Romanian journalist and priest (1867 – 1941)
Ieremia Teodor Cecan (first name also Jeremia, Eremia or Irimia, last name also Ciocan; ; May 31, 1867 – June 27, 1941) was a Bessarabian-born Romanian journalist, Bessarabian Orthodox priest and political figure. During the first part of his life, he was active in the Bessarabia Governorate of the Russian Empire, earning his reputation as a Christian philanthropist and putting out the pioneering church magazine "Nashe Obyedineniye". His opposition to Russification and his advocacy of social improvement led to a public scandal and then to is demotion by church officials, and pushed Cecan into independent journalism. However, his sympathies remained with the conservative-antisemitic Union of the Russian People, developing into a critique of Romanian nationalism that was well liked by the imperial authorities. During the latter stages of World War I, Cecan was a chaplain in the Russian Army.
Opposing the union of Bessarabia with Romania from a conservative position, Cecan fled to Odessa in November 1918. For the following two years, he championed the cause of Russian Bessarabia, and came into contact with the Bolsheviks. He recruited for the Red Army, and was himself drafted in 1919, briefly serving under Mishka Yaponchik. Threatened with retaliation by the White movement, and hoping that Romanian loyalism would save his son from a Romanian prison, he returned to Bessarabia in 1920. During the subsequent two decades, he found himself at odds with the Bessarabian church hierarchs, especially after advocating the preservation of services in Russian and Slavonic. Cecan founded a series of short-lived newspapers in Russian, most of which bridged the distance between the Romanians and the White émigrés. Much of his work focused on attempts at dialogue and reunification between the Orthodox and the Catholics, sparking controversy among his colleagues in the Romanian Orthodox Church, but earning notoriety in Western circles. He maintained to his death the vision of a "world church" centered on anti-communism and anti-Masonry, which, in Cecan's opinion, were intertwined.
In the 1920 and early '30s, Cecan became a perennial candidate in elections for the Parliament of Romania. In 1933, retired from active priesthood and finally defrocked, he veered toward Nazism, which he considered a manifestation of Christian socialism. He served for as regional president of the Romanian National Socialist Party, and put out its Russian-language newspaper, "Telegraf". When the party fell apart, Cecan attempted to resume his political career with the Iron Guard and the National Renaissance Front. His final activities in the press evidenced his turn to anti-fascism, condemnation of antisemitism, and admiration for the Soviet Union. Increasingly isolated during the final stages of his life, he focused on his work as an agricultural inventor. Cecan was captured by the Soviets during the 1940 occupation of Bessarabia, then sentenced to death for his anti-communist past. He was ultimately shot in Tiraspol during the retreat of June 1941.
Biography.
In the Russian Empire.
Cecan was born among the Romanians of Novoselitsa ("Noua Suliță" or "Novoselytsia") or Beleuța village, Hotin County. Both were located in the northern tip of the Bessarabia Governorate, Russia (now in Chernivtsi Oblast, Ukraine). His native area had been split from ancient Moldavia; Western Moldavia remained in Romania, whereas the Moldavian sub-region of Bukovina, just west of Novoselitsa, was administered by Austria-Hungary. Ieremia Teodor's original surname was "Ciocan" ("hammer"), which was approximated into Russian as "Chekan", then mutated back into Romanian as "Cecan". He went on to study in Kishinev ("Chișinău"), training at the Theological Seminary (in 1889). He began his mission as a priest in Kotylevo, just outside Novoselitsa, before being assigned the central Bessarabian parish of Roșcani, then transferred to Nișcani. In 1910 Cecan built a new local church, its inauguration attended by Governor Ivan Kankrin and Marshal of Nobility Alexander N. Krupensky. His activity doubled as a schoolteacher and catechist, allowing him to open the Nișcani parish school, after running a successful fundraiser in 1912; he then did the same for the communities of Răciula and Păulești. He was by then married and had five children of his own: Lyudmila, Zinaida, Alexander, Nikolai, and Boris.
