Romania

Country
The Carpathian Mountains and Transylvania come to one’s mind when thinking about the country of Romania. The ancestors of today’s Romanians were Geto-Dacians, an Indo-European people. By A.D. 106, Dacia, as their country was called, became a Roman province and adopted the Roman culture and language (Latin). In fact, Romania means “Land of the Romans”. Even after the Romans had withdrawn from the country in the late third century and various barbarian tribes (Goths, Slavs, and Bulgars) had invaded the area between 200 and 1100 A.D., the language and culture remained Latin. In 1877, Romania became an independent state. During the two World Wars, Romania was torn between the different powers surrounding it.  After WW II, Romania came under Soviet influence, and a communist regime was established. From 1965 to 1989, Dictator Nicolae Ceausescu ruled Romania and led the country to utter poverty. During a public uprising, he and his wife were executed and the country started on a slow and problematic course of economic and political reform.

People/Society
After the fall of the Ceausescu regime, the hope for better life and life in freedom has not been fulfilled. Romanians today are often disillusioned. Economic troubles have led to greater poverty and lower living standards. Corruption at all levels of authority and the growth of organized crime, remain a big challenge.

Religion
About 87 percent of Romania’s population of 22 million people belongs to the Romanian Orthodox Church. Another 7 percent of the people are Protestant, and 5.6 percent are Roman, Uniate, or Greek Catholic. During the communist regime, religious organizations were persecuted, churches demolished, and clergy imprisoned. Today, there is freedom of religion in Romania; however evangelical churches still face many difficulties.

History
The end of the communist regime had left the country in a desperate condition. The economic and spiritual needs of the people were beyond description. The Church of the Nazarene felt the need and was preparing to respond in a most effective way. Hermann Gschwandtner, Eastern Europe coordinator, had been making contacts to evangelicals in the country in order to find an opportunity for the church to minister and found that the best and most needed way would be through Nazarene Compassionate Ministries.  The plight of the orphans and elderly people in Romania was shocking and therefore the church started Nazarene Evangelical Christian Organization for Aid and Development (OCEAD Nazarineanul). Along with the first missionaries – Jon and Margaret Scott, there were numerous students and volunteers working in the country’s hospitals and orphanages. Especially ENC got involved in Romania, sending students on a regular basis for a semester abroad. Audrey Simpson, a volunteer regional missionary from Great Britain came to Romania to get involved in evangelism. Since there was no program in place, Audrey developed a program to teach English using Christian materials.  Just a few weeks after she had started, one of her students accepted Christ as her Savior – the first Nazarene convert in Romania. A need was also discovered in the area of training Christian businessmen and with the help of Jeff Moore, a volunteer from France, who at the time was working on his doctoral degree in business, a Christian business training center was opened under the auspices of Nazarineanul. In September of 1994, Nazarineanul was finally able to purchase a building in downtown Bucharest. After a lot of negotiations and a lot of uncertainty about how the legal acquisition of property in a corrupt former Communist country would work out, the Church of the Nazarene was provided a building to care for the physical and spiritual needs of God’s children in Romania. In May of 1995 the first Church of the Nazarene in the little town of Gaiseni, was officially organized.

The Church Today
Today, Michael and Tamara Hudson, are leading the work in Romania, and about 130 people worship in four different congregations.  There are 59 full members.

On the field, the Church of the Nazarene is ministering in the following countries: Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Italy, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Slovenia