Valeriu Gafencu
Valeriu Gafencu was a Romanian Orthodox theologian and Legionnaire who was active during the Legionary Rebellion. He died in a Romanian Communist prison after being tortured for years.
Known as the Saint of the Prisons, the Romanian Orthodox Church is considering his canonization.Biography
Gafencu was born in 1921 in Sîngerei, at the time a city in Bessarabia, a region in the northeastern part of Romania. He attended :ro:Liceul Teoretic „Ion Creangă” din Bălți|high school in Bălţi, where Eugen Coșeriu, Sergiu Grossu, Vadim Pirogan, Ovidiu Creangă and Valentin Mândâcanu were his classmates. Shortly after he graduated in 1940, the Soviet Union occupied Bessarabia and northern Bukovina; as a result, Gafencu and his family took refuge in Romania.
Gafencu is now an honorary citizen of the town of Târgu Ocna.
