Revival and Risks in Romania

The following update is based on reports filed by correspondents Alan Scarfe and Robert D. Linder. Both have traveled in Romania and maintain contacts with Christian workers there. Scarfe is on the staff of the Keston College Center for the Study of Religion and Communism, located in the London suburbs, and Linder is a history professor at Kansas State University.

Romanian evangelical churches are increasing their membership at a rapid rate. In some parts the descriptive word is “revival.” In the northern city of Oradea, pastor Liviu Olah has seen his Baptist congregation grow from 600 to 1,500 members within a year. (Young people, especially students, are reportedly seeking to meet at every opportunity to study the Bible together and to pray despite intensifying pressure against religion in the universities—or perhaps because of it.)

The interest in theological training is high. The Orthodox Church accommodates 1,200 students in its university-level theological institutes, plus many more at seminary level. The Baptist seminary in Bucharest this year had ten times more applications than it could accept.

Interest in the Gospel on the part of young people spans the country. Nicknamed “the Revival People,” young people in many locales are extremely aggressive in their witnessing, and this has cost some of them any opportunity they might have had to attend a university. But alongside the youth at mass baptisms one sees older couples, too. And many entire families of Gypsies are active in the spiritual movement.

All this evangelical activity has disturbed Communist authorities, and it has not been without cost. In the fall of 1973, both state and church were challenged by a paper written by Baptist pastor Josif Ton of Ploesti on “the present-day situation of the Baptist church in Romania.” Among other things, it listed religious freedoms surrendered to the state by the churches (see November 22, 1974, issue, page 52).

A year later, with some of the issues raised in Ton’s paper resolved, he issued an open attack against the official state ideology of atheism (see March 26 issue, page 6). The arrest and imprisonment of Pentecostal worker Vasile Rascol revealed the existence of a new press law that banned unauthorized distribution of literature, including Bibles and Christian books. Ten leading evangelicals had their houses searched and their possessions confiscated. Ton, together with two other Baptists, Aurel Popescu and theologian Pavel Nicolescu, was being summoned to police headquarters regularly for questioning about his activities. The investigation of Ton was suspended last year.

Concessions gained through all this effort include additional religious services, the lifting of restrictions on baptisms, increases in seminary enrollment, and a measure of freedom to challenge the policies dictated by the Department of Cults (the government department responsible for overseeing religious affairs).

Individual leaders of the protest and their families are still harrassed and intimidated. Ton, for example, is constantly followed by the police; they are eager to find some excuse to bring charges against him. Another believer is in continual danger because of his work in biblical translation, and yet another because of his compilation of a new Romanian hymnal. Others have lost their jobs or been denied access to higher education.

Another crunch began to develop a year ago. The president of the Baptist Union, Nicolae Covaci, resigned. He saw signs of possible interference by the state into election affairs of the church alliance, and government officials had been uncooperative in requests for permits to repair, expand, or reconstruct church buildings. On both counts he feared rebellion within the ranks that would split the churches (some are more assertive in resisting state-imposed inhibitions than others).

New officers of the Union were elected last December with little outside interference. There were government stalling tactics, however, over recognizing those elected. The Department of Cults declined to accept the validity of the election of two leading members of the Union, Pastor Olah of Oradea and Pavel Barbatei of Cluj. Both are graduates in law. A third law graduate, pastor Vasile Talos, was also elected to the fifteen-member Union council. He set the pre-election tone with the presentation in a regional association meeting of an eighty-page paper on the relation between Baptist churches and the law. With “the legal standing of the Romanian Baptist churches” as the keynote of the election platform, says an observer, three lawyers would be more than the state could put up with.

The authorities argued that Barbatei had been involved in car speculating, and they claimed Olah’s election was invalid because a state representative was not at the regional meeting where he was chosen. Now they have an additional argument. This past July he organized an open-air baptism service for about seventy candidates. When he informed the local authorities of his plans, however, they requested him not to baptize in the river. Olah nevertheless went ahead with plans to meet at the river, saying the wooden structure of his church building might collapse under the weight of the anticipated crowds. Military officials then organized a counter-demonstration in honor of the centenary anniversary of the Red Cross in Romania—at the same time and place as the proposed baptism. With one day’s notice, Olah switched the baptism indoors, permitting only newcomers to enter the building; regulars had to listen to the service on four loudspeakers outdoors. Approximately 5,000 jammed the church courtyard and streets.

Following the service the Department of Cults announced it had withdrawn Olah’s permit to preach and to baptize because of his “intention” to disobey the law. At last word he was continuing his ministry in Oradea as a layman. Whether the suspension is only temporary remains to be seen, but it casts doubt on whether his election can be ratified by an upcoming assembly. (Olah was dismissed in 1973 as pastor of a congregation in Timosoara where, as at Oradea, he had an effective ministry among young people, especially students.)

