as the place of death, but Orthodox priest and professor Mircea Păcurariu cites Viels-Maisons, west of Paris, where Puiu was first interred. His current resting place is in Montparnasse Cemetery. Posthumous evaluation In the aftermath of the Romanian Revolution of 1989, Orthodox circles began re-evaluating Puiu's legacy. On 25 September 1990, the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church voted to reverse its 1950 decision to defrock Puiu and posthumously reinstated him among the clergy. Over the following decades, Puiu's popularity grew, particularly in Romanian Moldavia, where, according to Ion Popa, it reached cult proportions with conferences and symposiums often organized to honor his memory. Articles printed in the national press often presented Puiu in a favorable light, and in 2003, a member of the Parliament of Romania publicly called for Puiu's body to be returned to Romania. His memory is particularly glorified by Orthodox groups with antisemitic views. Generally speaking, sources close to radical Orthodox groups portray Puiu as a hero, a martyr, a victim of King Carol II and, most often, a victim of communism. Streets in Bălți, Moldova, and Ciohorăni, Romania, are named after him. As recently as 2021, the Romanian news outlet G4Media reported that a bust of Puiu was on public display at Putna Monastery in violation of national legislation on convicted war criminals. The question of Puiu's role in the crimes committed in Transnistria was addressed in Holocaust scholarship by Ion Popa and Ionuț Biliuță. The latter estimates that it was Puiu's duty as exarch to correctly inform the Patriarchate in Bucharest on the situation of the province and he deliberately failed to do so. Biliuță writes: "Puiu was aware that the "surgical" policies of the "civil administration and the Army" would have to precede this "spiritual renewal." Nevertheless, by ascribing — albeit implicitly — the killing of the Jews solely to state authorities Puiu's official correspondence veiled the participation of any of his clergy in murder and robbery. His silence protected not just friends such as Antim Nica, but others irrespective of any personal relationship. To this day official Church historiography leaves out the brutal behavior even of the Army, let alone the clergy, in Transnistria." Popa argues that Puiu "supported German propaganda against Judeo-Bolshevism" and rejects the possibility that Puiu was unaware of the antisemitic crimes that were being committed on the territory of his exarchate. He notes that "in July 1943,