Father Dimitrie the Unknown. The destiny of a Bessarabian priest

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 early years, the rulers were relatively lenient towards their new subjects, who did not pay taxes, were not conscripted into the army, and were not forced to learn a language they did not understand.

Gradually, the citizens of Bessarabia were forced to follow the rules that applied to all Russian gubernias, so that the Russian language was increasingly heard in the towns, in the administration and in the church. At home, however, the peasants spoke the language of their ancestors and lived as all their relatives had done.

Rezeni was a free peasants village whose origins go back to St. Stephen the Great. Documents show that on the 8th of June 1485, for their merits in defending the country, the ruler gave the Râzan brothers, soldiers of the noble Gangur family, the estate on the Vișnovăț River, as they were guarding against the Tartars, who often crossed the Nistru river to plunder Moldavia. Several historians have recorded these dates, and my father provided some clarification in an article published in 1936.

Ion Inculeț and Ion Pelivan were born in the village of Rezeni, and Dr. Elena Alistar, my father’s godmother and godfather, lived here for more than 10 years, all members of the National Council that established the Union in 1918.

Probably the Balaur lineage was quite large, because about 40 km from Rezeni, on the banks of the Prut River, there is a village called Bălăurești. According to the tradition of the Balaur family, the men were priests or teachers, scholars and book lovers. My father found in the church of Rezeni a Horologion printed in Iași in 1797, which his great-grandfather, the priest Zaharia Balaur, said he bought in 1802 for 35 lei, at a time when one hectare of land cost 50 bani (1 leu was comprised of 100 bani). Among his ancestors there was another priest, Ilie Balaur, a more private man, and another Balaur, Job, who, in contact with the Russian intelligence, became a bit of a revolutionary and probably disappeared in the Siberian forests, never to be mentioned by his family. That is why, when his grandfather saw his son going to school far away from home, he advised him not to get involved in political circles.

My grandfather, Isidor Balaur, was a teacher in Rezeni, a gentle, gentle man, respected by the village, whom my father loved dearly, while my grandmother, Ana, née Sârbu, mother of ten children, was more fierce, thought of great kindness – as the son wrote in a letter, recalling his aunt, an unsurpassed housewife whose cakes ended up on the king’s table; but that is another story. 

Of the ten children, three survived – the eldest sister, Catherine, a younger sister, Helen, and son Dimitrie, the ninth born. Most of them died young, as they did in Romanian villages. But three boys – John, Peter and Paul, aged between 10 and 14 – died within a week of each other from an epidemic. Dimitrie was born shortly after this tragedy, and his parents considered him a gift from God, showing him a boundless love that he remembered all his life. He grew up in a pious atmosphere, where duty to worldly things was subordinated to obedience to the divine commandments, and everything was interwoven with respect for tradition and obedience to the elders, traits he retained until the last day of his life. In Bessarabia at the beginning of the century, the family had a strong nucleus in which relations between members were based on love and respect. The peasants called the church singer “father teacher” and the husbands addressed each other as “mata”.

 When he grew up, he went to Chișinău, to school and boarding school, like his sisters, in the cart of his beloved neighbour, Elder Ion Chioșa, over the domed hills of Bessarabia. In the seminary, as in all the schools of the province, the language of use was Russian. The children were told that they were Moldovians, of Slavic, not Latin, origin, that the neighbouring Romanians were a gypsy people, and that the Moldavian language was different from Romanian. They were taught Russian history and literature. The teachers were generally excellent educators, the school was very serious, and Russianisation was carried out in an intelligent, subtle and non-aggressive way. Theological subjects were taught thoroughly, and services were conducted with all the fervour of Russian Orthodoxy, so that throughout his life he retained a deep love for the Russian Church, combined with a fear of state politics which he had felt as a young man. In Bessarabia, among the romances sung in the evenings during visits, there was one that seemed to date from the time of the 1877 war:

My Ivan, cross in your breast / And heathen at heart, / You called me to help you / And like Judas you sold me.

At home and on the streets they spoke “Moldavian”, but when they went to school they spoke only Russian. The First World War began, the revolution began in Russia. The Bessarabian intellectuals, still conscious of their Romanian legacy, took advantage of Lenin’s declaration on the self-determination of peoples, formed the National Council and, on 27 March/9 April 1918, proclaimed the union of Bessarabia, with its borders between the Prut and Dnieper rivers, with Romania. The desperate cry of a Transnistrian deputy from the rest of the country was recalled: “Brothers, to whom have you abandoned us?”

