Ieremia Cecan

"Cecan" redirects here. For the Moldovan swimmer, see Andrei Cecan.
Ieremia Cecan
Regional leader of the Romanian National Socialist Party
In office
September 1933 – ca. 1934
Personal details
Born 1867 or 1868
Novoselitsa, Bessarabia Governorate, Russian Empire
Died June 27, 1941 (aged 73–74)
Kishinev, Moldavian SSR, Soviet Union
Nationality Russian (to 1917)
Romanian (after 1918)
Spouse(s) Eugenia Cecan
Relations Octavian Vasu (son-in-law)
Profession Priest, theologian, journalist
Religion Russian and Romanian Orthodox (Metropolis of Bessarabia)

Ieremia Cecan (first name also Jeremia, Eremia or Irimia, last name also Ciocan; Russian: Иеремия Чекан; 1867 or 1868 – June 27, 1941) was a Bessarabian-born Romanian journalist, Bessarabian Orthodox priest, and far-right political figure. During the first part of his life, he was active in the Bessarabia Governorate of the Russian Empire, putting out the pioneering church magazine Nashe Obyedineniye. His opposition to Russification and his advocacy of social improvement led to a public scandal and then to is demotion by church officials, and pushed Cecan into independent journalism. However, his sympathies remained with the conservative-antisemitic Union of the Russian People, down to World War I.

Following the union of Bessarabia with Romania, Cecan bridged the distance between the Romanians and the White émigrés, publishing daily newspapers in Russian. Much of his work focused on attempts at dialogue and reunification between the Orthodox and the Catholics, sparking controversy his colleagues in the Romanian Orthodox Church, but earning notoriety in Western circles. He maintained to his death the vision of a "world church" centered on anti-communism and anti-Masonry, which, in Cecan's opinion, were intertwined.

In 1933, retired from active priesthood, Cecan veered toward Nazism. He served for as regional president of the Romanian National Socialist Party, and put out its Russian-language newspaper, Telegraf. Increasingly isolated during the final stages of his life, he was captured by the Soviets during the 1940 occupation of Bessarabia, and killed in prison during their subsequent retreat.

Biography

In the Russian Empire

Cecan was born among the Romanians of Novoselitsa (Noua Suliță or Novoselytsia),[1] in the northern tip of the Bessarabia Governorate, Russia (now in Chernivtsi Oblast, Ukraine). His original surname was Ciocan ("hammer"), which was approximated into Russian as Chekan, then mutated back into Romanian as Cecan.[2] His native area had been split from ancient Moldavia; Western Moldavia remained in Romania, whereas the Moldavian sub-region of Bukovina, just west of Novoselitsa, was administered by Austria-Hungary. Cecan went on to study in Kishinev (Chișinău), training at the Theological Seminary (in 1889) and then being assigned the central Bessarabian parish of Nișcani.[3] Later on, he furthered his studies in theology at Kiev Academy. He became a passionate reader and follower of Vladimir Solovyov, as well as a speaker for the reunification of Orthodoxy and Catholicism.[4] In his later articles on the subject, Cecan favored leniency toward the use of Filioque in the Nicene Creed and accepted the doctrine of papal infallibility.[5]

After 1905, Cecan began building up the opposition to Archbishop Seraphim Chichagov, who was an advocate of Russification. On the archbishop's orders, the Eparchy of Kishinev and Khotin began putting out journals with increasingly Russified content, with shows of support for the Tsarist autocracy.[6] From 1909, Cecan and his wife Eugenia began putting out Nashe Obyedineniye ("Our Association" or "Our Union"), presumably "the only private-owned church magazine" in early 20th-century Russia.[7] Although mostly in Russian, this publication was mainly aimed at the Bessarabian–Moldavian priests and other Romanian-speaking intellectuals. Its Romanian-language content was directed at the peasants and the schoolteachers, focusing on ideals of social improvement and education.[8] These were regarded as independent and progressive stances—for such reasons, it came to be indexed by Okhrana agents.[9] Criticized by Seraphim and by the conservative Russian press (the journals Besarabskaya Zhizn' and Drug), it closed down formally in August 1911 and reemerged instantly as Obyedineniye, with Eugenia Cecan for its editor.[10]

