Archbishop Feofil Ionescu ( rum. Arhiepiscopul Teofil Ionescu ; October 14, 1894 , Boboc village, Buzau County , Romania - May 9, 1975 , Paris , France ) - Bishop of the Romanian Orthodox Church , until 1972 - the Bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church abroad , 9th September 1975 , Paris , France , Bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church abroad , Bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church abroad , 9 , The manager of the Romanian parishes of the ROCOR.
| Archbishop Theophilus | ||
|---|---|---|
| Arhiepiscopul Teofil | ||
 | ||
| ||
| March 10, 1972 - May 9, 1975 | ||
| Church | Romanian Orthodox Church | |
| ||
| December 26, 1954 - March 10, 1972 | ||
| Church | Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia | |
| Birth | ||
| Death | ||
| Buried | ||
| Episcopal consecration | December 26, 1954 | |
Biography
In 1910 he graduated from the church singing school (Școala de Cântăreți Bisericești) in Buzau .
In 1915 he entered the , where in the same year he received monastic tonsure and ordination as a hierodeacon [1] .
In 1918 he became the protopal of the cathedral in Bucharest, and in 1921 he was ordained a priest . He was appointed rector of the Patriarchal Singing School and assistant rector of the Patriarchal Cathedral in Bucharest [1] .
In 1925 he founded and headed the Orthodox Missionary Association of them. Patriarch Miron, published a church magazine Cuvânt bun ( Good Word ). He also founded a nursing home and a dining room for the poor [1] .
In 1928, he graduated from St. Nifon the Metropolitan Seminary in Bucharest with a theology degree in dissertation "The Life and Works of the Metropolitan of Kiev Peter the Grave" (Viaţa şi opera Mitropolitului Petru Movilă al Kievului) [1] .
In 1938, Patriarch Mitron was appointed rector of the Romanian Church of the Holy Archangels in Paris [1] . He received his doctorate at the Faculty of Protestant Theology in Paris [2] .
In 1942 he was awarded the rank of Archimandrite-Mitrofor, a rare distinction in the Romanian Church [1] .
In 1945, the communist authorities, who had gained control of the Church in Romania, were forced to remove Archimandrite Theophilus from the post of priest in the Paris parish. He moved to the USA and became a priest in the Romanian Church of Saint Simeon in Detroit . He was elected chairman of the Diocesan Council. At that time, the ruling bishop of the Romanian diocese in America, Bishop Polycarp (Moruska) was unable to return to his diocese from Romania because of the government’s ban on leaving the country [1] .
In 1946, the Metropolitan of the Romanian Orthodox Church, Vissarion (Puyu), was sentenced in absentia by the Romanian authorities to the death penalty. The arrival of the Holy Archangels in Paris became a place of attraction for Romanian refugees, and it was his Metropolitan Vissarion who made the chair of the Romanian Orthodox Diocese of Western Europe. The efforts of the communist authorities to subjugate the parish of the Holy Archangels in Paris pushed the believers to sever canonical relations with the Romanian Patriarchate. Subsequently, the diocese with the rights of autonomy entered into the ROCOR with the preservation of the new style that has operated in the Romanian church since 1925 [1] .
In 1954, the aged Metropolitan Vissarion chose Archimandrite Theophilus as his successor, and on December 26, 1954, he was consecrated bishop in the church of Saint Nicholas in Versailles. The consecration was performed by: Metropolitan Vissarion (Puyu) , Archbishop Ioann (Maksimovich) and Bishop Nathanael (Lviv) . Bishop Theophilus received the title "Sevres" (Severineanul in Romanian), under the name of the city of Sevres , one of the suburbs of Paris. Despite this, amid the tangled situation of the Romanian diaspora, he soon left for America [2] , not recognizing the canonicity of Bishop Valerian (Trify) , whom he called the schismatic and self-saint. However, he could not achieve any significant support in the New World (he was recognized as his bishop only a few parishes), which made him return to Europe [1] .
