Visarion Puiu (; sometimes Bessarion in French; born Victor Puiu on 27 February 1879 in Pașcani, Romania – 10 August 1964 in Paris or Viels-Maisons, France) was a metropolitan bishop of the Romanian Orthodox Church. During World War II, at a time when Romania was an ally of Nazi Germany, he served as the leading Eastern Orthodox clergyman in occupied Transnistria, a territory where several hundred thousand Jews were murdered. In August 1944, when Romania switched sides, he took refuge in Nazi Germany.
After the war, he lived in Italy and Switzerland before finally settling in France. In 1946, he was sentenced to death in absentia by the Bucharest People's Tribunal. He created the Romanian Orthodox Diocese of Western Europe under the authority of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, and for a few years played an important role in the Romanian diaspora. The in Bucharest defrocked Puiu in 1950, but posthumously restored him among its clergy in 1990. Puiu's connections to the Iron Guard, as well as his responsibility in the Holocaust, have been the subject of scholarly publications in the post-communist era.
Early life and monastic career Victor Puiu was born on 27 February 1879 in Pașcani, Romania. He attended a local primary school before pursuing an education in seminaries in Roman (1893–1896) and Iași (1896–1900). He graduated from the University of Bucharest's Faculty of Theology in 1905 and became a monk in Roman on 22 December 1905. He took the monastic name Visarion and was ordained a deacon three days later. From January 1907 to July 1908, he studied at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in Kyiv, in the Russian Empire. From 1905 to 1908, he was a deacon within the in Roman and in 1908 he transferred to the in Galați. There, on 6 December 1908, he was ordained a priest, being elevated to the dignity of Archimandrite on 1 January 1909. Three months later, he was named director of the Galați Theological Seminary and Vicar of the Archbishopric of the Lower Danube. On 1 September 1918, he became director of the Chișinău Theological Seminary in Bessarabia and, two months later, exarch of the province's monasteries. Romanian historian and nationalist politician Nicolae Iorga described him as "one of the most educated Romanian Orthodox clerics".
On 17 March 1921, Puiu was elected Bishop of Argeș. He was consecrated in that position on 25 March by Metropolitan of Wallachia Miron Cristea in the Bucharest Metropolitan Cathedral and invested into the office that day by King Ferdinand. Two days later, he was installed in the episcopal chair at the Curtea de Argeș Cathedral; he remained there for two years. In 1923 he moved to Bălți as bishop of Hotin, where he remained until 1935. From this position, he organized theological schools, printing houses, the Clergy’s Aid House, and church workshops attached to monasteries. He restored 397 churches and 40 parish houses, built a candle factory, a sanatorium, and constructed six churches in Bălți. According to Florin Ţuscanu, he worked alongside the Romanian authorities to improve the living conditions of the city’s inhabitants, ensuring access to water and electricity, developing railway transport, rebuilding the sewage system, and overseeing the construction of an airfield, a slaughterhouse, a public bath, and a maternity hospital. During his tenure in Bălți, Visarion Puiu came into conflict with the local Jewish community in 1924. The community had obtained approval to build a large synagogue on the foundation where an Orthodox church had originally been planned, even requesting that the Romanian authorities demolish the Christian foundation and grant the materials to the Jewish community for the synagogue. Visarion Puiu traveled to Bucharest to explain the situation; subsequently, the Ministry of Cults and Arts ordered the demolition of the synagogue’s walls, allowing the construction of the Christian church to proceed. At its consecration, a flood of believers arrived from all the neighboring villages.
The political situation in Romania in the late 1920s and early 1930s was marked by the rise of a fascist movement known as the Legion of the Archangel Michael. The Legion was founded in 1927 by Corneliu Zelea Codreanu as a breakaway group from A. C. Cuza's far-right antisemitic party called the National-Christian Defense League. Throughout the late 1920s and the early 1930s, the Legion steadily increased its membership among students, peasants, workers and tradesmen, but also among priests. The term "Iron Guard", often used nowadays as an alternative name for the Legion, only appeared in 1930 and originally designated the paramilitary branch of the organization.
In 1935, Puiu appointed Archimandrite Antim Nica exarch in charge of the monasteries in his Bishopric of Hotin. In the following years, under Puiu's influence, Nica would become a member of the Iron Guard and a teaching assistant of Iuliu Scriban. Scriban, Nica and Puiu would all three be involved in the future Romanian Orthodox Mission in Transnistria.
Metropolitan of Bukovina
Following the death of Nectarie Cotlarciuc, Visarion Puiu was elected Archbishop of Cernăuți (Chernivtsi) and Metropolitan of Bukovina on 17 October 1935. He was enthroned on 10 November, thus taking charge of a very wealthy metropolis. Prior to his appointment, the various assets were under secular management and no discrimination based on ethnicity was practiced. Under Puiu's leadership, however, contracts with businesses owned by Jews were terminated. He also started restricting the employment of ethnically non-Romanian individuals. The first press article supporting such policies of discrimination published in a periodical of the Bukovina Metropolis also appeared just weeks after Puiu's enthronement. Visarion Puiu was the main person involved in the foundation of the Romanian Orthodox Settlement in Jerusalem.
