The metropolitan bishop Irineu Mihălcescu named me priest at the church „Sfântul Ioan Botezătorul” from Iaşi, in 1945, where I had activated until 1949. The church is a hystoric monument but is was abandoned for long time, all the ground around it being used to dump garbage.

 The Rusovici familly (Vasile and Maria), wealth and faithful people have fixed the church and placed a fence around it. In 1919 they built a school for church singers, located in a big building with four classrooms, situated in the north-west side of the church's yard. In 1927 the house in front of the church was built. This house was ment for the servant priest. In 1928 another house was built, with one floor and a semi-basement, composed by four rooms and a hall at the upper floor and the semi-basement situated in Cuza-Voda street in front of the actual building of the National Post. After finishing the work for these houses, the builders (Maria and Vasile Rusovici) asked from the Metropolitan Church, with a will (testament), that the church "Sfantul Ioan Botezatorul" to become a "munk house" [the actual meaning is of a house located near a monastery or church that serves as hosting location (sleeping, living) for the munks/visitors],

 so that when they will come with bussines in Iasi or to the Metropolitan Church to have a place where to sleep. As servants for the church the following priests were named: a priest, Parmena, Archimandrite Teofil Luca and me, Protosinghel Mina-Manole Petraru. As helpers there were another deacon and a singer.

          The School started to function with a frequency of for years, having as teachers the Archimandrite Teodor Stupcanu and others. A person was also named to administrate the big-house with the upper floor situated on Cuza-Voda street across the Post. The income was used to pay the church's personnel. The refuge came. Father Teofil Luca with the noun that was helping him and administrator Miron left to Brasov to the refugee camp. When they returned to Iasi their access was forbidden to the church. Miron was found with some frauds and father Teofil Luca was splitting the incomes with Miron. Administrator was named a lawyer, Parvu and after one year the houses were nationalized.

 I remained with the whole administration. Mr. Miron, besides the frauds, he rented without approval those 4 rooms from the upper floor, lowering the size of the available rooms for the hostel. Hearing about all of these the Metropolitan Priest Irineu named me as a servant priest of the Church and of the Singers' School to teach the basics, the practic singing and the Cyrilic reading to al of the 4 classes. Seeing that more and more money are gathered in the church (from the Saint Liturgy, offices for the dead people, etc.) I had started to use the money for building additional rooms, bedrooms, dinning rooms, etc, being able to receive in this way in the hostel 43 of the good and obedient younger students and 12 older students, offering them free food. Some of them were voluntary bringing food frome home. In those two years of drought, 1946-1947 from Moldavia, the food, already made was given to the students by weighted portions. The hostel was well organized and clean. We used to have paid maintenance personnel.

 The student Victor ... with the teacher Petru Baltoi, on every sunday of the week were organizing a small party called the "Happy Hour" after which the students were given a very nice meal. My best pupils (kids) were students Lupu Gheorghe and Atodiresei Petrica; they were singing nice with the first one leading the lectern singings and the second one being cashier and accountant with the time and church's money. Lupu Gheorghe was for a while a singer at the Golia Church and accountant for the Holy Metropolitan Church, today he is retired. The whole yard and garden of the church were filled with flowers and green space.

  The skilled kids that were working the garden were being paid. The Sweedish Red Cross donated for the students 45 blue suits and 45 blankets for the bed. All of these were officialy received as a reply to my official paper. The Metropolitan Priest Irineu Mihalcescu, hearing about me and about the improvised students hostel paid a sudden visit one day, accompanied by the priest Constantin Necula and by the diocesan secretary, Ion Zamfirescu. In a rush, I and the two students, Lupu Gheorghe and Atodiesei Petrica, sang "Our Master and Metropolitan priest..." when he prayed in the church. The students sang very nice therefore they were congratulated by the Metropolitan priest Irineu. The guest were leaded to the dinning room, confessing that they enjoyed very much the song because the students sang nicely...;...and I explained them that all the maintenance is paid from the church's money. We were congratulated by the Metropolitan Irineu who promissed that in the future the Metropolitan Church will help to build a bigger hostel so all the students of the Singers School could fit. What happened to the Metropolitan Priest is known. In pain, humiliated, laugh at. The one who was supposed to be the Patriarch of the country was thrown away and supervised at the Agapia Monastery...where he eventually died. At Christmas when the students got their brake, I was replaced by father Galaction from Agafton. In the same time, the regretted priest-counsellor Hadarca Dumitru, a very skilled and wise man, requested me from the Metropolitan priest Iustinian, saying: "Give me the priest Mina Petraru to server the Golia Church, to warm up the walls of the monastery, which stood as ruins for over 40 years and now the repairs have finished." In the same day the Metropolitan priest Iustinian left for Bucharest because the Nicodim Patriarch died. I was approved to serve the Golia church where i had a residence (home, house, place to live). I was doing service everyday, there was a lot of people coming in such a way that the church was filling to the full and the quire of the church singers school was singing very nice attracting alot of believers. The priest counsellor Dumitru Hadarca was very happy for this fact. The Metropolitan priest Iustinian was in Bucharest for 20 days, but when he returned the students' parents of the school went to him and asked him to re-instate the hostel of the "Sfantul Ioan Botezatorul" Church, because they are poor and can't afford to pay host for them in the city.

