page_title: Alexandru Baltagă
section_title: The soviet persecution
hierarchical_section_title: Alexandru Baltagă / The soviet persecution
context_page_description: Alexandru Baltagă was a Bessarabian Romanian Orthodox priest, a founder of the Bessarabian religious press in the Romanian language, a member of Sfatul Țării, a Soviet political prisoner, and, according to the Orthodox Church, a martyr for the faith.
context_section_description: On August 31, 1940, while he was saying mass in St. Alexander's Church in Călăraşi, NKVD officers broke in and attempted to arrest him. Baltagă refused, saying he would follow them only after the mass. The political police had to retreat empty-handed. The following night, they snatched him from his bed, and without allowing him to dress, took him to Chişinău, where he was subjected to interrogation in the cellars of the NKVD building. His interrogator was NKVD lieutenant Cherepanov, a superior interrogator of the NKVD of the MSSR, who accused Alexandru Baltagă that "[...] in 1918, having an enemy attitude toward the Soviet Russia, he actively participated in the Sfatul Țării, and voted for the estrangement of Bessarabia from the Soviet Russia and for its Union with Romania [...] In the following year, as an active clerik, he fought against the revolutionary movement [...]"  There exist reports that during his interrogation, Baltagă was subjected to physical and psychological pressure. It is reported that to investigators' questions "Show us your God!", he was replying "When you show me your mind, then I [would] show you my God!" (literal translation). After Romanian Army crossed back into Bessarabia, the Soviets moved him to the interior of the USSR. He died what some Orthodox texts refer to as a martyr's death in Kazan on August 7, 1941.
  Baltagă received numerous clerical and lay distinctions, including the Golden Cross of the Russian Holy Synod (April 18, 1903), St. Anna Order of third (May 6, 1907) and second class (May 6, 1912), St. Vladimir Order of the 4th degree, in gold (May 6, 1915), Star of Romania Order in the rank of officer (May 31, 1923), Order of the Romanian Crown in rank of commander (June 13, 1928), Order Ferdinand I in rank of knight (June 8, 1935). In reference to his authority among the clergy, and his work for the church, Gala Galaction considered him "patriarch of the Bessarabian priests".
  In October 1995, the Adunarea Eparhială of the Metropolis of Bessarabia proposed investigative research on Alexandru Baltagă's life, with a view toward canonisation.
caption: Bessarabia Sfatul Țării arrest
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