Bartolomeu Anania

[2] However, he claimed that within the Cross Brotherhood at the Seminary, politics was not discussed and the group was not anti-Semitic, like the rest of the Iron Guard.

[1] In 1944, Hierodeacon Bartolomeu began studying Medicine and at the Cluj Conservatory, but he was expelled after organizing a student strike against the new communist government of Petru Groza.

[6] In August 1964, he was freed and only a few months later, in February 1965, he was sent by the communist regime to become an Archimandrite of the Romanian Orthodox Church in the United States and Canada, also editing a religious newspaper called Credința ("The Faith").

This idea has been supported by Ion Mihai Pacepa, who argued in a 1992 book that Archimandrite Bartolomeu was an agent of the External Intelligence department of the Securitate who was sent to the United States to divide the Romanian community.

Following a controversial decision of the Holy Synod, in 2006, the archdiocese was elevated to the rank of metropolis, making Archbishop Bartolomeu the first Metropolitan of Cluj, Alba, Crișana and Maramureș.

[12] In 2007, he was a candidate for the office of Patriarch, but he lost to Daniel Ciobotea, who received from the Church Electoral College 95 votes, against 66 for Bartolomeu.

[4] Following unsuccessful treatment in Vienna in early 2011, Anania died in Cluj-Napoca of heart failure and aortic valve stenosis at age 89.

[3] Voicing disagreement with the Western world, he argued that it is built exclusively on politics and economics, lacking any trace of spirituality, culture or religion.