On April 1, 1958, Metropolitan Vissarion announced the dissolution of his diocese, declaring that he did not want to cover the political interests of the members of his flock in the name of the Church, and retired to the village of Viel-Mezon . In this situation, in June of the same year, Orthodox Romanians in Paris called Bishop Theophilus back [2] . In 1958, Bishop Theophilus, together with his diocese (6-7 parishes), was officially accepted by Metropolitan Anastassy (Gribanovsky) under the jurisdiction of the ROCOR. At the same time, an Act of temporary accession of this diocese to the ROCOR was drawn up.
He tried to reassign the Romanian Orthodox parishes in Germany, which at that time were under the jurisdiction of the Constantinople Patriarchate [2] .
December 22, 1960 in Detroit, together with the Archbishop of Chicago Seraphim (Ivanov) , consecrated Archimandrite Akakios (Pappas) to the Bishop of Talanthi, thus restoring the hierarchy for the True Orthodox Church of Greece (Synod of Chrysostom) .
In 1964, after the death of Metropolitan Vissarion (Pui), he moved to Paris [2] .
On February 27, 1970, together with the Bishop of Brooklyn Dosifei (Ivanchenko) and the Bishop of the Albanian Orthodox Church in America, Christopher (Rada), performed a non-canonical consecration in the Bishop of Vasilupol Pankratia (Vryonis) , banned in the priesthood of the American Archdiocese of the Christiology However, these data are based on the statement of Pankratia himself and are not documented. In addition, all three of these bishops were already dead when Pankraty called their names [1] .
During the conference of the Academic Society of Daco-Romania, on December 6, 1970, Bishop Theophilus mentioned the name of Pope Paul VI and the Romanian Uniate Bishop , who attended the liturgy, during the Great Entrance . He also commemorated among those who died the deceased Romanian Uniate Bishop of Cluj-Gerlinsky Iuli Hossu . When the ROCOR’s First Hierarch, Metropolitan Philaret (Voznesensky), demanded an explanation, Bishop Theophilus tried to justify his actions, claiming that he did this “in the name of ecumenism and in the fight against the patriarchs of Moscow and Bucharest, who accepted the point of view of the godless and even the criminal regime, that they perpetuated the murders and persecutions against the Greek Catholic Church of Romania, under the false pretext of promoting their integration into the Orthodox Church ” [1] .
On January 17, 1972, he filed a petition with the Patriarch Romanian Justinian for his admission to the clergy of the Romanian Orthodox Church [1] . March 10 of the same year, the petition was granted. This decision was confirmed by the decision of the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church on April 28, 1972 [2]
On May 8, 1972, Bishop Theophilus went to a Catholic monastery in Shevetoni to greet Patriarch Justinian in the hall, and the next day he wrote to his diocese that he was "from now on, after years and years of wandering, again in the bosom of the Mother Church." The council of his former cathedral notified Bishop Theophil that they “no longer depend on him,” and on May 21 of the same year, Metropolitan Philaret came from New York to perform the Liturgy and declare that he “accepted the diocese and all its parishes in its direct control " [1] .
Being completely cut off from the Romanian emigration in Paris, Theophilus, in conversation with one of his former priests, admitted that he had made a serious mistake after leaving the Russian Church Abroad, and later said that he had become a hostage by the Securitate [1] .
On December 12, 1974, by the decision of the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church, the Orthodox Romanian Diocese of Western Europe was upgraded to the status of an archdiocese and received the name "Romanian Orthodox Archdiocese of Central and Western Europe", in connection with which Bishop Theophilus was elevated to the rank of archbishop [2] .
He died on May 9, 1975 in Paris. He was buried in the cemetery of Montparnasse in Paris [2] .
Notes
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Archbishop Teofil (Ionescu, d. May 1975) of Sevres | ROCOR Studies
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Arhiepiscopul Teofil Ionescu (1896 -1975)
- ↑ Pankraty (Vrionis)