MARTYRS OF CHRISTIAN FAITH;

 

KILLED AND KIDNAPPED BY THE KGB

 

By

Paul LEU

[Abstract in English]

 

The two millennium old Christianity history had over the years more enemies like: Heathens, Moslems and Communists. Those created the martyrs of Christianity and of the national truth.

As everybody knows, the sacrifice of Constantin Brancoveanu and his family for keeping Romanian faith and stopping the Ottoman expansion; it is less known the sacrifice Bishop Grigorie and his son, Victor Leu, kidnapped, tortured and sentenced to death by the KGB. They were number one opponents  to Moscow’s politics to destroy the faith and to expansion.

Their sacrifice, reconstituted from the archives, is a proof that the Romanians stood up against Moscow’s politics; using the power of the word and the power of the arms (1944-1962, see Vasile Motrescu and his  supporters) to protect their faith, dignity, honor and freedom of their  country.

 Bishops Grigorie and Victor Leu martyr was reconstituted with the help of  documents made by communist collaborationists and were found in the Archive  of the Securitate; also with the help of the secret family  documents and  personal finding by the author.

In his quality of eye witness and participant during and after Second World  War, the author confers the quality of documents to the typical events that  he selected to present.

With this rich source of information (SRI Archive; MAI; and Corneliu Leu’s  volume “Cartea episcopilor cruciati”, published by Editura Realitatea  in  2001); the researcher succeeded to present the spirit of that society, the  seizures of the historical moment, the cause of the structural, moral, political and economical collapse of  Romania after the Soviet  occupation by  the Red Army.

 The author also presents aspects of the terror and murder that were going on  in Romanian Gulag without any difference of social class or religion; a well  known method of the communists to “reeducate” or exterminate millions of  open minded people of the country.

 “Martyrs of people’s church” [“Martyrs of Christianity; Killed and Kidnapped  by the KGB”], by Paul Leu, has two parts:

1. Bishop Grigorie Leu killed by communist criminals; and

2. Archbishop Victor Leu, kidnapped and sentenced to death by the KGB.

This historic publication is based on documents from Direcţia Generală a Securităţii from R.P. Romania; Tribunalul Militar  Regional  from Bucharest and Direcţia Penitenciarelor şi a  Coloniilor de Muncă“, published by Corneliu Leu in “The Book of the  Crusader Bishops”, edited by Realitatea, 2001, 340 p. It  was also based on  family documents and confessions of people that participated in the events. The book is based on documents extracted  from a large number of the Romanian  security service's files, concerning  the anticommunist activities of a part  of the Romanian clergy in the years 1948 - 1954 for the salvation of the  Christian faith and the  democratic values abolished by Moskow's oppression. It describes the assistance  given to them by Western Churches, culminating  with the consecration in  Munich of a Bishop of all the free Romanian  emigrants and the beginning at  BBC and Radio-Munich of a permanent religious  program in the Romanian language, becoming very popular among the listeners  from the country dominated by the atheist government. As the "Etherial  Church", these liturgical services and antiatheistic sermons broadcasted  every Sunday  by the exiled Romanian priest Vasile Leu and a lot of his  followers, constituted for a half a century a real spiritual support for the  oppressed Christian population of Romania.

Through real shuddering documents, the book describes the beginnings of this  resistance movement and its leader’s martyrium. These files  concern the  prosecutions of two Romanian bishops and a lot of other names of  the  personalities involved in the Romanian resistance. The development of the  events is as follows: The Bishop Grigorie Leu (1881 - 1949) is a symbol of  the Romanian National Orthodox Resistance against communism and its atheistic aggression on our traditional spirituality, against the Stalinist  government and the occupation of a part of the Romanian territory. Grigorie Leu, the scholar Bishop, was terrorized and killed  by the soviet  communists because he protected the poor and forgotten ones; for his  religious beliefs in Christ and for protecting the Romanian values.

He is the continuation of the many generations that served the Moldavian rulers over the centuries. Unlike his ancestors that fought  with   the sword against the country’s enemies during Stefan the Great  period; he  fought with the power of the word against the communist regime.

Bishop Grigorie Leu’s activities, followed by his son’s, Victor  Vasile Leu, are based on the principle: “Romanian Church is not above the nation,  but makes a harmonious union with the people that serves and blesses in its  own language, spirit and soul.”

He protested against both communistic Law, meant to put the Romanian Church  in the service of the atheist government, and Moscow’s tendency  to control  the Romanian Diaspora's Church. By its position, he represented the  resistance of many Romanian orthodox priests and bishops. The others were  arrested and he was killed by his God's enemies in 1949, when in the  country, the collectivization of the agriculture, totally disapproved by  him, was set up. His son Vasile Leu, also a priest, was sent secretly in the  West to advise and alarm the Romanian emigrants' communities concerning the  danger to be infiltrated by Moscow’s agents deviating their churches,  manipulating the believers and obstaculating a real Romanian resistance in  exile.