 My father was 15 at the time. He decided to study “in the country”. He was a tall, rather thin young man, with regular features, a beautiful tenor voice, who danced well, although he was sober and reserved, neat, very disciplined, respectful of his elders and understanding of children.

At the age of 20, his father died suddenly. At that moment he felt the vanity of life, wanted to give up his plans to study and thought of entering a monastery. But Heaven’s mercy decided otherwise. His widowed mother and sisters begged him not to leave them. In Russia, anyone who entered a monastery was considered dead to his family, for he left all ties with the outside world, family or friends, and only in special cases did he leave the monastery at the request of the abbot. He therefore postponed his decision and devoted himself to his studies.

He graduated from the Faculty of Theology in Bucharest in 1928 and from the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy in 1932, specialising in geography and Old Slavonic studies, both magna cum laudae. With his serious, diligent but friendly nature, his intelligence and interest in everything he did, and his unusual name, he quickly attracted the attention of his teachers. Professor Simion Mehedinți, when he signed his attendance book, as was the custom at the time, wondered, “Where are you from, Mr. Balaur?” When he found out that he was a Bessarabian, he was delighted – there was a purely Romanian name on the other side of the Prut. They remained close until my father was arrested. So did his other teachers and tutors, while he was in Bucharest and then when he returned to his home province.

He was a teacher of religion in Rezina (1928-29), then a secretary at the Holy Synod for a few years, living in a small room in the Antim monastery (1930-36), and then a cultural counsellor in the Bishopric of Bălți. He was editorial secretary of the magazines “Romanian Orthodox Church” and “Bessarabian Church”.

On 28 February 1937, in the church of the Eparchial Gymnasium in Chișinău, he married Minodora Danilov, daughter of a teacher from Chișcăreni – Bălți, graduate of the Faculty of Letters, German Language from Iași. Since my father was a “good catch”, many acquaintances rushed to introduce her to candidates, especially those who were rich or had promising relationships. My father was afraid of wealth, he thought it enslaved people. He met his future wife on St Nicholas’ Day in 1936, at the home of the Iavorski family, who later became her godparents, together with Mrs. Alistar, the headmistress of the diocesan grammar school. She preferred this poor young woman, who lived with her widowed mother, a clerk in the administration (because German had just been taken out of the schools and she had not yet found another job), shy, with big, sad blue eyes that I later, when my parents began to worry about me, compared her with a quiet “forget-me-not” flower girl, but with an exceptional artist’s voice, which was particularly appreciated at the Diocesan High School by Father Alexandru Cristea, who composed the music to the famous verses of the poet Alexe Mateevici “Our Language”. A kind acquaintance asked her how she had the courage to marry such a weak man, who probably had tuberculosis.

On Easter Eve 1937, on the 2nd of May, he was ordained a priest in the large and beautiful cathedral of Bălți, where he served on Sundays and holidays until 1944, with the exception of a year of hiding, and St. Nicholas became the patron Saint of the new family. On working days he was busy from morning to night in the bishopric, in the office of the counsellor and with the magazine. We lived in the spacious diocesan house opposite the cathedral.

After the surrender of Bessarabia to its neighbour and traditional enemy to the east on 27 June 1940, he fled with my mother and me, aged two, to Bucharest, where he remained as a priest in the church “Oborul Nou” until the summer of 1941, when he returned with us to Bălți. Here he tried to continue his life as a refugee, in the harsh conditions of war, deportations of relatives and acquaintances. But in the spring of 1944 we set out again, this time for good. My father was 40 years old at the time.

We took refuge in Caransebeș, as far west as possible, like most Bessarabians, as far away as possible from the flood of armies that had crossed the Dnieper onto Romanian soil, and we lived in a kindergarten that had been specially dismantled for refugees. It was here that we were caught on 23 August 1944, when the radio announced that the guns were turned against Germany. My father, who was probably still hoping for a situation that would protect us from the Soviet invasion, went out at night under the impression of what he had heard, hit the branch of a tree and came into the house covered in blood. It was then that I, a child preoccupied with games and stories, understood that something bad had happened to all of us.

Here we were caught in Anglo-American bombing raids, here we saw Soviet troops marching through the streets of the city, drunken soldiers cutting themselves with knives and collapsing on the pavement. I sat indoors, afraid of the rampaging hordes – and I was right, because many people were attacked in broad daylight. That’s how Father Nicolae Gonța, 36, was killed, I found out later, in Craiova, in the street, by a group of soldiers.

