Ioan Simu (June 27, 1875–June 22, 1948) was an Austro-Hungarian-born Romanian Greek-Catholic priest and politician.
Biography
Origins, early activity and World War I
Born in the village of Ciufud, in Alsó-Fehér County, part of the Transylvania region in Austria-Hungary (now Alba County, Romania), Simu studied in the nearby town of Blaj. He married Eugenia Ciura, the daughter of a Greek-Catholic priest from Abrud, and was himself ordained to the priesthood in 1898. The couple had six daughters and a son. While still a student, Simu was charged with agitation against the Hungarian state after singing the Romanian patriotic song “Deșteaptă-te, române!” as part of a choir. He was fined and spent four months imprisoned at Szeged.
Simu began his activity as a priest in 1900, at Abrud. Under constant surveillance by the authorities, in 1909 he was dismissed by government order for his nationalist stance. Assigned as parish priest at Luna de Arieș in 1912, he was promoted to archpriest at Sebeș the following year, by order of Metropolitan Victor Mihaly de Apșa. He was involved in Romanian cultural organizations, founding a craftsmen's society in Abrud and pressing the Sebeș authorities to grant subsidies to ASTRA, in which he remained active through the 1920s.
When Romania entered World War I in August 1916, the Hungarian authorities launched a wide-scale campaign of repression against nationalist Romanian leaders throughout Transylvania. Simu, together with other community leaders in Sebeș, was arrested at night. Not only was he an intransigent activist, but his son had crossed the Southern Carpathians and joined the Romanian Army. Initially taken to Sibiu, the arrestees were joined by a larger group, all of whom were sent to the detention camp at Sopron. Simu was held there until March 1917, when he returned to Sebeș.
Entering politics in Greater Romania
In early November 1918, as Austria-Hungary neared defeat in the war, Simu defied the government and held an assembly in the main square of Sebeș. He subsequently became president of the city's Romanian National Council (CNR). Simu was a delegate to the Great National Assembly at Alba Iulia, which proclaimed the union of Transylvania with Romania on December 1. He subsequently resigned as CNR head, reversed his decision and then resigned for good, in favor of the local Romanian Orthodox archpriest. Evidence suggests Simu was pushed aside due to his religion, although according to his account, he had always sought to avoid conflict with the Orthodox. At the same time, as the Romanian authorities consolidated their hold over Transylvania, Simu appeared on a list of reliable persons.
Active within the Romanian National Party (PNR), Simu was selected as its candidate for the Abrud seat in the Assembly of Deputies at the 1922 election. Although he had left the town a decade earlier, he retained influence among the local moți. His wife died during the campaign. His opponent was Ioan Rusu-Abrudeanu of the National Liberal Party (PNL); although native to the area, he vehemently criticized the “provincialism” and (implicitly Greek-Catholic) “confessionalism” of Transylvania's Romanians in the press, constantly attacking the PNR. At the time, the PNL controlled the area's prefecture, police and gendarmerie, helping ensure Rusu-Abrudeanu's victory through electoral fraud. Ample free stew and brandy distributed by PNL agents were not enough to sway the vote to Rusu-Abrudeanu; it needed the Abrud election administrator to invoke bureaucratic reasons for invalidating the votes from Zlatna and Feneș and turn Simu's 270-vote victory into a 152-vote defeat.
For a time, the cheated Simu focused on the church, obtaining some 16 hectares for its use as a result of the 1923 land reform. His repeated requests for funds from the city hall were at last repaid, the money being used for a new roof, repairs to the parish house and a cemetery fence. Despite a war reparation paid in 1926, the sum was not enough to purchase new bells; the old ones had been requisitioned during the armed conflict. He came in contact with a Romanian Greek-Catholic priest from Aurora, Illinois, asking him to hold a fundraiser for new bells. The latter demurred, claiming his bishop would not allow it. In the event, new bells arrived only in 1947, after Simu's retirement.