Gastone Mojaisky was born on 6 August 1937 in Buonalbergo, a comune in the province of Benevento and the Italian region of Campania. He was born to the noble family of a Russian ambassador who was at the service of the tsar. He was the son of Alceste Perrelli of the noble family of Buonalbergo (after which the city was named) and Carlo, a lawyer and municipal secretary whose family had taken refuge in Buonalbergo for political reasons and established kinship with the illustrious families of the area, including the Perrelli, Mogavero, Cosentini, and D'Amore families, the latter two originally being from Benevento and San Marco dei Cavoti.[1]
In Buonalbergo, Mojaisky Perrelli was raised in the Christian religion by his family, who turned to the Catholic Church after the untimely death of Alceste Perrelli and the unexpected devotion of Anna Mojaisky, Gastone's sister, who, in memory of her mother, professed her religious vows and took the name Sister Alceste before dying at a young age in 1934.[1]
Mojaisky Perrelli was raised by his stepmother Donna Emilia D'Amore. After finishing his studies in Naples at G.B. Vico high school, he decided to enter the priesthood. He entered the Pontifical Seminary of Benevento and received his cassock as a seminarian on 14 November 1932 from Archbishop Adeodato Giovanni Piazza.[1]
In 1937, at the Church of San Nicola di Bari in Buonalbergo, Mojaisky Perrelli was ordained a priest by Archbishop Orazio Mazzella.[2] He later graduated from the Pontifical Lateran University, where he studied canon law, and from the Sapienza University of Rome, where he studied classical letters. He then added to his surname that of his mother, Perrelli.[1]
Diplomatic career
During his schooling and university education, he became fluent in five languages, which enabled him to be sent to Bolivia in 1942 as secretary of the Apostolic Nunciature to Bolivia. While there, he was appointed the chargé d'affairesad interim in 1945.[1]
Mojaisky Perrelli was appointed Titular Archbishop of Amida on 8 August 1959 and was ordained a bishop on 1 November of that year by Cardinal Domenico Tardini and co-consecrators Archbishop Pietro Sigismondi and Bishop Vittorio Longo. He was a Council Father in all four periods of the Second Vatican Council from 1962 to 1965.[2]
He was appointed Archbishop of Conza-Sant'Angelo dei Lombardi-Bisaccia on 4 August 1973, both of which he held simultaneously until 1978. In these roles, he distinguished himself for his noble, strong-willed, austere, and upright character. On 18 November 1978, after a heated conflict with the local clergy, he resigned his pastoral offices and lived near the shrine of the Most Holy Savior in Montella in near-hermitage.[1]
In the mid-1980s, he moved to Naples, where he lived in retirement and holding the title of Archbishop Emeritus of Nusco, in a community of Vincentian priests in Via Vergini. There, he died at dawn on 5 March 2008.[1]
^ abcdefghiJelardi, Andrea (April 2008). "Gastone Moiajsky Perrelli, l'arcivescovo che girò il mondo" [Gastone Moiajsky Perrelli, the archbishop who traveled the world]. Den (in Italian).
^ abBransom, Charles. Revue des Ordinations Épiscopales (n. 97) (in French).
^"ordine-e-vescovi-diocesani" [Religious and Diocesan Bishops]. Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George (in Italian). Retrieved 21 December 2017.