The space problem faced by Olah’s congregation is a common one throughout Romania. Also, dozens of congregations still risk fines because their churches have not been recognized by the state and so their meetings are illegal.

Equally acute is the need to educate the many young people who have recently joined the churches. Educational facilities for the evangelical churches lag far behind those of the Orthodox and traditional Protestant denominations. The Baptists have 1,035 congregations with only 150 trained ministers. Based on current enrollment and projections over the next ten years, eighty will graduate from their seminary, but eighty pastors will have retired. Therefore lay training is vital if the churches are to continue their present growth. To bridge that gap without pushing the state’s guardians of ideology into worse repression is apparently the main challenge in the immediate future.

Although the local production of Bibles is still severely restricted, there has been an increase in the number of Scriptures available in Romania in the last two years. The United Bible Societies (UBS) report that the first half of an edition of 100,000 copies of the Bible is now being printed in Bucharest. This project has been largely the work of the UBS, which supplied paper from Czechoslovakia and additional binding equipment from East Germany. Moreover, the UBS arranged to have the actual printing done in the patriarchate printing house in Bucharest in cooperation with Patriarch Justinian of the Romanian Orthodox Church. Still, nearly all Romanian Christian leaders agree that they need many more copies of the Bible right away.

Several groups have been at work publishing and disseminating Christian literature in the Romanian language. For example, in the last five years the America-based Romanian Missionary Society has published or readied for publication thirty Christian books. In addition, there is a small but steady flow of Bibles and Christian literature into Romania by various undesignated means. All this goes on despite the 1974 law that makes it illegal to receive or distribute Bibles or other religious literature that originates outside Romania.

Another major means of proclaiming the Gospel in Romania is by radio. Many Romanians now have their own radios, especially portable transistors, which makes it difficult for the government to control the listening habits of its people. Several evangelical organizations or individuals are now beaming the Christian message into the country. For instance, between June 1, 1968 and June 1, 1976, the “Voice of Truth” of the Romanian Missionary Society broadcast 2,874 programs through HCJB, Quito, Ecuador. It also has weekly programs on IBRA, Lisbon, Portugal, while other evangelicals use Trans World Radio of Chatham, New Jersey, to penetrate the increasingly perforated iron curtain surrounding Romania. The Ministry of Cults recently became alarmed at the large number of people who listen to these evangelical broadcasts. It has attempted to impede their effectiveness by inducing the government to pass a press law forbidding Romanian citizens to write to foreign broadcasters. Therefore what was formerly a substantial flow of letters from listeners in Romania has become only a trickle. But all evangelical broadcasters report that they still receive a few from some courageous listeners.

The radio broadcasts have been part of a spark of revival that continues throughout Romania. However, most of the impetus in the current evangelical awakening in the country has come from the Romanian Christians themselves, particularly the Baptists and Pentecostals.

In the midst of revival and harassment, one major problem facing Romanian believers is beyond the power of friends outside the nation to help resolve. This is the understandable impulse on the part of many Christians, especially pastors and other leaders, to want to leave the country. The government has even offered to facilitate exit for some; it would like to be rid of these “troublemakers.” A few, having suffered much for their faith, have accepted the opportunity to depart for an easier life for themselves and their families. When Christian leaders leave, it weakens the churches and impedes the work of Christ—just as the government wants, say some observers.

Yet despite the pressures to cease preaching the Gospel, despite the discrimination they face daily because of their open commitment to Christ, despite official efforts to silence them by arrest, threat of arrest, or encouragement to leave, the Christians of Romania continue to work and witness for God. Perhaps the words of a Romanian believer in a recent communication to the outside world express the view of many Romanian evangelicals as to what Christians in the West can do for their fellow believers in Romania:

“Pray for your persecuted brothers in Romania! Send messages of Christian solidarity with the persecuted! Organize actions of protest before Romanian embassies! Request the leaders of the Romanian party and state to guarantee the reality of religious freedom! Request all non-governmental organizations in your countries, organizations which fight for the defense of the rights of man, to intervene! In the spirit of Christian love, show in this manner that we feel and pray for one another as those who are called by God to His perfect salvation and glory in the Lord Jesus Christ.”

The WCC: No Toning Down

Philip Potter, the general secretary of the World Council of Churches, believes that the crisis in the ecumenical movement won’t go away even if his organization discontinues its social involvement. A proper response to the crisis, he told 120 representatives of U. S. member denominations of the WCC, is in “reaffirming what we stand for and not toning down what we are doing.”

