Romania: Bucharest, translation of Bishops Paoli and Cisar to the crypt of the Cathedral. Mgr. Percă, “it is a gesture of mercy and gratitude. They stay close to the people they served”

Bishops Ignazio Felice Paoli (dead in 1884) and Alexandru Theodor Cisar (dead in 1954), who led the Archdiocese of Bucharest in crucial times in the history of the local Church, are back in the Cathedral of Romania’s capital city. Their mortal remains, buried until now in the chapel of Bellu Catholic cemetery in Bucharest, were buried in the underground chapel of St Joseph Cathedral earlier today. The event was attended by the apostolic nuncio to Romania, mgr. Miguel Muary Buendia, the Metropolitan Archbishop of Bucharest, mgr. Aurel Percă, other Bishops from Bucharest and Iași, priests, devotees, delegates of other Churches, and state authorities. “It is a gesture of mercy and gratitude for our ancestors. With this translation, the Bishops who left us stay close to the people of God they served”, mgr. Percă explained. Ignazio Paoli was Italian, born in Santa Maria a Vezzano (Florence) in 1818. He joined the Congregation of the Passion of Jesus Christ, was ordained a priest in 1849 and consecrated as a Bishop in 1870. He led the Catholics of the current Archdiocese of Bucharest from 1870 until his death, first as a vicar apostolic, then as from 1883 as an Archbishop. He was the first Archbishop of Bucharest and founded St Joseph Cathedral and the first diocesan seminary. Alexandru Cisar was born in Bucharest in 1880. He led the Archdiocese of Bucharest from 1924 to 1950, as an apostolic administrator and as a Bishop. In 1930, he was the first Metropolitan Archbishop of the Catholic Church in Romania. After the start of the persecution of the Church in Romania, he was arrested in 1950 and sentenced to home confinement. He died under suspicious circumstances in 1954.
Valentina Bombelli