Ieromonah Dosoftei Dijmărescu
The Reorganization of Monastic Life in Putna Monastery in 1956, as It is Reflected in the Archives | p. 379–484


Keywords
Archimandrite Dosoftei Morariu, Decree 410/1959, Metropolitan Sebastian Rusan, Putna Monastery, Stephen the Great

Abstract

Upon the initiative of the Metropolitan of Moldavia and Suceava, Sebastian Rusan (1950–1956), on May 16, 1956, there came to Putna Monastery 15 monks from Sihăstria Monastery and 9 from Slatina Monastery in order to reorganize the monastic life. The abbot of the new brotherhood was Protosyngellos Dosoftei Murariu. The abbot and the brotherhood struggled to restore the economy of the monastery, the order of the services and of the monastic life and to minister to the faithful. First and foremost they tried to recover Putna’s natural status – as the first monastery Stephen the Great built and his necropolis, a national and religious banner –, especially since on April 12, 1957, they were to celebrate the fifth centennial of Stephen’s ascension to the throne of Moldavia. Despite the immense effort, the Communist State constantly undermined all their initiatives on ideological grounds, unwilling to let surface the religious aspects of the life of the voievode and of his epoch.

Due to the pressures of the Communist Regime on October 23, 1957, the Metropolitan of Moldavia and Suceava, Iustin Moisescu (1957–1977), appointed Father Dosoftei Murariu as abbot of Vorona Monastery and ordained that elections for a new abbot take place at Putna. Even though the monastery was greatly affected by the ousting of the abbot after only a year and a half and then by the 410/1959 Decree, which had the majority of the monks taken out of the monastery, the reorganization from 1956, through several monks that came to Putna then and remained afterwards, served as the basis for a new epoch of growth of the monastery, which can be discerned from the stability of the abbots: there have been only three abbots from 1962 up to now.