REMEMBRANCE IN TIME - Index of

Marius SILVEŞAN: Romania’s Baptist Churches under the Persecution … 151
the pastor Huşanu Mihai 54 from Cluj. He recounts the following: “in 1948, on 15 August,
I was baptized to Baptist faith […] with my mother. The baptism was done in Suceava
river, by a pastor who had the right to officiate this, Silvestru Ungureanu. Therefore, at 16
years old, I knew the faith, at 17 I was baptized” 55 As such a manifestation had no longer
been allowed since late '50s, Mihai Huşanu, he himself become pastor, started to
clandestinely officiate baptisms.
“God gave me the courage and I baptized at night in the church. I prepared
the water for the baptism in the church for the second day. A day or two
before I tidily took the keys from the caretaker and told Georgescu Ioan:
Listen, at 1 am, through this fence, look here, the plank is only superficially
placed. You remove the plank out of the fence and nicely come through the
back of the church … […] I told him: You come with nobody, you come with
God, enough. I gave him white baptism shirt, entered with him in the water,
in the baptismal font and asked him: Georgescu Ioan, do you believe in Lord
Christ? Yes, I do. On the basis of your faith, I baptize you in the name of the
Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. He got dressed and left. […
] So I did the baptisms. Others performed them at rivers. I also did a baptism
in Someş river. Somebody said: I believe in Lord Christ ... Top-placed
person. Do you baptize me? Yes. When? On the date of, come …As we set,
we went to the end of Someş […] We entered Someş … I baptized him the
great day and he left.” 56
Another testimony is offered by Dragomir Bojan 57 who, being asked whether he
remembers the moment of the baptism, recounts the following:
“My baptism was in quite strange conditions. You probably know that in
1954 … for the first time, the Department of the Cults 58 took some
measures, some regulations 59 as regards evangelical churches. And then,
that year, he took the decision for any baptism to be controlled. You had to
be part of the Baptist Church, otherwise the pastor could not baptize you.
Then he baptized me 60 at night in a river. Only a few testimonies were
present, because in the church, officially, as baptism takes place nowadays,
he could not baptize me.” 61
54 Mihai Huşanu “he was born on 5 September 1931 in Unceşti village, Suceava county. He is
Romanian, he graduated the Baptist Theological Seminary from Bucharest. He was Baptist pastor”
at the Church Cluj Mănăştur from Cluj-Napoca and president of the Baptist cult between 1980-
1984. Denisa Bodeanu, NeoprotestanŃii din Transilvania, p.177.
55 Ibidem, p. 180.
56 Interview with Mihai Huşanu in ibidem, p. 40.
57 Dragomir Bojan was born on 29 October 1941 in Cluj-Napoca. He is Romanian and he
graduated the Faculty of Philology from Cluj. He was Romanian teacher. In the year 2006 he
was retired. Ibidem, p. 95.
58 Department of the Cults is set up in the year 1957. Up to that moment, we speak of the Ministry
of Cults .
59 Dragomir Bojan refers to the regulation of the religious services on Sundays in the Baptist
Christian Cult.
60 At his batism, Dragomir Bojan had freshly graduated philology, was therefore an intellectual.
61 Interview with Dragomir Bojan in Denisa Bodeanu, NeoprotestanŃii din Transilvania, p. 96.