Mina Dobzeu

Mina Dobzeu, born Mihail on 5 November 1921 at Grozești, in Lăpușna, Bessarabia, was an archimandrite and hieromonk, imprisoned three times for the faith, the one who baptized Nicolae Steinhardt at Jilava. He died on 7 June 2018 at Huși, aged ninety-⁠six. He is venerated by the faithful as a confessor, without synodal canonization.

He was one of the seven children of the peasants Diomid and Vera Dobzeu. At thirteen he entered Hâncu Monastery as a brother, then learned sculpture for two years at the school of arts and crafts at Căldărușani. In 1944 he fled with the Hâncu community to Balaciu, in Ialomița, and fought at the front, in Banat and Hungary; he is a war veteran. After the war he attended the Cantors' School in Constanța, the seminary at Neamț and Theology at Bucharest. He was tonsured a monk in 1946 at Brădicești Skete, in the diocese of Huși, and ordained hierodeacon in 1948.

Between 1948 and 1949 he was arrested for eleven months for protests against the removal of religion from schools. In 1955 he received priesthood. He served at Nicula, at Jimbor and above all at Brădicești. In 1959 he was expelled from the faculty, removed from monasticism and sentenced to prison for his stand against Decree 410/1959, on the dissolution of monasteries and the reduction of the number of monks. He passed through Galați, Jilava, Gherla and the labour colony in the Danube Delta. At Jilava he knew Constantin Noica, Nicolae Steinhardt, Dinu Pillat and Alexandru Paleologu, and on 15 March 1960 he baptized Steinhardt. He was released in 1964.

From 1969 he served at the Monastery of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul in Huși, the episcopal cathedral, where he was abbot between 1978 and 1988. He finished Theology in 1971. In 1988 he was arrested a third time, for eight months, for "rebellion" and "plotting against state security", in fact for the seven letters sent directly to Ceaușescu about the morals of the people and atheism under communism. Between 1996 and 2002 he was cultural-⁠missionary counsellor of the Diocese of Huși. He wrote more than ten books, among them Christ, Our Peace, Three Cries against the Antichrist and I Was Ceaușescu's Confessor.