of Religion to set up another post of vicar bishop for the Metropolitanate of Moldavia. Once the request was granted, Metropolitan Irineu, as bishop of the place, proposed Fr. Ioan Marina for election to the post. At this point Marina was still at St. George's, a widower for almost a decade, and the metropolitan knew him well, having had him as a student and having encountered him while he was a bishop's assistant at Râmnic and then a metropolitan's assistant at Craiova. At Metropolitan Irineu's proposal, the Holy Synod, in its July 30, 1945 session, after a canonical investigation and examination, approved Fr. Marina's election to the second, newly founded post of vicar bishop, at the Iaşi Metropolitan Cathedral, and accorded him the rank of bishop, with the title "Vasluianul". On August 11, 1945, at Cetăţuia Monastery in Iaşi, the priest Ioan Marina was tonsured a monk, receiving the patronymic Justinian and being ordained an archimandrite as well. He was consecrated a bishop on Sunday, August 12, 1945, in the Iaşi Metropolitan Cathedral. Metropolitan Irineu consecrated him, along with Bishops Antim Nica of Cetatea Albă and Valeriu Moglan Botoşăneanul. On August 16, 1947, the aged and sick Metropolitan Irineu retired from his position and Patriarch Nicodim named Vicar Bishop Justinian Vasluianul as locum tenens until a permanent successor was elected. On November 19, 1947, the Ecclesiastical Electoral College met at Bucharest, with Metropolitan Nicolae Bălan of Transylvania presiding (the Patriarch was resting at Neamţ Monastery). Justinian Marina was elected Archbishop of Iaşi and Metropolitan of Moldavia. He was enthroned on December 28, 1947, at the Iaşi Metropolitan Cathedral, during a Divine Liturgy celebrated by an assembly of bishops, priests and deacons, in the presence of members of the Holy Synod, of representatives of the central and local governments (two days before the Romanian People's Republic was proclaimed), and of numerous clergy and laymen. In the three years that he spent at Iaşi as vicar bishop and then Metropolitan of Moldavia, Justinian put in tremendous efforts to rebuild the diocese, heavily damaged by war and scorched by drought. He reorganised the economic section of the diocesan centre, so as to ensure better administration and control over resources, while he established clear objectives for the other sections (administrative and cultural). He restored the cathedral and the metropolitan's residence, as well as the nearby buildings, which had been marred by bullets and shells