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. 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. After 1905, Cecan began building up the opposition to Archbishop Seraphim Chichagov, who was