Former Hierarch – Bishop Policarp – The Romanian Orthodox Episcopate of America

The Right Reverend Bishop POLICARP (Morusca)

Former Hierarch of the Romanian Orthodox Episcopate of America

Consecrated March 24, 1935 | Nameday February 23

Fell Asleep in the Lord October 26, 1958

Pompei Morusca was born on March 20, 1883, in Cristesti, Dealul Geoagiului, in the county of Alba, and grew up in the village of Craiva, where his father was the local priest. The boy attended three years at the lycee in Alba Iulia and finished his baccalaureate (secondary school) work in Blaj, in 1902. Next came three years at the Theological Institute in Sibiu and his ordination as a priest in 1905. After three years of teaching in a confessional school, he married the sister of Nicolae Balan who was later to become the powerful Metropolitan of Sibiu. Morusca then began an eleven-year career as a parish priest in Tarnava Mare County.

The end of World War I also brought the end of his marriage and Morusca left parish life for service with the Transylvania Directing Council, a body established to integrate the province with Romania after 1918. His career expanded when he began to work for the Bishop of Cluj and later moved to the office of the Sibiu Metropolitanate. Meanwhile, he had taken additional studies for professors of religion, and continued to advance. The creation of the Romanian Patriarchate in 1925 found Morusca as Director of Statistics of the Sibiu Consistory and Residential Supervisor of the reorganized Sibiu Theological Institute. In this latter position he came to know many of the students who would later come to America as Orthodox priests.

The year 1925 was a major turning point in Pompei’s life. In the fall of that year he made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and his experience there was tantamount to a religious conversion or reawakening. He returned to Romania and was tonsured as a monk, entering the Hodos-Bodrog Monastery, located between the cities of Arad and Timisoara. He took the name of Policarp, the ancient Christian Bishop of Smyrna.

Still his scholarly interests continued, and his list of publications on Romanian history and theological subjects grew impressively. By the time he began to think about coming to America, he was abbot of the monastery. After lengthy negotiations with the Episcopate Council of the new American Diocese, the Holy Synod elected Policarp as the first Bishop of the Romanian Orthodox Autonomous Missionary Episcopate of America in January, 1935. He was consecrated by Patriarch MIRON (Cristea) on March 24, 1935, and arrived in the United States on June 27 that year. A splendid installation followed in Saint George Cathedral in Detroit on July 4.

After a four-year pastorate which was at times productive and at times very stormy, Policarp returned to Romania for a meeting of the Holy Synod, and to try to raise the financial subsidy of the Diocese. Caught by the outbreak of World War II, worked against by his opponents both in Romania and America, and then faced by the communist takeover of Romania after the war, Policarp was never able to return to his Episcopate or his beloved Vatra Romaneasca.

For a time he was Director of the Radu Voda Theological Institute in Bucharest, then the Vicar of the Bishop of Cetatea Alba-Izmail until 1944, when he was named to Sighet as Bishop of Maramures. It was during his tenure there that he was completely marginalized and, in 1948, was put into forced retirement. He lived quietly in Craiva, serving occasionally at the monastery church in Alba Iulia. Even until his death on October 26, 1958, he had hoped of one day returning to his flock in America as is revealed in his last will and testament.

CLICK HERE to view a slide presentation with text, images and sound (Romanian).

The Romanian Orthodox Episcopate of America is an archdiocese of the Orthodox Church in America and serves Romanian Orthodox parishes, missions, and monasteries across the United States and Canada.