Puiu tended to refrain from explicit, public, political statements. He allowed antisemitic articles to be published in the Romanian Orthodox Church's periodicals in Bukovina and would do the same later-on in Transnistria, but the only time he penned a political text himself was in September 1936, in Cuvântul preoțesc ("The Priestly Word"), when he published The Church Facing the Communist Danger. Puiu's article endorsed the thesis of Judeo-Bolshevism and attacked other Christian denominations. One paragraph read: "It is very true that the majority of the communists are alien to our people, mainly Yids, but it is also true that their destructive ideas have lured a great number of unaware Romanians too. Some of them, especially peasants, are attracted by the communist enchantment through the sects which, without exception, are encouraged by the foreigners in order to destroy the Church."
Puiu's support for the Iron Guard materialized when he used his private funds to support one of the organization's "work camps" in Tămășești. Moreover, in 1937, he defied the Romanian Government and held special religious services for the Iron Guard's leader Ion Moța and his fellow legionnaire Vasile Marin. The two had been killed in the Spanish Civil War fighting on the nationalist side. The same year, King Carol II began pressuring the Orthodox Church to depose Puiu. According to historian Ion Popa (historian), the king's actions were due to "Puiu's anti-Semitic, pro-Iron Guard, and pro-German policies". Metropolitan Visarion Puiu also maintained close ties with the National Christian Party through Constantin Tomescu, who served as Undersecretary of State for Religious Affairs and Arts in the Octavian Goga cabinet.
After campaigning against "foreign" banks, Puiu ended-up creating a new one altogether, named the Northern Bank, in 1938. The Romanianization of the metropolis' workforce, finance and business was practically complete at this time.
Apart from his Iron Guard connections, Puiu's time in the metropolitan seat of Bukovina was also marred by accusations of mismanagement and embezzlement, conflict with local academic and political elites and even the revolt of a part of the lower clergy.
On 10 February 1938, King Carol II suspended the Romanian constitution, banned all political parties and appointed Patriarch Miron Cristea, the head of the Romanian Orthodox Church, as Prime Minister. This was the beginning of the "Royal Dictatorship". In March 1939, Cristea died, leaving the Patriarchal seat vacant. Puiu publicly withdrew from the race for succession in June, likely under pressure from King Carol II. The monarch sought to avoid the election of a pro-German Patriarch in the person of either Puiu or Nicolae Bălan. In May 1940, Puiu was forced to resign from his position as Metropolitan of Bukovina. He was replaced by Tit Simedrea.
Meanwhile, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin had joined Nazi Germany's leader Adolf Hitler in the attack and partition of Poland, had occupied the Baltic states and defeated Finland in March 1940. This reinforced the position of the Romanian politicians who had been advocating for closer ties with Nazi Germany. Then, in June 1940, following a Soviet ultimatum, Romania ceded Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina to the Soviet Union without any kind of military resistance. King Carol II's acceptance of the Second Vienna Award, which ceded parts of Transylvania to Hungary, further weakened his regime and on 6 September 1940, Carol was forced to abdicate.
An openly pro-German coalition of the military, headed by marshal Ion Antonescu, and the Iron Guard took over. The head of the Romanian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Nicodim Munteanu, reacted cautiously and his September 1940 address was unenthusiastic. Puiu on the other hand benefited from the regime change as he was quickly reinstated as Metropolitan of Bukovina. According to Popa, this entails that Simedrea had not been properly seated as Metropolitan, or, at least, that was the pretext invoked by the Iron Guard to return Puiu to his old position.
The Legion's cooperation with Antonescu ended violently in January 1941. Indeed, seeking full control of the Government, the legionnaires organized an insurrection known as the Legionnaires' rebellion. However, the coup failed and in the aftermath, Puiu was once more replaced as Metropolitan of Bukovina by Simedrea.
Several hundred legionnaires, including Horia Sima and other leadership figures, managed to escape to Nazi Germany. Puiu would join this émigré Iron Guard community in the final stages of World War II.
Exarch of Transnistria
On 22 June 1941, German armies with Romanian support attacked the Soviet Union. After initial military success, Romania regained control over Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina and, following an agreement between Antonescu and Hitler, also occupied the territory between the rivers Dniester and Bug. The name given to this province was Transnistria, and it would become the scene of mass murder. Under Antonescu's regime, 146,423 Jews from Bessarabia and Bukovina were deported to Transnistria, with at least 75,000 of them dying; 25,500 Roma were also deported there, of which 11,000 survived. Moreover, at least 130,000 local Ukrainian Jews were murdered under the Romanian occupation.