Guri (Grosso)

Born on January 1, 1877 in the Bessarabian village of Nimoreni (now Ialoveni district of Moldova ).

From 1892 to 1898 he studied at the Chisinau Theological Seminary , from 1898 to 1902 - at the Kiev Theological Academy , which he graduated with the degree of candidate of theology.

In 1902 he entered the Novonyametsky Monastery , where he was tonsured a monk, ordained successively as hierodeacon and hieromonk, and was appointed diocesan anti-sectarian missionary.

In 1909 he was appointed rector of the Spaso-Efremov Monastery in the Smolensk province with the elevation to the rank of archimandrite .

Since 1910, the head of the church-teaching Aleksandrovsk-Grushevskaya school of the Don Diocese . Editor of the Moldavian magazine Luminetorul. He published a number of teaching aids that provoked a negative reaction from the tsarist authorities. He was forced to leave Bessarabia and returned only after the February Revolution of 1917 , immediately joining the political struggle for the autonomy of the region .

He was one of the founders of the Moldavian National Party , and on November 21, 1917 consecrated the opening of the first meeting of the Sfatul Tsarii . In the government of the Democratic Republic of Moldova, he took the post of Director General for Education and Religious Affairs.

On July 15, 1918, he was ordained bishop, occupying the Botosani department.

On January 1, 1920, he headed the Chisinau Diocese, and on February 21, 1920 he was elevated to the rank of archbishop of Bessarabia.

April 28, 1928 was elevated to the rank of Metropolitan .

During the visit of the Romanian King Carol II to Bessarabia in 1930 , Metropolitan Guri forbade him to enter the altar through the Royal Gates , reasoning that the king can only enter if he has a crown on him and only has a legal wife.

For this, on November 11, 1936, under pressure from Carol II, he was removed from office and put on trial in a civil criminal court on charges of abducting one and a half million lei from the Chisinau Diocesan Administration. ^[1] Put to rest, after which he lived mostly in Bucharest .

He died on November 14, 1943 and was buried in the cemetery of the Chernik monastery, near Bucharest . ^[2]

• After the collapse of the USSR, one of the streets of Chisinau in Moldova (formerly Karpinsky Street) was named in his honor.
• In 1999, a postage stamp of Moldova dedicated to Guria Grosu was issued.

• Carte de învăţătură despre legea lui Dumnezeu alcătuită după mai multe manuale ruseşti, Chişinău, 1908,
• Bucoavnă moldovenească. Chişinău, 1909;
• Abecedar moldovenesc Chişinău, 1917, (în colaborare; ed. A II-a şi a III-A, cu litere latine, în 1918, ed. A VII-a în 1922),
• Rugăciune şi lămurirea lor, Chişinău, 1920, 44 p .;
• Despre omul “trupesc”, “sufletesc” şi “duhovnicesc”. Chişinău, 1924,
• Istoria sfântă a Vechiului şi Noului Testament, Chişinău, 1924, (şi alte ediţii);
• Slujirea lui Dumnezeu a unui preot bun, după Părintele loan de Cronstadt, Chişinău, 1925,

• Metropolitan Gury (Grossu) on the site "Russian Orthodoxy"