Abstract
At the end of 1916, in the context of the First World War, valuable goods were collected from monasteries all around the country and from other institutions in order to be sent to Moscow for safekeeping. In some cases, the abbots of the monasteries tried to secure these treasuries all by themselves. The abbot of Secu Monastery, Ilarion Bălăiță, managed to hide the monastery’s goods and hand over only a small part, the vestments of Metropolitan Varlaam. They were handed over for safekeeping at the deaconship within the Metropolitan Church of Moldavia and Suceava in Iași. The treasuries of the monasteries were sent to Moscow with the second transportation of July 1917, while the one from Secu was stored in case no. IV with the goods of the metropolitan church. These values returned during the summer of 1956 when the Soviet Union made an act of “friendship” toward the Romanian people. Presently, the vestments of Metropolitan Varlaam are preserved at the National Museum of Art of Romania in Bucharest.