Ieremia Cecan information

Ieremia Teodor Cecan
Regional leader of the Romanian National Socialist Party
In office September – December 1933
Personal details
Born	May 31, 1867 Novoselitsa or Beleuța, Bessarabia Governorate, Russian Empire
Died	June 27, 1941(1941-06-27) (aged 74) Tiraspol, Moldavian SSR, Soviet Union
Nationality	Russian (to 1917) Moldavian (1918) Romanian (after 1921)
Other political affiliations	Union of the Russian People (1906–1912) Committee for the Salvation of Bessarabia (1919) League of Bessarabian Christians (ca. 1922) Iron Guard (ca. 1933) National Renaissance Front (ca. 1938)
Spouse	Eugenia Cecan
Relations	Octavian Vasu (son-in-law)
Profession	Priest, theologian, journalist, agriculturalist, inventor
Military service
Allegiance	Russian Republic Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic
Years of service	1917–1919
Battles/wars	World War I Eastern Front Russian Civil War Southern Front Soviet–Ukrainian War

Ieremia Teodor Cecan^[1] (first name also Jeremia, Eremia or Irimia, last name also Ciocan; Russian: Иеремия Федорович Чекан, romanized: Yeremya Fedorovich Chekan; May 31, 1867 – June 27, 1941) was a Bessarabian-born Romanian journalist, Bessarabian Orthodox priest and political figure. During the first part of his life, he was active in the Bessarabia Governorate of the Russian Empire, earning his reputation as a Christian philanthropist and putting out the pioneering church magazine Nashe Obyedineniye. His opposition to Russification and his advocacy of social improvement led to a public scandal and then to is demotion by church officials, and pushed Cecan into independent journalism. However, his sympathies remained with the conservative-antisemitic Union of the Russian People, developing into a critique of Romanian nationalism that was well liked by the imperial authorities. During the latter stages of World War I, Cecan was a chaplain in the Russian Army.

Opposing the union of Bessarabia with Romania from a conservative position, Cecan fled to Odessa in November 1918. For the following two years, he championed the cause of Russian Bessarabia, and came into contact with the Bolsheviks. He recruited for the Red Army, and was himself drafted in 1919, briefly serving under Mishka Yaponchik. Threatened with retaliation by the White movement, and hoping that Romanian loyalism would save his son from a Romanian prison, he returned to Bessarabia in 1920. During the subsequent two decades, he found himself at odds with the Bessarabian church hierarchs, especially after advocating the preservation of services in Russian and Slavonic. Cecan founded a series of short-lived newspapers in Russian, most of which bridged the distance between the Romanians and the White émigrés. Much of his work focused on attempts at dialogue and reunification between the Orthodox and the Catholics, sparking controversy among his colleagues in the Romanian Orthodox Church, but earning notoriety in Western circles. He maintained to his death the vision of a "world church" centered on anti-communism and anti-Masonry, which, in Cecan's opinion, were intertwined.

In the 1920 and early '30s, Cecan became a perennial candidate in elections for the Parliament of Romania. In 1933, retired from active priesthood and finally defrocked, he veered toward Nazism, which he considered a manifestation of Christian socialism. He served for as regional president of the Romanian National Socialist Party, and put out its Russian-language newspaper, Telegraf. When the party fell apart, Cecan attempted to resume his political career with the Iron Guard and the National Renaissance Front. His final activities in the press evidenced his turn to anti-fascism, condemnation of antisemitism, and admiration for the Soviet Union. Increasingly isolated during the final stages of his life, he focused on his work as an agricultural inventor. Cecan was captured by the Soviets during the 1940 occupation of Bessarabia, then sentenced to death for his anti-communist past. He was ultimately shot in Tiraspol during the retreat of June 1941.