Alexandru Rusu

Alexandru Rusu (November 22, 1884 – May 9, 1963) was a Romanian bishop of the Greek-Catholic Church. One of twelve children born to a priest in Șăulia Commune, Mureş County, he was himself ordained a priest in 1910. Rusu was ordained Bishop of Maramureş in 1931. After the church's leadership fell vacant in 1941, he was chosen its new head (Major Archbishop of Fagaraş and Alba Iulia) in 1946, a decision approved by the Holy See but not by the Communist-dominated Petru Groza government. Rusu was arrested in October 1948 by the authorities of the new Communist regime which had outlawed the church, and he was held in two monasteries, in Sighet prison, and then in two other monasteries. In 1957, a military tribunal found him guilty of "instigation and high treason". Rusu was sentenced to 25 years of imprisonment and he ended up at Gherla prison, where he died of illness.