THE PERSECUTED UNDERGROUND CHURCH OF ROMANIA
    FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH of BISTRITA

1982 - Destroyed by edict of Dictator Ceaucescu
1984 - Rebuilt by the members (June)
1984 - Destroyed again by the Communists (November)
1989 - Rebuilt again by the members
1994 to present - Established 40 mission churches throughout Bistrita/Nasaud County and continue to grow and evangelize.


The Underground Romanian Church
FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH  “Golgotha”, Bistrita

The following article was written by a member of this ‘underground’ church’.  It is a history of Communist persecution and God’s faithfulness to His people.

January 1982 – the church was still located at the former address on the Andrei Mureseanu street, # 32, having 89 members.

On the 6th of January 1982, after the church service, we received the disposition of demolition of the church from this address. The disposition came from the authorities of the city. Immediately there was a crew that came there, ready to start the demolition work. We contacted the authorities and they told us that we do not have the proper documents to own that place, the church not being registered as a Baptist Church, therefore it has to be torn down in order to have room for building apartment buildings.

We were told that we can chose another location from a couple of them to use as church place. From the places that were proposed, we chose the location that the church has today on the Vasile Alecsandri street # 7, which used to be a house that was owned by a priest’s wife. The price of the building was 300.000 lei, at that time when an average monthly salary used to be 2.000 lei. In just 3 days, with the help of GOD, we managed to raise the whole amount of money and we bought the house.

The major problem was the registration of the building in our name as a church. This process was to be a long, complex and costly one, taking from 8 to 12 months. With the pastor, we again contacted people from leading positions and they were willing to help. During just one month, all the needed documents and procedures had been done and in the fall of 1982, we started the remodeling of that house, especially of a room 30 ft long.

We faced a lot of obstacles but GOD helped us to go further. For one whole year the authorities tried to keep us from building by not according us the needed authorizations for building. They delayed us until February 1984 when, with two brothers specialists, we started the measurements for the new building. We announced to the church about the new plans for the new building and the news got to the ears of the ones that were the heads of the town. They told us that we have to wait for a committee to come and do the measurements; they were supposed to come from the city hall. We waited on this committee for the whole month of March 1984. No one came and they had no plan to come so that is when we contacted some specialist in construction work.

We went to Oradea where we met a brother who is one of these kinds of specialists and he promised us help in this project. Back in town we were helped a lot by a sister who was working at the construction design department.

In May of 1984, we applied again for this construction authorization. We received some sort of approval but now what we actually needed, with one condition, was to keep the house front look, just to not be different, and show that it is a church, as the traditional churches are.

On the 13th of May 1984, we informed the church about the start of construction that is what you see today, except the backside facilities. Soon we were stopped by the lack of financial support. At that time we needed at least 150.000 lei and our church treasury held just 25.000 lei. We went in the country asking support from other churches.

On June 1984, we started to work at the new construction with the brothers from the church. We were able to buy the materials and everything that was needed. There were men and women from the church that came to work every day, split in teams based on different work that needed to be done. There were about 20-25 people that were there daily.  All this time we had been sanctioned by the city hall with fees valuing 2.000 lei each, just on the motif that we were building without the right permit.

Soon there was about to come the month of October, when we were having one of those Communist Congresses of the Romanian Communist Party and they had on their agenda to destroy a new protestant church.  At this time, the chosen church to disappear was our church from Vasile Alecsandri # 7. The church by that time was in red, covered, and the electrical system installed.

On the November 1, 1984, the decision came and on the 3rd of November the streets were blocked surrounded by militia (state police of that time) and the demolition started. We secretly managed to take pictures of what happened that day. They started with the roof when brothers started to come to the prayer service. We continued to gather and have services on the ruins. Having the pictures as proof, we sent them in secret to brother Joseph Ton in the States. On the day of demolition the Radio Station Free Europe was talking about this event.

After a week we were told that a Committee from the States and one in Stockholm were formed based on the human rights violations and they were ready to come to the scene to see the actual situation in Bistrita. The American team came through Oradea and the others came through Medias with the US Ambassador of that time in Bucharest. The entire route was surveyed by the secret police. There were 14 that came that time and while the authorities were expecting them at the Golden Crown hotel, they arrived earlier and went straight to the site and videotaped the situation. There were many that came from the country and abroad, people that heard about what happened with the church. The foreign team came on the November 13th, one day earlier before the demolition crew received the order to clean the mess and make it look like it has not been torn down intentionally.

After the Committee left, we were promised help to reconstruct the damaged building but the County Leaders did not approve that, even if they promised the Foreign Committee that they will do their best to have this done.

On the 23rd of November, we improvised a hall made from the ruins.  We covered it with plastic foil and started to meet there. We had Christmas and the New Year celebrations there.

Only in 1987 did we receive the final authorization to reconstruct and we again started the building process. The work lasted until 1989.

On December 3rd 1989, we had the inaugural service of the Baptist Church Bistrita and the entire service was recorded on videotape. It was a real celebration that we remember with great joy. Since then the church has been quite the same with other changes and additions that have been made in time, such as the back side of it, the apartments, the kindergarten, the kitchen, the attic rooms…