The cruel fate of the priest Alexandru Baltaga, deputy in the Country Council

Archival documents show that Alexander Baltaga was born on 14 April 1861 “in the family of the priest from the village of Lozova Stefan, to Andrei Baltaga and his legitimate wife Elena Prohorievna, both by first marriage, of Orthodox faith”.

Raised in humility towards the sacred, the young Alexander, after the parochial school in Lozova, continued his studies at the Theological Seminary in Chișinău, where he graduated in 1883, being a classmate of Alexandru Ciugureanu, father of Daniel Ciugureanu, the future Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Moldavia, one of the founders of the union of Bessarabia with Romania.

He began his activity as a shepherd of souls and servant of God on 3 December 1883, when he was appointed parish priest of the church dedicated to “Alexander Nevski” in the locality of Calărași-village. He was ordained deacon on 26 January 1886, and on 2 February 1896 – priest of the same church, where the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church allowed him to serve until the end of his life.

He was a man who, above all, promoted the Word of God, but he was also an activist in the public sphere, promoting the historical truth about Bessarabia. For 22 years (1903-1925) he was president of the Eparchial Congress. From 1908 he was a contributor to the magazine “Enlightener”. From 1899 to 1918, he was a teacher at the primary school in Călărași. Based on solid evidence, in the autumn of 1917, when the National Council was organised, the Bessarabian priesthood delegated him as a deputy to the legislative forum of Bessarabia – the National Council. His mandate, validated at the first session of the National Council – 21 November 1917, he held until the last session – 27 November 1918. He was the only representative of the Church in the National Council. Naturally, at the hour of the awakening, on 27 March 1918, Alexandru Baltaga voted for the union of Bessarabia with Romania.

He was later appointed a member of the Committee for the Unification of the Churches of Greater Romania and continued his ecclesiastical and public activities. He raised two adopted children, Vsevolod and Margareta.

With the annexation of Bessarabia by the Soviet Union on 28 June 1940, the plague struck him. During those days of hardship, Alexander Baltaga remained in Călărași with his parishioners. His wife and children managed to flee across the Prut River. The priest’s arrest was sanctioned by Iosif Mordovet, the deputy head of the Moldavian NKVD, in the first days after the occupation, and his file, for the sake of the investigation, was put together with those of other deputies of the Provincial Council captured by the Communists: Tudor Neaga, Pantelimon Sinadino, Grigore Turcuman, Nicolae Secară, Teodosie Cojocaru, Teodor Uncu, Vladimir Bodescu, Ion Ignatiuc, Constantin Bivol, Ion Codreanu, Stefan Botnariuc, the former minister Emanoil Catelly and Luca Știrbeț, under number 824.

The rich experience of the NKVD, gained during 22 years in the Moldavian SSR and the USSR, had its effect. As early as 31st of August 1940, Alexandru Baltaga was accused: “In 1918 he was hostile to Soviet Russia, was an active member of the National Council, voted for the separation of Bessarabia from Soviet Russia and its annexation to Romania, and was rewarded by the Romanian government with 50 hectares of land. As a result, he is guilty of: aiding the reactionary wing of the world bourgeoisie (Article 54, p. 4); actively fighting against the working class and the revolutionary movement (Article 54, p. 13); and counterrevolutionary sabotage (Article 54, p. 14 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR), “acts” which were punishable by years in the gulag, including death.

Here is how the investigation of this “trial” went.

On 31 August 1940 he was interrogated for the first time. Convinced of the correctness of the vote of 27 March 1918, Alexander Baltaga answered the accusations:

Investigator Cerepanov (the executioner of all the characters in this file): You are accused of having voted in 1918 in favour of separating Bessarabia from Russia and uniting it with Romania, being hostile to Soviet Russia. Do you admit this?

Father Baltaga: Yes, I do. I, Baltaga, was indeed an opponent of the revolution and in order to avoid it, I voted for the unification.

He was questioned again on 31 August 1940. The interrogator insisted.

Investigator Cerepanov: What were the reasons for the priesthood in general and for yourself to vote for the union with Romania?

Father Baltaga: I, a nationalist Bessarabian, am more aware than anyone else of the ungrateful attitude of Russian archbishops Pavel, Seraphim, etc. towards the Bessarabian priesthood. High-ranking prelates of the Church in the former Russia forbade the teaching of the Moldavian language in the schools of Bessarabia and forced religious services to be held in Russian. All these actions have made the Bessarabian clergy dissatisfied with the Russian Church and Russia in general.

He was questioned only once more, on 10 February 1941.

Investigator Cerepanov: Do you confirm the previous testimonies that you, as a representative of the priesthood, played an important role in the liberation of Bessarabia from Soviet Russia and its annexation to Romania?

Father Baltaga: I confirm this. In fact, the priesthood played an important role in the liberation of Bessarabia from Soviet Russia and its annexation to Romania. All my subsequent work was aimed at strengthening Romania’s position in Bessarabia, which I acknowledge.

After these reactions, his fate was sealed.

The preliminary investigation was completed on 13 May 1941, and the next day the prosecutor of the Moldavian SSR, S. Bondarciuc, approved the indictment and sent the file to the Supreme Court. The investigator suggested that the case be “tried” in prison. In connection with the beginning of the military operations on 22th of June 1941, Alexandru Baltaga was not convicted in Moldavia. Together with the other deputies-confessors of the case, he was urgently evacuated to the famous prison in the city of Kazan, RASS Tatarstan. There he lived until 7 August 1941, when he died in the prison hospital. The Soviet extermination machine did its work in the shortest time possible. The death certificate gives the following diagnosis: inflammation of the intestines. He was 80 years old, the oldest member of the State Council at the time.

It was only a year later, on 29 September 1942, that the investigator signed the decision to close the file on the death of the “accused” Baltaga.

The rehabilitation took place 50 years later, on 10 July 1991. In 1995, the Basarabian Metropolitanate raised the question of studying his life for canonisation.

(Mihai Tașcă, Doctor of Laws – Timpul de dimineață newspaper, online edition of 16 April 2011)