affected by them were called "martyrs" and thought to have supernatural powers, such as clairvoyance and the power to predict the future. The recourse to mortification is said to have originated during one of Inochenție's addresses, when an anonymous believer deliberately injured his own skull—the blackened bruise was hailed by the church founder as a sign that a "New Man" with colored skin was about to emerge in the world. These habits, alongside suspicions that Inochenție was a confidence artist, escalated the conflict between Inochentists and the Orthodox Church: various Orthodox missionaries and scholars issued strong warnings against Inochenție's dogma. Some grave concerns about Inochentist teachings were raised by the Romanian press in and around 1930. Dimineața spoke at length about the movement's approval of mortification and selective castration, Christian communism, nudism, sacred prostitution, group sex and alcohol abuse. The newspaper also reports that Barbă Roșie's promotion to the rank of Patriarch was based on his claim to have been visited by the ghost of Inochenție, back in 1928. The Inochentists held special prayer meetings during which they venerated the photograph of Inochenție, believing that they would experience miraculous visits of the Holy Spirit. Sanielevici, who credited these reports, noted a resemblance between the Inochentists and earlier sectarian movements in Russia, as depicted by writer Dmitry Merezhkovsky; following up on his own global theory, Sanielevici concluded that all such phenomena originated with an underground "Semitic" and "Dionysian" culture. Notes References J. Eugene Clay, "Apocalypticism in the Russian Borderlands: Inochentie Levizor and His Moldovan Followers", in Religion, State and Society, Volume 26, Issue 3–4, 1998, pp. 251–263. Dennis Deletant, Hitler's Forgotten Ally: Ion Antonescu and His Regime, Romania, 1940–1944, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2006. Radu Ioanid, La Roumanie et la Shoah, Maison des Sciences de l'homme, Paris, 2002. Henric Sanielevici, "Supraviețuiri din mysterele dionysiace la ereticii din Basarabia", in Viața Românească, Nr. 11-12/1930, pp. 84–122. Laurențiu D. Tănase, Pluralisation religieuse et société en Roumanie, Peter Lang, Bern, 2008. History of Bessarabia Eastern Christianity in Romania History of Christianity in Romania Eastern Orthodoxy in Moldova Christian denominations in Ukraine Religion in the Soviet Union Christian new religious movements Christian socialism Christian denominations established in the 20th century Christian organizations established in 1908 1908 establishments in the Russian Empire Romania in World War II The Holocaust in Transnistria Forced migration in the Soviet Union Political repression in the Soviet Union