Despite being identified as anti-conservative dissenters, the Cecans generally took up the cause of far-right Russian nationalism. In its pages, Obyedineniye expressed full support for the Union of the Russian People (of which Cecan was a member), and in particular for the antisemitic agitator Pavel Krushevan.[11] In preparation for the legislative election of September 1912, Cecan and Alexandru Baltaga founded some 29 electoral committees of Eparchy grounds. This led them into open conflict with Archbishop Seraphim, who had ordered his clergy not to interfere with politics.[12] After signing their names to a letter of protest against Seraphim's "absolutism", Cecan and Baltaga were demoted and stripped of their parishes.[13]

Still prevented from priestly work, Cecan dedicated himself to his journalistic activity, founding, in 1914, the newspaper Bessarabets.[14] He was moderating his stances: although still representing the "right-wing section of the Eparchy", he opened up to former adversaries on the right and the left, together with whom he put out Bessarabya (1914), then Bessarabaskaya Pochta and Nash Dolg (both 1915).[15]

Church unionism

Cecan's status improved with the union of Bessarabia with Romania, following which he was reinstated a Protoiereus of the Romanian Orthodox Church. He returned to his Nișcani parish, where he built a church,[15] and continued to involve himself in political and religious disputes. By 1925–1926, he was putting out the magazine Unirea (or Yedineniye), which was a continuation of Obyedineniye.[16] Here and in his propaganda brochures, Cecan took a strongly anti-communist and anti-Soviet position, describing communism as being intertwined with Pan-Slavism and Russian Orthodoxy. He looked into ways of emancipating Romanian Orthodoxy from its Slavic counterparts, looking into the precedent set by the Romanian Church United with Rome, Greek-Catholic.[17]

In the 1920s, he returned to his old ecumenical goals, working closely with the Catholic Bishopric of Iași and Monsignor Anton Gabor, setting up a Christian institute in Bessarabia.[4] He was also in touch with Nicolae Brînzeu, the Greek-Catholic priest, who regarded Cecan as a "most courageous" intellectual.[18] His ideas on reunification were circulated by liberal Catholic papers in the West, including, in 1924, La Paix.[19] The latter newspaper also gave exposure to Cecan's take on the Immaculate Conception, on which topic he did not "foresee insuperable difficulty".[20]

Such activities, and Cecan's stance on papal infallibility, were openly criticized by conservative bishops—in particular, by Roman Ciorogariu of Oradea. In his polemic with Bishop Roman, made public in early 1933, Cecan insisted that a unified church would naturally be led by the popes.[19][20][21] During that interval, he lamented the decline of Orthodoxy, concluding that: "Our Church no longer wields any influence upon society, upon the institutions of the State, or upon the life of the nation. It neither enlightens nor warms the souls of the faithful."[20][21] In rendering his verdict, The Tablet saluted Cecan as an "earnest man and acute thinker".[20] The letter to Bishop Roman also included a critique of atheism, which Cecan associated with Masonry, claiming that they acted under a "unified command". Also according to Cecan, Pope Pius XI was the herald of anti-Masonry resistance, much more powerful in this respect than the Orthodox bishops.[21] He expanded on such topics in the March 3 issue of Viața Basarabiei, where he responded to the attacks of an unnamed Ortodox journalist. In this piece, he announced that he and other supporters of the "world united church" met and prayed weekly at Chișinău City Hall.[22]

Cecan had retired from priesthood by April 11, complaining to Brînzeu that he was being formally investigated by the Romanian Synod for "Catholicizing" Bessarabia, but also noting that he had gained many followers. With assistance from his son-in-law Octavian Vasu, a former Senator of Romania, and with contributions from the public, he intended to set up a daily newspaper.[18] Reportedly, some 300 priests, or a third of the Bessarabian clergy, had signed up his pro-Catholic platform.[23]

Nazism and final years

Between May and November 1933,[24] Protoiereus Cecan published in Chișinău the Russian-language Telegraf (also Bessarabsky Telegraf or Khristiansky Telegraf). This was an openly antisemitic tribune, with editorials in which Cecan himself called for "destroying the Jewish press".[25] The stance was praised by Irénée Merloz of the Romanian Assumptionists. According to Merloz: "the press was entirely Jewish and of a marked communist tendency, and so Father Jérémie Cecan's review, then his newspaper, also have roles in social defense and in the workers' and peasants' organization, as well as in the religious unification with Rome."[23]