The Eparchy of Kishinev and Khotin appointed Cecan as its "spiritual investigator" in Orhei County, and also assigned him to an unpaid position at the Diocesan Temperance Committee. He recommended himself as an early champion of the lower classes: "To the end of his days, he remained proud of the fact that he had achieved the dismissal of a "zemstvo" chief, who struck a peasant in the face." While active in his parishes, Cecan also furthered his studies in theology at Kiev Academy. He became a passionate reader and follower of Vladimir Solovyov, as well as a speaker for the reunification of Orthodoxy and Catholicism. In his later articles on the subject, Cecan favored leniency toward the use of "Filioque" in the Nicene Creed and accepted the doctrine of papal infallibility.
Officially, Cecan favored Russification and displayed his support for the House of Romanov and Tsarist autocracy—by 1906, he had joined the Union of the Russian People (SRN, known locally as the "League of True Russians"), serving as a member of its executive board in Călărași. Cecan "was co-opted into the union's leadership in 1907 and served as the official Bessarabian representative within the union's Main Board." Later, he put up some opposition to Archbishop Seraphim Chichagov, who opposed all forms of Romanian nationalism. On the archbishop's orders, the Eparchy began putting out journals with increasingly Russified content, and also with shows of support for the monarchy. As seen by historian Piotr Șornikov, Cecan was an exponent of "Moldavian patriotism" during the Russian Revolution of 1905; this meant advocating for Bessarabian autonomy and language rights in the province, while expressing loyalty toward the Romanovs' "Russian statism". The outlook was shaped by Seraphim, whom historian Andrei Cușco depicts as "the first Moldovanist"; Seraphim himself "articulate[d] the idea of the fundamental difference and even antagonism between Moldovan and Romanian linguistic identity".
From December 18, 1909, Cecan and his wife Eugenia began putting out "Nashe Obyedineniye" ("Our Association" or "Our Union"). Presumably "the only private-owned church magazine" in early 20th-century Russia, it had a maximum of 800 copies per issue. Although mostly in Russian, this publication was mainly aimed at the Bessarabian–Moldavian priests and other Romanian-speaking intellectuals. Its Romanian-language content was directed at the peasants and the schoolteachers, focusing on ideals of social improvement and education. These were regarded as independent and progressive stances—for such reasons, it came to be indexed by "Okhrana" agents. 
As a Romanian nationalist, Ion Pelivan doubts that "Nashe Obyedineniye" was ever pro-Romanian in content: "[it] came out with corresponding text in Roumanian ["sic"] to fight against the increasing influence of Roumanian newspapers." Similarly, in a Bessarabian column published by "Neamul Românesc" in October 1910, Cecan's paper was described as a "clerical gazette", whose Moldavian-only content was to "facilitate the learning of Russian by the Moldavians." It called Cecan (or "Ciocan") a "Russified Romanian priest". Criticized by Seraphim and by the conservative Russian press (the journals "Besarabskaya Zhizn'" and "Drug"), "Nashe Obyedineniye" closed down formally in August 1911 and reemerged instantly as "Obyedineniye", with Eugenia Cecan for its editor. Published from Nișcani, it drew contributions from Orthodox intellectuals such as Andrei Murafa. Despite being identified as anti-conservative dissenters, the Cecans generally took up the cause of far-right Russian nationalism. In its pages, "Obyedineniye" expressed full support for the SRN, and in particular for the antisemitic agitator Pavel Krushevan.
Reportedly, Father Ieremia was also co-opted by his former critics at "Drug", which was otherwise noted for its strong expressions of anti-Romanian sentiment. In preparation for the legislative election of September 1912, he was called upon by Alexander Makarov, the Russian Minister of Internal Affairs, to oversee the election and ensure that overt expressions of Romanian nationalism were being marginalized. Cecan and Alexandru Baltagă founded some 29 electoral committees on Eparchy grounds. This led them into open conflict with Archbishop Seraphim, who had ordered his clergy not to interfere with politics. After signing their names to a letter of protest against Seraphim's "absolutism", Cecan and Baltagă were demoted and stripped of their parishes. "Obyedineniye" put out its last issue on August 23, 1912.
