after 1905, cecan began building up the opposition to archbishop seraphim chichagov, who was an advocate of russification. on the archbishop's orders, the eparchy of kishinev and khotin began putting out journals with increasingly russified content, and also with shows of support for the tsarist autocracy. from 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. 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. criticized by seraphim and by the conservative russian press (the journals "besarabskaya zhizn" and "drug"), it closed down formally in august 1911 and reemerged instantly as "obyedineniye", with eugenia cecan for its editor.