Bartolomeu Anania

Bartolomeu Anania (Romanian pronunciation: [bartoloˈmew anaˈni.a]; March 18, 1921 – January 31, 2011), born Valeriu Anania ([vaˈlerju]), was a Romanian Orthodox bishop, translator, writer and poet; he was the Metropolitan of Cluj, Alba, Crişana and Maramureş.

Anania was born as Valeriu in Glăvile, Vâlcea County, to Vasile Anania and his wife Ana, the daughter of a priest. He attended primary school in Glăvile and entered the Bucharest Central Seminary in 1933.

At the age of 15, Anania, while a student at the Seminary, joined the local organization of the Cross Brotherhood (Frăția de Cruce), part of the Iron Guard, being introduced to it by an older student. 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. Anania graduated the Seminary in 1941. That year, he spent three weeks under arrest, being accused of participating at the funeral of a member of the Iron Guard.

In 1942, he was tonsured a monk at the Antim Monastery, graduating from Bucharest's Mihai Viteazul High School the following year. 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. Afterwards, he continued his studies at the Theology Faculty of the University of Bucharest and the Theological Academies of Cluj and Sibiu, receiving his degree in the latter city in 1948.

Anania, accused of being associated with the Iron Guard, was arrested by the Communist authorities in 1958 and incarcerated at the Aiud prison. Another political prisoner at Aiud, Grigore Caraza, accused Anania of having actively participated in the 're-education' of prisoners, a charge categorically denied by Anania.

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