       The priest Theodor Vranescu was called, the director of the Church Singers School and was approved to him to re-instate the hostel. He justified saying that because it is the middle of the school year it is not possible saying that "Only the priest Mina Petraru can re-open the hostel in two days". I was called by the Metropolitan priest Iustinian and asked to re-instate the hostel. I had returned again to the church "Sfantul Ioan Botezatorul" and after the things related to the hostel started to work good I had began the construction of house 15 meters long and 8 meters wide, with 4 rooms, with tiled stoves and sanitary installation where the kids from the hostel worked. The house still exists, being rented nowadays. I confess that during the years 1945-1949 while i was serving the church there was a lot of people coming despite the fact that it was left in ruins for a long time until 1927 when the Rusovici family fixed it and gaved also 2 houses to its servants:

 One in the city, on the Cuza Voda street right across the National Post another one right in front of the church and the School of Church Singers, with 4 classrooms, situated in the church yard, in the north-west side. I personally kept this place in good conditions, with diligence developing it as much as I could. With the money from the public contribution to the church  (diptyches, requiems, liturgies, etc) I had build a series of dependencies such as: bedrooms, bathrooms and dinning tables.

These had represented in fact a hostel of the church, for the 45 students, the best of the 200 students of the school. To this, another 12 poor students were added, a hostel for priests, 8 beds, 4 for the priests and 4 for their wives, in two rooms. We were daily having around 75 persons at the dinner: schoolars, students, wood choppers and poor beggars. The service was well maintained and everything was kept clean. In 1947 the Ioan Marina priest came to Iasi from the Babeni-Arges parish, which was chosen vicar-archibishop. He was wormly received by the Metropolitan priest Irineu Mihalcescu which gave him almost the whole responsability of the diocese, the Metropolitan Priest being temporary retired to the Agapia Monastery in order to rehabiliate his health condition. This state led to bad consequences meaning that there were some defamatory stories in the press, in the "Tribuna Romaneasca" paper, concerning the Metropolitan Priest Irineu Mihalcescu. Seeing all that, I took the decision to overcome this defamatory action, within the limit of my posibilities and as discrete as possible. Therefore, accompanied by the schoolars and students from my hostel, we spreaded all across the city and bought all the papers and adds that were defamatory for the Metropolitan Priest.

 As a response to this action, the Metropolitan Priest Irineu asked me to come to him and he wormly thank me for the defensive action that i had done. With tears in his eyes, among other things he had told me, he said: "I could not believe that someone could ever do such a thing for me and for the church" and he continued: "Dear Father Mina Petraru, I can't hold it anymore, they have placed on my table the resignation letter and a threatening note. I am sick and i have little days to live. Tell Mina to everyone what I'm passing through, from my brothers, that want to raise over my dead body. History will write the thruth over the time." I left late that nigh, deeply touched, from the Metropolitan Priest Irineu. He walked me toward the exit blessing me with both his hands as I was leaving.

 After the death of the Rusovici familly which lived in the house in front of the church, I moved in as the servant priest of the church...but shortly after that, Ion Zamfirescu, the diocesian secretary moved in, with the approval of the Holy Metropolitan Church. Given the circumstances I asked one of the priests to write to those 45 students from the students' hostel that were in their Christmas Holiday that the hostel has been disaffected and that the father Mina had left. But not even that he did not announced them, although I had given him 45 post cards with the required addresses, he also insulted me that the place is not a hostel actually.

     The result was that the students from the hostel, returned from their holiday remained on the roads. Another fact that I want to remind is that those 45 students were helped by the Sweedish Red Cross with 45 blue suits and 45 blankets. The suits were used only on Sunday and Religious Holidays. In the rest of the time they were sitting wrapped and labeled with each students name, safely in the church. It was a wonderful period. 
     Alot of people was coming to the church, alot of people was having dinner here, there were nice religious ceremonies to which the students were singing in a chorus and all the yard of the church was filled with flowers and grass. The two years of hunger (1946-1947) had passed the Moldavia and in 1948 the rain started therefore goods were growing. The comunist started to accuse me of propaganda especially because during the two years of starvation I had kept 12 poor students at my place in their summer vacantion. But because they were not liking me they were searching for any possible oportunity to compromise me. Given the atmosphere, during one night they actioned, the security searched and found, they say, the clothes of the students. Right away I was picked up and accused of dilapidation, being emprisonned for this for 3 years. I want to add to the above that during the refuge a series of priests remained in Iasi: Father Patrascu, the sexton of the Metropolitan Church, father Atanasie Borta and others. All of them remained grouped with the P.S Bishop-vicar Valeriu Moglan, risking their life under the rain of bullets and bombs when the russians broke the Iasi front. P.S Valeriu Moglan rewarded the personnel for their faith, for the courage and sacrifice spirit, giving them different degrees such as archimandrites, etc. I wrote this so others will know, at the desire of the great metropolitan bishop Irineu Mihalcescu, highly educated, book writer and speaker of many foreign languages. Protos, Mina-Manole PETRARU