With ecumenical help, he organized the churches of the Romanian Diaspora, founded many Romanian parishes in Italy, France, Western Germany and  Austria, assured the support for other Romanians escaped from the occupied  country and produced, for the first time, in Romanian language, the  religious programs broadcasted by BBC, Radio France, and Radio Munich and,  from its beginnings.

At a meeting in Salzburg, the representatives of the Romanian emigrants elected him as a bishop and, after that, he was consecrated in the Orthodox  Church of Munich as Archbishop of all the Romanians from  Europe and Near  Orient, with the name Vasile-Victor Leu. He was very active organizing with  his authority all the European communities of the Romanian emigrants,  putting in contact and involving in common  activities their leaders, the  high politicians, members of the former Romanian governments, the two former  kings: Carol II and Michael I and, also,  the chief of the Hohenzollern-Siegmaringen Royal House.

He had contacts with other Romanian leaders from USA and organized a common  meeting in the Romanian Church of Paris which he succeeded in resetting it  up. Recognized as the spiritual leader of the emigrants  and encouraged by  this success, he began to organize the common resistance of all the Romanian  communities in the World and even a Romanian exile-government. Thus, he  became one of the most important enemies of Moscow’s intentions.

His anticommunist sermons were influencing both the Romanian Diaspora and  the mind of the oppressed population within the country who was secretly  listening to his patriotic and religious programs broadcasted from the West.  With its well known methods, the KGB organized a spying action  in Austria  and kidnapped him.

After being prosecuted in Moscow, he was sent to a puppet Romanian military  court which condemned him to death. The book offers documents  on all the  details of the history of this event with all its branches, within the  context of the inside and external Romanian resistance.

However, Bishop Victor-Vasile was not executed. Having passed through all  the prisons of Romania with the tag  5949, he was released in 1964. His file  in the security archives is 300 pages long and reveals that he  made no  compromise with the authorities.

After his release, Bishop Victor-Vasile refused to join the Romanian patriarchate, but instead set off for the monastery of the Old Calendarists  at Slatioara in Moldavia, where he was accepted as a bishop at first. However, canonical differences with the Old Calendarists forced him to  return to Bucharest. It appears that Bishop Victor-Vasile took a stricter  attitude towards the Romanian new calendarists, and also could not recognize  the validity of the consecration of Metropolitan Galacteon, since it had  been carried out in 1935, after the calendar change.

On the other hand, the Old Calendarists did not accept his consecration because he did not have ordination papers, and because the ROCOR had no records of his consecration.

 Bishop Victor-Vasile now set about ordaining priests and hierarchs on his own. One of them was called Clement and another –Casian Timofte.

However, his activity was confined to his flat in Bucharest because the  communists placed him under virtual house arrest in order to restrict his  contact with the faithful. That is why, when he died in 1978, he was taken  to Cernica monastery and buried by the new calendarists there.

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His books are horted in the mast important national, academical and university librarys in the world: The Library of Congress, The British Library, Die Deutsche Bibliothek, Ősterreichische Nationalbibliothek,  Bibliotéque National de France, Instituto Centrale per il Catalogo Unico,  Najonalbibliotek of Narway, Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal, Royal Library  Schweden, Oxford University Library, University Library of Washington,  Cornell University Library of New Jork, Indiana University Libraries,   Université de Paris 4, Biblioteca de Catalunya etc. etc.

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SUMMARY

 

II. Victor Leu, Archbishop from Gibraltar to Red Sea ……126

1. Biographical information ……129

2. The Escape from the Socialist Camp……139

The Exode and its Causes……139

The Escape……147

3. The Naming and the Oath for the new Clerical position……56

The Clerical Opponents……165

4. Orthodox Missionary from Gibraltar to Red Sea……172

Collaboration with King Mihai I of Romania……174

The Support from Carol the 2nd ……182

In Swetzerland……191

In Spain……200

Visiting Bishop Visarion Puiu……205

The Archbishop Residency in London……210

Preparations for The 3rd World War……219

Efforts for Clerical Unity……237

Contribution for the ending of the civil war in Greece……234

The conflict with the Anglicans……241

Paris, the 2nd Archbishop Residency……247

Into the Near East……260

5.Kidnapped and sentenced to  death by the KGB……272

At Liublianca……275

The Death Sentence……285

In the Romanian Gulag ……294

6. The passing to Good’s Kingdom ……323

7. For conclusion……331

Notes……345

Special Bibliography ……352

Echos……361

English Summary ……374

Index……381