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/specialCollection/nwcda7/179/TRIFA, VIOREL DONISE/TRIFA, VIOREL DONISE_0034.pdf

Central Intelligence Agency · 5 pages · text from the file's own layer

This FBI Detroit field office report, file 105-478, was released through the Central Intelligence Agency. It covers Bishop Viorel Trifa of the Rumanian Orthodox Church in the United States, and its date is not clear in the text. Informants describe his role in a factional church dispute, his leadership of the American-Rumanian Orthodox Youth, and his past as an Iron Guard leader in Rumania. It also cites a press article that blames him for the January 1941 Bucharest pogrom. The report has no UFO content.

(o 105-478)105-478)
activi ice in t. a U ted S tated that he had learned from tho parishion-
ire of Lever .4...0tairch, 1003 Seyburn, Detroit, that following
the churn emits= ob.,Aesuet . 30, 1953, a Holy Synod was held at which tins the
Synod voted 75 to 21 to be completely independent from Bishop T-IFA and Bishop
YOLDOVAN factions. According to the Informant, the Subject was present
at this Synod and when he arose to speak, he was booed and spat upon by those
present.
Confidential Informant Detroit T-5, of known reliability,
corroborated the foregoing information but stated that the vote was 99 to 21.
T-5 could furnish no information regarding the rejection of the Subject by the
members of the Holy Synod.
According to T-5,f Biehop)ANDa.i, LDJVAN is the opposing
Bishop to the Zubject in the current factional split in the lOaanimt Orthodox
Church. 101,00VAA was consecrated a Bishop in Communist Rumania in 1950 and was
liter deprived of his ecclesiastical title and church properties at the Vatra
by a court order issued in 1952.
D. The Americane&anandan Orthodox Youth
T-4 stated on September 1, 1953 that the eubjeet is leader
and organizer of the American-Rumanian Orthodox Youth and, as such, considers
Unto be a highly dangerous individual. T-4 pointed out thet the Subject, as
a leader of the youth movement of the Rumanian iron Guard, reportedly instituted
the massacre of thmuaanda of dumanians.
II. PAST J.CTIVITI3s
A. Iron retard
T-5 stated that he observed the Subject on January 20, 1941
(MOnday) loading a group of students (branch or the Iron Guard) in a march doen
Bratianu Boulevard in Bucharest, Rumania. According to 1-5, the Subject was
dresood in Iron Guard uniform and the Subject received his commission directly
from COltillU DR::alt, the leader of the Rumanian Iron Guard.
T-1 eteted thi.t he recalled seeing the Subject in Rumania on
several occasions wearing the uniform of the Iron Guard and that he has seen
numerous pictures of the tiubject dressed in the uniform of the Imunian Iron Guard.
. T-1,furnIshed the deporting Agent with regea 3 and 4 of t e
June, 1953 issue ef t C:■,Credinta", a newspaper published in Oetroit by Reve nd
II
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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 5 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.