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 received 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