Two Romanian men claim a church in California is responsible for the fact that they were repeatedly raped as children in orphanages in the Eastern European country.
They say Harvest Christian Fellowship and its leaders, including evangelist and Calvary Chapel pastor Greg Laurie, should have known what was happening and stopped it.
Marian Barbu and Mihai-Constantin Petcu are plaintiffs in two lawsuits filed in federal court in California this week. They allege negligence and seek damages from Laurie and Harvest Christian Fellowship, who supported the Romanian ministries, along with former pastors Richard Schutte and Paul Havsgaard.
Their suits do not offer evidence that Laurie knew of the abuse allegations but blame him nonetheless.
Harvest Christian Fellowship, in a statement to CT called the lawsuits “sensational” and “a form of financial extortion … The allegations are serious and disturbing, but the target here should be the alleged perpetrator, not our church. This misplaced lawsuit wrongly targets Harvest and our pastor.”
Paul Havsgaard, who worked at the Riverside, California, church for about 20 years, went on to start ten orphanages in Romania in the late 1990s and early 2000s. He allegedly used them to sexually abuse scores of children. The abuse was “savage” and “prolific,” according to the lawsuits, terrorizing the boys and girls who came to Harvest Homes because they were desperate and the ministry promised them hamburgers and a safe place to sleep.
“I know what God wants,” Havsgaard allegedly told children as young as eight. “What I want, God wants.”
Harvest Christian Fellowship supported the orphanages financially but did not provide any oversight, according to attorney Jan Cervenka. The lawsuits argue the church and its pastors knew of allegations against Havsgaard before he went to Romania in 1998 and were told in 2004 of “awful accusations” at the orphanages but chose to ignore them.
“They did nothing to protect the children there,” Cervenka told the court. “Despite proof that Havsgaard was a devious and unrelenting pedophile … Harvest Riverside, Laurie and Schutte did nothing. They did not fire, suspend, withdraw or discipline Havsgaard. They neither reported him to the authorities, as was their duty under California law, nor instituted any new policies or procedures at the Harvest Homes.”
Cervenka’s firm, McAllister Olivarius, said it expects to file 20 additional suits with additional victims who were raised in the Romanian orphanages in the coming weeks.
The defendants in the case have not yet responded to the lawsuits in court or identified legal representatives. Havsgaard could not be reached for comment. Schutte, who went on to pastor a Bible church, also could not be reached for comment.
The church acknowledged it did fund Havsgaard’s orphanages. It also acknowledged it didn’t provide oversight—but rejected arguments it was responsible for oversight of the Eastern European ministry.
The orphanages were run through the nonprofit Actively Restoring Kids International, which Havsgaard set up independent of the church. Online archives of the Harvest Christian Fellowship website list Havsgaard as a minister in 2001 but not in spring 2002.
When a denominational magazine profiled the work Havsgaard was doing in Romania in the winter of 2001, it encouraged people to donate and gave a phone number. The number belonged to Harvest Christian Fellowship’s main office in Riverside, California.
The following year, when another Calvary Chapel minister working in Romania heard reports of Havsgaard’s abuse, he thought he should report it to Harvest Christian Fellowship.
“He doesn’t need to be another day in Romania,” pastor Steve Quarles told Schutte, according to the lawsuits. “He needs to be gone. He is an embarrassment to every single missionary and Christian worker. Get him out of here.”
Quarles and two other pastors did an audit of Havsgaard’s ministry in 2004 and found extensive evidence of abuse, according to the lawsuits. Children at the homes reportedly talked about sexual abuse openly, discussing it with each other and adults they trusted on staff. The audit also turned up receipts showing Havsgaard took some of the boys to nearby hotels and purchased snacks and alcohol after midnight, the lawsuits say.
Schutte, the missions pastor at Harvest Christian Fellowship and a member of Havsgaard’s board, reportedly received the results of the internal investigation November 2004. He allegedly didn’t do anything and continued to direct funds to the ministry for four years.
Harvest Christian Fellowship has 21 days to respond to the court summons. It said the lawsuit’s claims are “absolutely and entirely false” and “some of it is plainly slanderous.”
“We thank God for courts of law,” the church said. “We expect to vigorously defend against these claims.”
This is a breaking news story and has been updated.