From time to time, my father, who spoke Russian well, was asked by the people of Banat, who were forced to shelter Soviet officers, to help them get along. Some of them, especially the Caucasians, were respectful; one even advised him to stay out of their way, as there were many who were capable of anything, something my father had also heard in Bessarabia when he got to know our neighbours. He confessed to him, in great secrecy, that he was a believer, that he regretted this war and that he knew they had no chance of returning home alive.

We stayed there until the onset of winter, when my father, after several trips to the capital to visit his many acquaintances, took us to Bucharest. He was given the post of spiritual teacher at the “Nifon Metropolitan” seminary, and our home was the museum room of the seminary. It was after the war, after the devastating drought of 1945-1947. In the canteen of the seminary we ate the same meal of potatoes and lime tea. We were also given “American aid”, but all I remember is that the plastic bag contained about a kilo of coloured wax crayons and a blunt pitchfork. The students got more from home, from their parents, but we were glad we weren’t starving. There was always something to buy at the market, but with the money we had we couldn’t afford much. My nose bled every night. My father was weak and worked hard. At some point, I think it was around 1947, his leg started to hurt, and it got worse and worse. He couldn’t walk at all. I remember him crawling around the house on crutches. The doctors shrugged. One doctor told him he’d probably have to have his leg amputated. Then somehow, without medication, without surgery, the leg began to heal. On the painful spot, on the ankle, a big brown spot appeared, like a sign of neoliberalism.

From that time I found two letters written by Father Iavorski, who stayed in Banat:

“November 1948. The godson’s letters … come to us as a balm, for we see sincerity and a true bond of soul and love that holds us together … We are glad that our godson continues to keep his cool and see things as they really are. Only faith in God and the hope that He will not leave us until the end – these are the true foundations of our tormented life in this valley of tears. We are writing this letter to you today, an important day in the life of the godparents – 44 years of priesthood?

How much joy we had on that day, how many hopes and aspirations… They faded like a dream, crumbled into nothingness and seemed like nothing at all … All is dust and a dream. In the desert, all the earthlings are troubled … I realise it’s not bad yet … A piece of bread, a coat, a boot we have, shelter there and tomorrow is almost certain. Thanks be to God. Blessed be the name of the Lord!”

The January 1949 letter follows: 

“… joy that the godson can move a little and without crutches … May God give us news of his complete recovery… God overcomes the order of nature where He wills”.

In 1948, with the nationalisation law of 11 June, the seminary was closed down and its students and collaborators dispersed wherever they could find them. In the summer of 1948, my father was first assigned to the church “St. Visarion”, where he knew Father Ioan D. Petrescu, but shortly afterwards he was transferred to the church in the Parcul Domeniilor district, called “Cașin Monastery”, after the name of the street leading to the Arch of Triumph. The parish priest was Dumitru Manta, who had started the construction of the beautiful cathedral (architect I. Berechet, who also built the cathedral in Bălți) about 10 years ago and had finished the outside, but the inside was unfinished, so they worshipped in the small chapel on the right. My father brought some students from the seminary, which was about to close, and they collected the rubble from the big church, cleaned it up, put the icons that had been collected in the cellar on the brick walls and began to serve with Father Manta at the altar without an iconostasis, as in a Catholic church, which attracted the faithful, who were curious to see what the priests were doing during the Holy Liturgy.

The parish priest managed to erect the iconostasis in a very short time, so that services could be held as required.

On 22 March 1959, the church was closed and Father Manta was arrested, together with his family (his wife, two boys in engineering and a girl in her final year at university), the parish priest, the cantor and a few other people. The following Sunday, with our hearts clenched in fear, we stood at the window of the small attic flat in the rectory where we lived and watched as people went to the church, circled the locked door and the imposing steps of the entrance, exchanged a word or two and retreated in fear. After almost two weeks, the church was reopened, my father was allowed to say an Akathist on Friday and a Holy Liturgy on Saturday 4th of April, after which he too was arrested and put into a car waiting outside the church, to the horrified looks of my mother and the few worshippers who dared to stay.

The trial of the so-called “Cașin convent lot” took place on 11 August and 4 September, with an audience.

The charge was “intensive activity against the working class”. The father’s court-appointed lawyer tried to defend the “criminal”, but was urgently silenced on the grounds that he might end up next to the accused. The sentences were pronounced on 8 September. The priest Dimitrie Balaur was sentenced to 12 years’ hard labour for fighting against the world’s first socialist state, the Soviet Union, and to “15 years’ hard labour, 8 years’ deprivation of civil rights and confiscation of property for the crime of sedition against the social order”. According to the sentence “No. 166 of 8.09.1959 of the Military Tribunal Region II Bucharest”, he was to serve the maximum sentence.

