Fr. Dimitrie Balaur (en)

There are things that I have experienced directly, and there are others that I have felt through my parents, first of all, and then through my whole family. My father, in particular, is the repository of many events in the history of a whole Bessarabian family that had to pay a heavy tribute to life, both in Bessarabia itself and in communist Romania. Today, my elderly father (soon to be 90 years old, God willing) is very active: he celebrates Mass and tirelessly responds to the call of the faithful, reads, translates, but… he speaks a little and with reserve […]

More

I think the first time I saw Father Dimitrie Balaur was just a glimpse of him, on the occasion of a baptism to which I had been invited, in the church of St. Nicholas – Buzești. I don’t remember exactly what year it was, probably before ’89. It was easy to notice. He emanated spirituality. The other priest at St Nicholas’s was barely accepting him rather than giving him at least an equal role in leading the service. I thought they were taking turns to serve, on a weekly basis, equally, as is done in many places, but I was […]

More

The priest Dimitrie Balaur was born in the village of Rezeni, Lăpușna County, on 4/17 September 1903. At that time, Bessarabia, an ancient Romanian province, had been under the rule of Tsarist Russia for almost a hundred years. On 16th/28th May 1812, through transactions between the Tsarist and Ottoman Empires that historians have never really clarified, the eastern half of Moldavia became part of Russia – which, under the guise of Pan-Slavism and the idea of saving the peoples of the Ottoman Empire through Orthodoxy, was actually making its way towards the Balkan Peninsula and the Mediterranean Sea. In the […]

More

He was born on 4 September 1903 in the family of the teacher Isidor Balaur from Răzeni, Jud. Lăpușna (today in Ialoveni r.). The same locality is the birthplace of Ion Pelivan and Ion Inculeț. Elena Alistar, teacher, politician, the only woman member of the National Council, lived here for many years. All these three personalities were great fighters for the unification of Bessarabia with the motherland. After finishing primary school in 1910, Dimitrie Balaur enrolled at the Theological Seminary in Chișinău, then at the Faculty of Theology at the University of Bucharest, graduating magna cum laudae (1928). During a […]

More

More than two decades after the fall of communism in Europe, we are witnessing numerous attempts to rewrite recent history, often documented in the archives of the former organs of repression. At other times, such attempts are either exaggerated, understated or even legitimise identity reconstructions designed to exploit a geopolitics that emerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The case of Bessarabia is eloquent: we are accepting the Romanian past, emphasising the Russian stamp and constructing a different ethnic and religious identity. It is almost impossible to understand how a Romanian past can be accepted in Bessarabia, which is […]

More