Instructions and Dispositions Concerning Aspects of the Liturgical Life of the Metropolitan of Moldavia and Suceava Sebastian Rusan (1950-1956)

Instructions and Dispositions Concerning Aspects of the Liturgical Life of the Metropolitan of Moldavia and Suceava Sebastian Rusan (1950-1956)

8 March 2024

Between the years 1950-1956, at the helm of the Metropolitanate of Moldova and Suceava was a worthy hierarch, like all the hierarchs who sat on the seat of this Metropolis, namely Metropolitan Sebastian Rusan who knew how to take care of the clergy and believers of Moldova, even if at the head of the country was the communist party that had imposed its policy, and harshly manifested its hostile attitude towards the Church, its servants and the faithful. In the present study we want to make known the permanent and constant concern of the hierarch Sebastian Rusan towards maintaining a living liturgical ecclesial consciousness among the clergy and believers of the Metropolis of Moldavia and Suceava. We will try to present succinctly, the space allocated being a small one, analyzing the Pastorals, the Sermons and the existing files at the Archives of the Metropolitan of Moldavia and Bukovina, the dispositions and exhortations in which Vladica Sebastian aims at aspects related to liturgical life, such as participation in church services and the way in which the faithful had to prepare spiritually for the great holidays during the liturgical year, especially the Feast of the Resurrection and Christmas, but also the dress and the way the priest should behave in society and, above all, during the office of liturgist. At the end of the study, we will also reproduce the provision given by Metropolitan Sebastian by which priests and church singers were obliged to have a priest and confessor during fasting, in order to be worthy examples for the faithful to follow, but also to make them aware of the fact that the mission for them it is a holy one and that it is necessary, in order for it to bear fruit, that they find themselves permanently in a state of bodily and spiritual purity.