He was investigated in Jilava, then served his sentence in Gherla prison for over two years, working in the Danube Delta and in Balta Brăilei, in Periprava, Mărașu, etc., where he was allowed to write us a postcard and receive a parcel. He was released at the end of July 1964, “according to the pardon decree no. 411/1964”. He was 61 years old at the time.

On his return, he stayed at home for a few months until he was called, first to the church of “Puișor” in 1965, then, after a short time, to the church of Drumul Taberei.

He always wanted to be closer to home, but it was not possible. In 1970 he moved to “Sf. Vineri Nouă” in Bld. Titulescu, and a few years later to the Buzești church. As he approached the age of 80, he caught a cold and developed pleurisy, and was taken to hospital by a doctor friend of the family, where he was given a prognosis of a few weeks to live.

When he came out of hospital about a month later, he met the doctor who had admitted him and said, “Well, doctor, what about the two weeks you gave me? The doctor pointed up and said humbly, “Sir! Then he added, “You had a good heart. Dad liked to tell this story, saying that the doctor was talking anatomically, but he was thinking of the soul. A year before he died, at the age of 91, he was taken to hospital again, this time for an operation on a strangulated hernia, and made an incredible recovery in a short space of time.

In 1992, after the fire that destroyed the church of St. Nicholas in Buzești in 1991, he retired, but continued to serve at the invitation of the parish priests of Buzești, Teodor Grigoraș and Marin Moldoveanu, until 31 March 1996, when he celebrated his last Holy Mass.

On the 6th of April 1996, Lazarus Saturday, after a funeral service in the cemetery of St. Friday, he suffered a cerebral haemorrhage and died on the 19th of April, the Feast of the Life-Giving Spring, after 59 years of priesthood.

He was buried in the “Cernica” monastery on the Easter of the Blajins, the first day of the commemoration of the dead after Easter in Bessarabia, a feast he loved so much and about which he wrote in the magazine “Romanian Orthodox Church” 60 years ago.

The man of the pen

Even as a student, his future theological and cultural activities on behalf of his homeland could be glimpsed. The following note appeared in a Chișinău newspaper:

“On 6 January 1927, in the rooms of the boys’ school in com. Rezeni, jud. Lăpușna, a school party was held in honour of the Society of Theological Students from Bucharest, in recognition of the hard work they had put into the school building, and as a result they received 155 volumes of books for the Rezeni School library, in addition to the 450 volumes of the library.

The company was represented by Mr. Dim. Balaur, a student of literature and theology and a member of the Society of Theological Students in Bucharest, who was delegated by the Society for this purpose. Mr. Dim. Balaur gave a lecture on the occasion, which he treated with great enthusiasm.

As a representative of the Society of Theological Students, he pointed out that one of the objectives of the Society is cultural, which includes the establishment of public libraries. He praised the House of Schools from which these books were obtained. He urged the students to persevere in their studies so that those of them who would become students could complete the work they had begun, advising them to read and read again. Mr. Vasile Arvinte, the director of the school in Rezeni, sent his compliments to the Society of Theological Students in Bucharest.

On this occasion there was also a Christmas tree party where prizes of books and shoes were distributed to deserving students…”.

After finishing his studies in Bucharest, he taught religion at the high school in Rezina for a year, and after a few years as a secretary at the Holy Synod, he returned to Balti. Several years of intense cultural and spiritual activity followed.

While still in Bucharest, together with the priests Paraschiv Angelescu and Olimp Căciulă and the future priest Dumitru Fecioru, he participated in the foundation of the library “Viața Noua”. The prospectus of 1935, which recommended sending correspondence to “D. Balaur, Palace of Holy Synod, str. Antim nr. 29, București VI”, contains an introduction (still valid today) from which we quote: 

“We are all familiar with the rambling writings spread throughout the country. We are also aware of their destructive effects. The pure soul of our nation is being infected to its very depths by the unbridled desire of those who are interested in rash and unscrupulous financial gain… Faced with all these immoral writings, we have formed a Christian and Romanian front of fierce opposition… The first edition… is St. Gregory of Nyssa: Be perfect!’

While still a student of theology, he wrote his bachelor’s thesis on “The Churches in Eastern Moldavia”, at the suggestion of the academician Father Professor Nicolae Popescu, a work that was very well received by the committee and then published.

