Buzău in 1941, at the onset of the Soviet occupation of Bessarabia, he was caught by a group of Communist supporters and violently mocked. His
tongue and
ears were cut, then he was taken to the
altar, where he was set on fire, and died in horrible pain.[4][5][6]
Gheorghe Munteanu (born April 22, 1909, d. 1940), a Bessarabian Romanian Orthodox priest. In 1931, he graduated from the Faculty of Theology of the
University of Iași, and was ordained a priest in December 1931, being assigned to the Nerușai parish,
Ismail County. On July 1, 1935, he became parish priest of the Regina Maria Church in a suburb of the city of Ismail. He was arrested in the summer of 1940, his hair was cut and his beard was shaved amidst demands that he renounce his faith. When he repeatedly refused, his NKVD tormentors smashed his head on the steps of the Cathedral in
Ismail. The people of the city buried him secretly.[4][7][8][9]
^
abc(in Romanian)Martiri pentru Hristos, din România, în perioada regimului comunist, Editura Institutului Biblic și de Misiune al Bisericii Ortodoxe Române, București, 2007, pp. 34–35.
^(in Romanian)Ludmila Tihonov, Politica statului sovietic faţă de cultele din RSS Moldovenească (1944–1965), Editura Prut Internaţional, 2004, p.23–65
^(in Romanian)Alexandru Donos, Regimul sovietic şi Biserica Ortodoxă din Basarabia comunizată (1944–1953), in Partidul, Securitatea și Cultele, 1945–1989, Adrian Nicolae Petcu Ed., București, Nemira, 2005, p. 337–349
^
ab(in Romanian)Martiri pentru Hristos, din România, în perioada regimului comunist, Editura Institutului Biblic şi de Misiune al Bisericii Ortodoxe Române, București, 2007, p. 764
^(in Romanian)Constantin I. Stan, Alexandru Gaiţă, Refugiaţi din Basarabia şi Bucovina de Nord la Râmnicu-Sărat, Buzău și Mizil (1940–1941), in Destin românesc, an IV (1997), no. 2 (14), p. 79, cf. Ibidem above
^(in Romanian)Constantin I. Stan, Alexandru Gaiţă, Biserica Ortodoxă Română din Basarabia şi Bucovina de Nord în anii 1940–1941, in Destin românesc, an IV (1997), no. 3 (15), pp. 99–110, cf. Ibidem above
^(in Romanian) Constantin I. Stan, Alexandru Gaiță, Biserica Ortodoxă Română din Basarabia şi Bucovina de Nord în anii 1940–1941, in Destin românesc, an IV (1997), no. 3 (15), pp. 99–110, cf. above
^(in Romanian)Alexandru Usatiuc-Bulgăre, Preoți martiri ai Mitropoliei Basarabiei, in Literatura și Arta, nr. 11 (2391), 13 martie 1997, Chișinău, p. 7, cf. above
^(in Romanian)Alfa și Omega, an I, nr. 1, ianuarie 1995, p.5, cf. above