At the annual meeting of the U. S. Conference for the World Council of Churches last month on Saint Simon Island, Georgia, delegates seemed to agree. They said controversial aspects of WCC work should not be sidestepped. One means of confrontation suggested was participation in future meetings by representatives of the groups that get grants from the WCC’s Program to Combat Racism.

Georgi Vins, Symbol Of Soviet Repression

This photograph of Soviet Baptist leader Georgi Vins was taken in a labor camp near Yakutsk in Siberia earlier this year. He reached the half-way point of his five-year sentence on October 1. It is to be followed by five years of exile away from his home in Kiev. Vins’s family, including his mother Lydia, 70, had their annual visit with him in June. The outspoken Lydia, imprisoned in the past for her faith, fears she could be arrested again any day.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Congress approved a resolution calling for a broader practice of religious liberty in the Soviet Union and for Vins’s release. The bill was introduced in the House by Republican John Buchanan, a Southern Baptist minister from Alabama, along with 148 co-sponsors. Senator Henry Jackson led its passage in the Senate. It pointed out that Vins was arrested in 1966 while leading a demonstration for religious liberty and again in 1974 “for continuing to do the work normally connected with pastoral duties … preaching, teaching, writing, evangelizing.”

The photo, released by the England-based Keston College research center on religion and Communism, is believed to be the first close-up of a prisoner in a Soviet labor camp ever to reach the West.

Potter, in his address, rejected the criticism that the WCC is too involved with social issues and not paying enough attention to spreading the Gospel. “All the things we do are expressions of the Gospel of Christ,” he declared. “I say to you there is no going back. We must take hold of where we are and continue to be involved in the many ways of confessing Christ in the world today.”

There was some turning back in the council’s financial affairs, however. Delegates were reminded that giving has not kept pace with inflation and that many of the Geneva-based council’s programs are being eliminated or cut back because U. S. gift dollars do not buy as many Swiss francs as formerly.

The New York office of the WCC, a liaison facility at the Interchurch Center, had its functions cut at the meeting. The conference’s board of directors agreed to trim the task to soliciting contributions from North American churches, transferring those funds to Geneva, and keeping Geneva informed of North American events. Formerly, a principal function of the office was to interpret and promote WCC work to Americans. Next year’s central budget includes only $20,000 for the New York office, in contrast to the $100,000 provided in recent years. The facility is jointly operated by the U. S. Conference (which provides some funds independent of the central budget) and by the WCC headquarters secretariat.

Robert J. Marshall, president of the U. S. Conference (and of the Lutheran Church in America), reported that “part of the cut is [based on] the conviction in Geneva that less is needed in the way of staff in New York.”

The office at the Interchurch Center is actually one of two “New York offices” of the WCC. There is also a liaison office for the council’s Commission of the Churches on International Affairs near the United Nations headquarters. It too has been hit by the financial crunch, and WCC officials have been seeking special funding to assure its continued operation.

Honored

William A. Reed, Jr., veteran religion editor of the Nashville Tennessean, became the first black and the first Southerner to be elected president of the Religion Newswriters Association since the organization was founded in 1948. He was elected at last month’s annual meeting of the RNA, which is composed of more than 100 men and women who report religion full-time for the secular press. Reed succeeds Richard N. Ostling, religion writer for Time (and former news editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY).

Death

F. GERALD ENSLEY, 69, retired bishop of the United Methodist Church, internationally prominent preacher, chairman of the World Methodist Council (WMC) evangelism committee; in Dublin, Ireland, of liver failure, following a major address at the WMC assembly.

In the annual awards competition, James Robison of the Chicago Tribune, Gerald Hay of the Hutchinson (Kansas) News, and the Arizona Republic, represented by Gene Luptak, took top honors.

Religion in Transit

Interim pastor Cynthia Jarvis of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Wooster, Ohio, on September 30 became the first woman to open a session of the U. S. House of Representatives with prayer. Another United Presbyterian minister, Wilmina M. Rowland of Philadelphia, was the first woman to open the U. S. Senate with prayer (July 9, 1971).

American Baptist executive Jitsuo Morikawa will serve for one year as interim pastor of the well-known liberal Riverside Church in New York City, and Southern Baptist pastor Jess C. Moody of West Palm Beach, Florida, has accepted the pastorate of the independent 12,000-member First Baptist Church of Van Nuys, California.

Lizzie Dotson of Seattle, a Louisiana-born black, celebrated her one-hundredth birthday last month. She attributes her longevity to living “close to the Lord.” A similar reason was cited by Southern Baptist evangelist James Fell Aker of Radford, Virginia. At 105, he still preaches three weeks a month and is booked for the next three years. He says he expects to be around “when the Lord returns.”