Although styled "independent national-Christian" in its original format,[24] Telegraf was identifiable as a platform of the openly Nazi Romanian National Socialist Party (PNSR).[26] Cecan served as leader of the PNSR cell in Chișinău, alongside V. Leidenius, publisher of Voskresenie newspaper.[27] In September 1933, he was elected honorary president of the PNSR's Bessarabian branch.[15] Over the following years, the party broke apart; most Bessarabian Nazis joined up with the Iron Guard, a more successful fascist movement.[15]

By June 1934, Cecan was cited before the Metropolis of Bessarabia, to answer for his "propaganda against the Orthodox Church."[28] He had by then moved with his family to a small house in Chișinău, where he reportedly lived in poverty and relative isolation.[15] The Catholic convert Teodosie Bonteanu, who visited him in 1938, noted that Cecan had stopped putting out Unirea Noastră, his final magazine, and had become an avid agriculturist. However, he had also been drawn into the Confraternity of Saint Benedict,[29] and international ecumenist body founded by Serge Bolshakoff. By 1939, upon the resignation of Tikhon Lyashchenko, Orthodox Bishop of Berlin, Cecan became that group's president.[30]

In late June 1940, Bessarabia was occupied by the Soviet Union, and the NKVD swiftly arrested Cecan. His antisemitic articles and his PNSR membership were brought up against him by the government of the Moldavian SSR. On June 27, 1941, five days after the German–Romanian attack on the Soviet Union, Cecan was secretly shot by the NKVD in Kishinev prison.[15] His fate was the subject of confusion in Romania: while some simply noted that he had gone missing,[15] others acknowledged that "somewhere in Bessarabia, under a simple cross", he was "awaiting his resurrection".[4] In August 1941, news of his killing were featured in Universul daily.[18]

Notes

  1. ↑ Colesnic, p. 369; Scutaru, p. 66
  2. ↑ Colesnic, p. 369
  3. ↑ Colesnic, pp. 369–370; Scutaru, p. 66
  4. 1 2 3 Naghiu, p. 2
  5. ↑ Naghiu, pp. 2–4
  6. ↑ Scutaru, pp. 62–63
  7. ↑ Colesnic, pp. 371–372; Danilov, p. 114
  8. ↑ Colesnic, p. 371
  9. ↑ Colescnic, pp. 369–371; Danilov, pp. 113–114; Scutaru, p. 63
  10. ↑ Colesnic, p. 371; Danilov, p. 114
  11. ↑ Colesnic, pp. 370–372; Scutaru, p. 63. See also Danilov, p. 114
  12. ↑ Colesnic, p. 370; Scutaru, p. 66
  13. ↑ Colesnic, p. 370
  14. ↑ Colesnic, p. 372. See also Danilov, p. 128
  15. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Colesnic, p. 372
  16. ↑ Danilov, p. 114
  17. ↑ Brînzeu, p. 3
  18. 1 2 3 Brînzeu, p. 2
  19. 1 2 Naghiu, p. 3
  20. 1 2 3 4 "News and Notes", in The Tablet, Vol. 161, No. 4850, April 22, 1933, pp. 1–2
  21. 1 2 3 "Mișcarea spre Unire", in Curierul Creștin, Nr. 11–12/1933, pp. 122–124
  22. ↑ "Glasul conștiinței drepte. Protoiereu ortodox pentru unirea cu Roma", in Unirea, Nr. 12/1933, pp. 2–3
  23. 1 2 Irénée Merloz, "Le mouvement d'union en Bessarabie. 300 prêtres ont adhéré", in La Croix, November 4, 1933, p. 1
  24. 1 2 Ileana-Stanca Desa, Elena Ioana Mălușanu, Cornelia Luminița Radu, Iuliana Sulică, Publicațiile periodice românești (ziare, gazete, reviste). Vol. V: Catalog alfabetic 1930–1935, p. 442. Bucharest: Editura Academiei, 2009. ISBN 978-973-27-1828-5
  25. ↑ Colesnic, p. 371
  26. ↑ Panu, p. 189
  27. ↑ Panu, pp. 188–189
  28. ↑ "Roumania", in The Tablet, Vol. 163, No. 4909, June 9, 1934, p. 740
  29. ↑ Teodosie Bonteanu, "De vorbă cu un susținător al unirei bisericilor", in Unirea, Nr. 44/1938, p. 2
  30. ↑ Nicolas Mabin, Serge N. Bolshakoff – Russian Ecumenist, ROCOR Studies, February 9, 2013; retrieved March 31, 2016

References

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