REMEMBRANCE IN TIME - Index of

146
Remembrance in Time
authorities, proved by his being mentioned, in 1958, within a document, beside other
State-employed servers of the Capital’s Evangelical cults 19 .
For breaching the religious-service regulations and disseminating religious publications,
pastor Cure Simionhad been confined for five years 20 .
2. Realization of separate religious services, such as small children blessing,
mother’s day, harvest day
Small children blessing, mother’s day, harvest day stood for festive occasions and as
many opportunities for the Baptist churches to have religious service, usually on Sunday
afternoon, when this was not allowed. Such services were opted for as the regulation
mentioned that “services could only be held on afternoon during religious acts and small
children blessing. Consequently, in greater churches, with more children, at divine
blessing services, the church also gathered on Sunday afternoon, at the times chosen by
the family who brought the child to be blessed. Thus, the opportunity was created to have
divine services during the afternoon, very few Sundays existed without such religious
services and the regulation had no breaching effect 21 .
Another reply modality of the de Baptist churches and of the religious personnel to
imposing the religious-service regulation was switching the weddings on Sunday
afternoon or evening. “According to an old custom, the rule existed for weddings to be
held during weekdays and not on Sunday, and most Baptist churches held weddings on
Saturday and few of them on Thursday, so that Sunday should be only dedicated to divine
services. But after imposing the regulation and because it was possible to hold divine
services on Sunday afternoon, the weddings were shifted on Sunday, according to the
regulation. It is known that in the Old Kingdom’s Baptist churches and before the regulation,
the weddings were still kept on Sunday afternoon. However, after imposing the regulation,
all churches from all country’s provinces shifted the weddings on Sunday.” 22
Mother’s day and harvest day were used to the same purpose, the one of having divine
services, when they could not be held otherwise.
3. Deacon ordination in Baptist churches, modality of supplying the right to
ordinate pastors
Deacon ordination in churches was an answer modality from Baptist churches and
pastors to the religious-service regulation, to the church assignment and to the religiouspersonnel
dismiss 23 . “Churches had found out that for the deacon ordination no prior
approval was required and, as the pastors’ coming in time so as to serve Lord’s supper
19 He was pastor in str. I.C. Frimu and worked at the New Hospital Berceni, ASSC, collection
Study Direction, 1958, file 122, f. 18. The Baptists’ highest percentage were State-employed and
they belonged to the State, according to the document of the Baptist cult, Ibidem, ff. 18-19.
20 Simion Cure, born on 17 January 1914 in Ilia, Hunedoara, was arrested on 17 August 1958 and
condemned to 7 prison-years. He served his sentence in the prisons Timişoara, Arad, Aiud,
Ostrov, Giurgeni, Periprava. He was freed on 1 August 1964. Daniel Mitrofan, Pigmei şi uriaşi,
Editura Cristianus, Oradea, 2007, p. 68; criminal record of the National Administration-Archives
of the Penitentiaries.
21 Alexa Popovici, Istoria baptiştilor din România 1856-1989, p. 759.
22 Ibidem.
23 Ibidem, p. 753.