“The biggest deception ever perpetrated on the American media from a standpoint of missionizing the Jews.” That’s what the Jewish Post and Opinion thinks of evangelist Morris Cerullo’s filmMasada. The film is scheduled to be shown on 250 television stations, accompanied by a vigorous advertising campaign. Some Jewish newspapers have published ads. The B’nai B’rith Messenger of Los Angeles later apologized editorially, but the Detroit Jewish News said the film adheres to the traditional story of the martyrdom of 960 Jews trapped on a wilderness outpost by Roman troops. One of the people in the film is the well-known Israeli archeologist Yigael Yadin. He warned of legal action if a missionary message is injected into the film. On the TV show, Cerullo appears at the end of the film and appeals for funds and acceptance of Christ.

A fire of undetermined origin caused an estimated $1 million damage to the administrative headquarters of the Radio Bible Class in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Five video tape duplicating machines, worth about $100,000, were among the losses.

Personalia

Patricia Hearst, 22, has become “deeply devout” with strong “religious commitment,” according to Episcopal priest Edward John Dumke of Sacramento. A longtime friend, he visited her often after her arrest, offering counsel and communion, and he has traveled almost weekly to the federal hospital center in San Diego where Miss Hearst was ordered in April for psychiatric studies. Dumke says her acceptance of him as her priest and of Protestant communion (she partakes often) in no way involves renunciation of the Catholic faith in which she was raised, according to a New York Times story by Everett R. Holles.

American evangelist Howard O. Jones, the senior black member of the Billy Graham team, was the first clergyman ever to preach at independence day ceremonies in the Kingdom of Swaziland in southern Africa. During the program first copies of the Gospel of St. Mark in siSwati were presented to King Sobhuza II and the Queen Mother. About 50,000—or some 10 per cent of the nation’s population—attended.

Hugh Schonfeld, the Jewish author of The Passover Plot, professed Christ as Saviour as a teen-ager, attended a Bible institute in Glasgow, Scotland, and preached in the streets, according to old friend and classmate Ernest Sittenhoff, who is quoted in an article in Eternity. Sittenhoff, a semi-retired missionary to Jews, alleges that Schonfeld “became a renegade” after “his family worked on him.”

World Scene

Rhodesia update: Methodist bishop Abel Muzorewa, 51, one of the three main leaders of rival factions in the African National Council, returned from a fourteen-month self-imposed exile to a tumultuous welcome in Salisbury. He wants to have his say in talks with white officials on setting up an interim bi-racial government that will write a new constitution and prepare for black-majority rule.

At its recent annual conference, the Evangelical Church (Tin Lanh) of what was formerly South Viet Nam elected Ong Van Huyen, long-time dean of the Bible school at Nha Trang, as chairman, succeeding Doan Van Mieng, now vice-chairman. An official of the People’s Revolutionary Committee of Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) reportedly met with the more than 300 pastors and lay delegates and reaffirmed the government’s “unswerving policy” to respect freedom of belief. A recently expelled Chinese pastor, however, says that pressure is building. All Tin Lanh military chaplains have disappeared, and pastors have been restricted in their travel and evangelistic activity, he says.

German churchman Helmut Frenz, 43, bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Chile until the government withdrew his visa last year, was appointed to an executive position with the German section of Amnesty International. Most of Chile’s 25,000 Lutherans split from Frenz and the majority of ELCC pastors over their anti-government stance following the fall of the late president Salvador Allende. The dissidents have arranged to obtain new pastors from a conservative theological academy in Basel. The new clergymen are connected with free churches in Germany and Switzerland.

Nearly 200 of the 450 pastors in the diocese of Gothenburg, Sweden’s second-largest city, have launched a campaign to prevent Church of Sweden mission funds from going to strengthen the ecumenical-development bank of the World Council of Churches. A church mission official defends the bank, saying its purpose is to help in community economic development, not to lend support to terrorist organizations.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses in Argentina, who have had a shaky relationship with the government for years, have had all 604 of their congregations closed by edict. The Witnesses have grown from about 1,500 in 1950 to more than 31,000 last year. Last month, Patricia Ann Erb, the 19-year-old daughter of American Mennonite missionary parents, was abducted from her home in Buenos Aires. She turned up later in good health in a suburban prison. She reportedly had been active in leftist politics at a state university.

Catholic bishop Adriaho Hypolito of a poor diocese north of Rio De Janeiro was kidnapped, beaten, and left naked on a deserted road, and his car blown up, apparently by members of an anti-Communist group. They evidently were upset by the bishop’s outspoken emphasis on human rights of the poor and his condemnation of the “death squads” that have been murdering alleged criminals and leftists.

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