World War I and revolutionary exile.
Șornikov notes that, although in conflict with Seraphim and threatened to lose his income, Cecan was honored by the Russian authorities. Awards he received included medals marking the annexation of Bessarabia centennial (1912) and the 300th anniversary of the Romanovs (1913), as well as the Order of Saint Anna, 3rd class. Reassigned to the Kishinev Church of the Nativity, where he opened a school, Cecan was finally able to resume his journalistic activity, founding, in 1914, the newspaper "Bessarabets". He was moderating his stances: although still representing the "right-wing section of the Eparchy", he opened up to former adversaries on the right and the left, together with whom he put out "Bessarabya" (1914), then "Bessarabaskaya Pochta" and "Nash Dolg" (both 1915). The latter functioned as an appendage of the Church of the Nativity and its orphanage.
During World War I, Cecan enjoyed friendly contacts with the eparchy's officials, who allowed him to publish in the official bulletin, "Kishinyovskie Eparhial'nye Vedomosti". In August 1915, he contributed therein a piece in favor of agricultural schools for the newly orphaned. He argued that doing so would empower the future peasants economically and ensure that they remained patriotic and proud citizens of the Empire. Sociologist Andrei Dumbrăveanu describes this text as proof that Cecan, "many times defeated, arrived, whether aware or unwitting, at shaping the minds of Bessarabians as required in times of war." The following year, Cecan was designated as editor of the revamped "Kishinyovskie Eparhial'nye Vedomosti", though this revival never actually took place. Pelivan notes that, like "Drug", "Bessarabya" was receiving secret funding from the 
Russian Interior Ministry. Cecan himself acknowledged that the government of Prince Golitsyn was paying him 1,200 rubles monthly, because he "championed ethnic-Russian interests on the periphery of Russia and fought against the separatism of Moldavian elements". According to Șornikov, Cecan's overall activity at that stage shows him as a "defensist", or one who fully supported Russian victory against the Central Powers.
In 1934, Cecan claimed to have predicted the anti-Christian strife of the Revolutions of 1917 as early as 1909. During the February Revolution, he had joined the Russian Army as a chaplain. In the aftermath, the Russian Provisional Government stopped donating to propaganda outlets, including Cecan's and his newspapers, causing him to issue a note of protest. In April of that year, he attended the Kishinev Priests' Congress, which gave endorsement to the notion of an autonomous Bessarabia—organized in December as the Moldavian Democratic Republic. During its proceedings, he supported land reform and allotment for the clergy, arguing that such measures could result in material advancement for his class; the Congress endorsed his position, allowing priests to partake in agararian reforms.
Cecan remained committed to Russian federalism; he was therefore vexed when the Moldavian Republic united with Romania in early 1918, claiming at the time that his former friend Baltagă had been corrupted into endorsing Greater Romania. As reported by Șornikov, Cecan defied the Romanian military intervention in Bessarabia by making frequent trips into the Ukrainian People's Republic (UNR) and bringing back with him works of anti-Romanian propaganda. Sensing himself threatened by the new regime, Cecan finally left Bessarabia for the UNR in November 1918. Settling in Odessa (which remained his main residence to May 1920), he was first co-opted by the Committee for the Salvation of Bessarabia, formed there by two Russian nationalist leaders, Krupensky and Alexandr K. Schmidt. The activity also absorbed his son Nikolai, who was captured by the Romanians in March 1919 "while transporting his father's letters and anti-Romanian newspapers from Odessa". The same month, Chișinău's Tribunal issued a warrant for "the priest Ieremia Cecan, formerly of Chișinău, current address unknown".
Cecan Sr's collaboration with the Red Army and the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic had begun some two months later, when he proceeded to recruit Bessarabians exiles to fight as partisans behind Romanian lines in the Ukrainian civil war. A late report notes his presence in Odessa station, "cross in hand", and using the racial trope conflating Romanians with nomadic Romanies (he was "urging the Russian soldiers to chase the Gypsies out of Bessarabia"). Though he was largely successful in organizing a detachment, he was placed under