During World War II, at a time when Romania was an ally of Nazi Germany, he served as the leading Eastern Orthodox clergyman in occupied Transnistria, a territory where several hundred thousand Jews were murdered.

The Legion was founded in 1927 by Corneliu Zelea Codreanu as a breakaway group from A. C. Cuza's far-right antisemitic party called the National-Christian Defense League.

[14] Moreover, in 1937, he defied the Romanian Government and held special religious services for the Iron Guard's leader Ion Moța and his fellow legionnaire Vasile Marin.

[11] Apart from his Iron Guard connections, Puiu's time in the metropolitan seat of Bukovina was also marred by accusations of mismanagement[17] and embezzlement,[17] conflict with local academic and political elites[18] and even the revolt of a part of the lower clergy.

After initial military success, Romania regained control over Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina[27] and, following an agreement between Antonescu and Hitler, also occupied the territory between the rivers Dniester and Bug.

[a] Puiu received the official title of "Bishop of Odesa and all Transnistria", but his ecclesiastic province was, under canon law, a temporary exarchate of military nature.

The second important point of the mandate given to me in Transnistria was the systematization of social life, a necessary action requiring two immediate steps: an urgent, sometimes surgical one falling in the hands of the civil administration and the Army; and the other of constant spiritual renewal through the Orthodox Church and school.

"[51] The sexual conduct of the Romanian clergy was also a source of public outrage, and Puiu, pressured by both Government and Church authorities, was forced to issue stricter guidelines.

Less radical in his approach to"Romanianization compared to his predecessor Scriban, he occasionally held religious services in Church Slavonic or gave sermons in Russian.

He argued that preparations were made for the evacuation of the province, that he had insufficient human and financial resources to run the mission and complained that he had waited six months to receive a printing press and was facing difficulties with the paper supply.

Maximov's autocephalous Croatian Orthodox Church was a creation of the pro-Nazi Ustaše regime, and, by enthroning a bishop in Sarajevo, it sought to extend its influence over modern Bosnia and Herzegovina.

[58] Popa, however, citing intelligence service reports, argues that when Radio Donau finally aired the announcement about the creation of Horia Sima's government in exile in December 1944, Puiu was listed as a member.

Popa's argument is based on the fact that the communists had not targeted Puiu for arrest until 14 December 1944, after the Radio Donau broadcast, when the clergyman's name appeared on a list designating him as Religious Secretary of the Iron Guard Government in exile.

Chaplain (Colonel) Herbert E. MacCombie of the 36th Infantry Division reported on his encounter with the Romanian clergyman: "He (i. e., Puiu) told me that the Germans had been paying him several hundred marks a month, plus food and lodgings to support their cause.

Two charges were pressed against him: having "encouraged, from his position, the terror actions in Bessarabia and Transnistria" and having placed "himself in the service of Hitlerism, and selling off the country's interests by occupying the Religions' Secretary office, as it is made clear by a news dispatch broadcast by the German Radio Donau on 14 December 1944, at 0.30 a.m."[42] The prosecution also mentioned another Radio Donau broadcast, dated New Year 1945, when Puiu allegedly incited Romanians to disobey Soviet orders.

[45][d] Finally, Puiu outright denied any connection to the Iron Guard government in exile, despite all the compelling evidence, and requested an annulment of his sentence which would have allowed him to return to Romania.

The Intergovernmental Committee for Refugees [fr] initially issued a voyage document; then, becoming aware of the clergyman's problematic past, withdrew it before conceding to grant him some form of temporary ID that allowed him to leave Switzerland.

Sima, who had survived the war and remained the leader of a now exiled Iron Guard, recognized the importance of émigré Orthodox Church structures and re-established contact with Puiu in 1949.

[4] The period between 1949 and 1953 was marked by legal and canonical conflict over the Church of the Holy Archangels [fr] situated in Rue Jean de Beauvais in Paris.

The bishop of the Romanian Orthodox Episcopate of America, based in Detroit, Policarp Morușcă [ro], had traveled to Bucharest in 1939 and had been unable to return to the United States because of the outbreak of World War II.

The Holy Synod in Bucharest elected Andrei Moldovan to the vacant seat in 1950, but the local worshipers refused to accept him, favoring Valerian Trifa, a well known Iron Guard member, instead.

[60] Declassified documents prove that Puiu had sent letters to both Moldovan and Trifa and the authorities in Bucharest were aware of the correspondence and thus of the danger the former Metropolitan's influence represented.

The elaborate strategy involved making contact through Orthodox clergymen, blackmailing Puiu's brother and niece, using agents within the Church or members of the Holy Synod.

Terms were drafted by the Ministry of Internal Affairs as early as 29 August, with a Romanian agent paying a visit to Puiu's home on 26 October.

According to an archive document dated November 1955, Puiu asked the communist leader, Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, for the full restoration of his clerical rank and requested that he be named Metropolitan of Moldavia.

In 1972, Ionescu would restore the communion with the Patriarchate in Bucharest, causing the main parish in Rue Saint Jean de Beauvais and most of the Romanian Orthodox worshipers in Paris to pass under the authority of the ROCOR metropolitan of New York.

[79] Over the following decades, Puiu's popularity grew, particularly in Romanian Moldavia, where, according to Ion Popa, it reached cult proportions with conferences and symposiums often organized to honor his memory.

As recently as 2021, the Romanian news outlet G4 Media reported that a bust of Puiu was on public display at Putna Monastery in violation of national legislation on convicted war criminals.

Nevertheless, by ascribing — albeit implicitly — the killing of the Jews solely to state authorities Puiu's official correspondence veiled the participation of any of his clergy in murder and robbery.

[85] He notes that "in July 1943, in the middle of Visarion Puiu's mandate as Metropolitan of Transnistria, Jews (men, women, and children) were used as slave labourers, under the supervision of the Gendarmerie, for road works in preparation for the upcoming inauguration of the Balta cathedral.