Justin Parvu

Iustin Pârvu, born Iosif on 10 February 1919 at Poiana Largului, in Neamț, was an archimandrite, a confessor who passed through sixteen years of communist prisons and the founder of Petru Vodă Monastery. He died on 16 June 2013, aged ninety-⁠four. He is venerated by the faithful, without synodal canonization; his name is not among the sixteen twentieth-⁠century saints canonized by the Synod in July 2024.

He was the son of Ana and Gheorghe. At seventeen he entered Durău Monastery as a brother and attended the seminaries of Cernica, Râmnicu Vâlcea and Roman. According to sources, he was a legionary between 1938 and 1940. He was tonsured a monk in 1940, ordained hierodeacon on 7 October 1940 and hieromonk on 20 August 1942, and between 1942 and 1944 he was a missionary priest on the Eastern Front, reaching Odessa with a mountain division.

He was arrested on 14 May 1948, before finishing the seminary at Roman, and sentenced to twelve years. He passed through Suceava, Văcărești, Jilava, Gherla, Periprava, Aiud, Baia Sprie and Pitești. In 1960 he received a second sentence, of four years, because he would not renounce his faith. He was released in 1964, then worked for a while in forestry. Those who knew him in prison, among them Arsenie Papacioc, speak of his patience and kindness.

Between 1966 and 1975 he was a hieromonk at Secu, under Paisie Olaru, and between 1975 and 1990 at Bistrița, beside Ioanichie Bălan. He returned for a year to Secu, then founded in his native village Petru Vodă Monastery and Paltin-⁠Petru Vodă Skete, where he gathered a numerous community and was confessor to very many believers. He was raised to archimandrite on 2 November 2008. In 2003 he laid the foundation of the publication Glasul Monahilor, renamed Atitudini from 2008.

Father Iustin was a public critic of ecumenism and of the introduction of identity documents with chips, and in 2009 he started a campaign against them. In 2011 an antisemitism monitoring centre complained about a video in which the nuns of Petru Vodă sang him a legionary song on his birthday. He died on 16 June 2013, of cancer, and was buried at Petru Vodă. His cult is alive among believers; the Church has not canonized him, and some contest him because of his legionary past and public positions. His memory is kept on 16 June.