…Thus, in the magazine “Șezătoarea” appeared the folklore collection “From the popular literature of Bessarabia” (from the village of Rezeni – Lăpușna). Iordan Datcu writes in the “Dictionary of Romanian Ethnologists” that D. B. “should be mentioned because in the folklore of the inter-war period he was the only Bessarabian who printed in our first folklore magazine a remarkable collection”, which “contains archaic and original folk creations: conocării, forgivenesses, the New Year’s Eve haunting, a carol, mournings and some lyrical texts. Finally, there are notes on the mournings, on the contexts in which they were spoken or sung, on the importance of obtaining such texts from the mourners”. The dictionary mentions that he had a project for a work entitled “Religious Celebrations and Customs in Eastern Moldavia”, but it never appeared.

Regarding the published collection, G. T. Kirileanu wrote to him on 14 July 1929, in a letter with the letterhead of “Casa M. S. Regelui”, where he was secretary general: “I gave a copy to Fr. Nicolae. We were both happy that a young and worthy son of Bessarabia was starting his publishing activity for the knowledge of the souls of our brothers from the other side of the Prut… With affectionate love, G. T. Kirileanu”.

My father was 25 years old at that time. In the envelope of the letter there is also a draft of a reply, in which, apart from his thanks, he says:

“Along with the joy, I also had the regret that I had collected only a part of the verses and nothing of the people’s creations in prose, and I added: Then I thought incessantly about my works in the future, before my eyes I saw different titles of works, bigger and smaller bindings, and even their colours…”.

But God’s will was different. On the 24th of December 1929, G. T. Kirileanu, apart from informing him that D. B. had been appointed by His Eminence the Metropolitan Pimen, with the favourable opinion of Fr. Tit Simedrea, to the post of Deputy Head of Office at the Holy Synod’s Chancellery on the 1st of January 1930, adds at the end of the letter that the work had been awarded a prize by the “King Ferdinand I” Foundation.

The letters that the young theologian received from Mr. Kirileanu and Fr. Nae Popescu during this period are striking for the love and care, sometimes combined with a light humour, that are evident in their lines.

G.T.K. intercedes for the reduction of a fine, probably resulting from the old mother’s failure to pay taxes to the tax office on time, and adds: “I think you’ve come to terms with the other things you talked about. If anything, we’re still here! With love…”

Father N. Popescu replies to a letter in which he complains of a sore throat: “Because of a hoarseness to doubt the cure?! O you of little faith! For the young the sun always rises, the flowers bloom and the birds sing… Don’t worry about the fact that you haven’t worked at all this summer. Just think of it as a holiday… I talked to Mr Kirileanu and he agrees with me that you should be relaxed about the task that the Foundation has given you. Get well… and then we’ll see what plans we have. If you have to give something to the Foundation to be in the New Year, I think you should submit the research you did in the churches last year. It will be enough to prove your zeal for historical research… Youth should not count the years; counting the years is our business, those of us with silver in our hair. I’d be glad to know that you’re cheerful. If I had the time, I’d come through Bessarabia and reach Rezeni, but I’m afraid that the priests in Chișinău will throw me out of the dormitory, that the lady in Ialoveni will say she has no mail horses, and that the lady in the next village will greet me with a kind expression while eating sunflower seeds: “What hell of a kind you gypsies from Romania are!?” I haven’t read a word of Russian since you left. We’re having a good time…”.

His publishing activity, apart from some articles published in the magazines he worked for – e.g. “Churches in Eastern Moldavia”, “Documents of the Reznens”, etc. – was tireless in internal chronicling (various events: congresses, celebrations, commemorations), external chronicling (ecclesiastical events, the most important in neighbouring countries or further away: Czechoslovakia, Poland, Russia, Finland, Korea, etc.), reviews, bibliographical notes on exegetical, systematic, historical theology, history of religions.

When he took up the post of counsellor of the diocese of Bălți-Hotin, he became increasingly involved in the cultural and, above all, religious life of the northern counties of Bessarabia. When he was not “in the field”, in the village parishes, he was in the bishopric from morning till evening, so that his family hardly saw him late at night, and on Sundays he attended the archiepiscopal Mass in the cathedral of Bălți. The rich correspondence from 1937 to 1944, with an interruption in 1940-1941, shows multiple relations with the priests in the villages and fairs of the counties, exchanges of books and magazines, mutual collaboration with publications from other parts – from Chișinău, for example.

He collaborated with the magazines “Misionarul”, “Apostolul”, “Însemnări creştine”, proofread, electronically typesetted, published the articles of the priests of his diocese, wrote reviews for “Biserica basarabeană”, facilitated exchanges with the magazine “Arma cuvântului”, responded to requests for the publication of different volumes in different cities of Bessarabia.

(Elena Teodoreanu – Akademos Magazine, no. 3 (30), September 2013, pp. 101-106)