Gurie Grosu

Gurie Grosu, born in 1877 in Tighina county, was the first metropolitan of Bessarabia after the union of 1918, between 1918 and 1938. He died on 14 November 1943 at Cernica Monastery. He is venerated by the faithful, without synodal canonization.

When Bessarabia united with Romania, in 1918, the Metropolis of Bessarabia, seated at Chișinău, came under the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church, and Gurie, archbishop, was its first metropolitan. The Paterikon describes him as a very devout hierarch, zealous for the services, for the faith and for the confession of Christ, loved by the people, very merciful. On feast days, the text says, he came to the cathedral on a donkey, like Christ entering Jerusalem. The cathedral services were held with splendour and he always gave a word of teaching.

In the autumn of 1938 he was removed from his see. The Paterikon tells that King Carol II, on a visit to Chișinău, went to the Liturgy and sat in the royal stall; the metropolitan came out of the altar in his hierarchal vestments and told him boldly that it did not befit him to sit there, asking where the queen was, after which the king left the church, and a week later decreed the metropolitan's removal. This episode is told in the Paterikon and in church tradition; historians discuss the circumstances of his leaving the see. Gurie retired to Cernica.

He spent his last five years there in prayer, fasting, silence and humility. Forsaken by men but beloved of Christ, he received the Holy Mysteries and fell asleep in peace on 14 November 1943. His name appears on the list of Bessarabian saints proposed for canonization.