There’s more to Romania than just Dracula (yes, Transylvania is a real place) and Nadia Comăneci.
Once upon a time, for half of the 20th century (when our parents were growing up), the church was forced to hide underground in Eastern Europe. Bibles had to be smuggled in. Christians were persecuted yet the church grew.
It was strictly forbidden to preach to other prisoners, as it is in captive nations today. It was understood that whoever was caught doing this received a severe beating. A number of us decided to pay the price for the privilege of preaching, so we accepted their terms.
It was a deal: we preached and they beat us. We were happy preaching; they were happy beating us — so everyone was happy.
Richard Wurmbrand, Tortured for Christ
Once upon a time, half of Europe was closed off from the rest of the world; Communism separated the eastern and western halves of the continent. For almost half a century, from 1944 to 1989, Romania was cloaked by the iron curtain. Per Wikipedia, here’s what had happened:
Once the Communist government became more entrenched, the number of arrests increased. All strata of society were involved, but particularly targeted were the pre-war elites, such as intellectuals, clerics, teachers, former politicians (even if they had left-leaning views)…
The existing prisons were filled with political prisoners, and a new system of forced labor camps and prisons was created, modeled after the Soviet Gulag. A futile project to dig the Danube-Black Sea Canal served as a pretext for the erection of several labor camps, where numerous people died…
The prison in Piteşti was the epicenter of a particularly vicious Communist “experiment” during this era. It involved both psychological and physical torture, resulting in the total breakdown of the individual…
It was in this dark context where Richard Wurmbrand and his wife Sabina shined the light of Christ. Richard and Sabina both grew up in Jewish families and became Christian in 1938; Richard was 29 years old. Maybe those of us who became Christian as young adults can find hope in his and his wife’s testimony – that it’s never too late to avail yourself to be used by God.
For the majority, if not the remainder, of their life as followers of Christ, they were arrested, beaten, imprisoned, betrayed, tortured, rescued and ransomed. In the midst of the persecution and suffering (perhaps because of it), they preached and learned to love as Christ does – even the very ones who tortured and oppressed them.
(from The Voice of the Martyrs)
The tortures and brutality continued without interruption… In the ensuing years, in several different prisons, they broke four vertebrae in my back, and many other bones. They carved me in a dozen places. They burned and cut eighteen holes in my body.
When my family and I were ransomed out of Romania and brought to Norway, doctors in Oslo, seeing all this and the scars in my lungs from tuberculosis, declared that my being alive today is a pure miracle!…
I believe God performed this wonder so that you could hear my voice crying out on behalf of the Underground Church in persecuted countries. He allowed one to come out alive and cry aloud the message of your suffering, faithful brethren.
– from Tortured for Christ (quotes found here).
Richard began a ministry to the persecuted church in the Communist bloc, now known as The Voice of the Martyrs which advocates for the persecuted church all over the world.
Today, Romania, like the rest of Eastern Europe has been fully (if not mostly) thawed out from the Cold War. This land has been growing more free since the revolution in 1989 that toppled Communism. The Church in Romania is also growing. The persecution that drove the church underground only served to root her in radical faith.
Other men and women of faith like Richard & Sabina Wurmbrand carried the torch. It’s time now for the church to flourish way aboveground in places like Romania; these modern martyrs didn’t lay down their lives for the church to stay underground.
Will you build upon the sacrifices made and legacy left behind by the Wurmbrands and other kingdom workers? Will you pick up the torch on the August 2011 World Race? Get in touch with us if you’ve got questions and/or concerns.
Sources:
- Wikipedia: Nicolae Ceaușescu, Communist Romania
- The Voice of the Martyrs commemorating what would’ve been Richard Wurmbrand’s 100th birthday in 2009
- The Independent‘s obituary of Richard Wurmbrand by Felix Corley, published February 23, 2001
- YouTube: Richard Wurmbrand, “Tortured for Christ” (filmed in the late 1960s), “We Respect the Law (But We Still Smuggle)” (filmed in 1992), The Voice of the Martyrs
