REMEMBRANCE IN TIME - Index of

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Remembrance in Time
The baptism administered by the spiritual personnel was a statue-regulated religious act.
Through its restriction, an intrusion was achieved in the internal life of the cult and an
infringement of its status, as well as of a person’s right to choose one’s faith. Similar
actions to the Baptist priests’ ones as resistance modality are found in the life of other
cults, inclusively of the Orthodox one.
The contesting and reply actions of the Baptist churches against the pressure of the
authorities, whereto we referred to before, stand for manifestations known by the
authorities. Similar cases are encountered at the Orthodox Church, as well as at the other
evangelical cults and the authorities usually reacted through notifying those who went
beyond what was allowed to them. The situation will change along the '70s, when the
forms of open opposition against breaching religious freedom are much ampler and more
profound, going beyond a discreet contestation of the regime.
Conclusions
The analysis of the relations between State and Church constitutes a necessary
approach, however with many facets that must be analyzed. Through our study, we only
enhanced the modalities and means used by the latter to exit the ideological restraint.
Through the memoirs, baptisms, through continuing to realize religious services even
when they were not allowed as a consequence of their regulation, as well as through the
other forms of protest, and “secretly performed religious activities” 62 , the Baptists drew
the attention of the Romanian authorities on the discriminations they underwent and they
asked for the recognition of some legal rights stipulated in the cult-related legislation. The
religious manifestations deployed therefore in a limited frame, in which, although the
constitutions guaranteed religious freedom, the State led an atheist militant policy 63 which
aimed at reducing the role of religion in the public space 64 . In fact, it was an application
of Lenin’s principles, who militated for religion to become a private and not a public
affair 65 . These contestation and reply modalities prove that during communism, no
subordination of the Baptist Christian Churches to the State was succeeded.
62 Alexa Popovici, Istoria baptiştilor din România 1856-1989, p. 753.
63 „Comunismul afirmă că nu există Dumnezeu, şi nici Hristos”, Richard WurmbrandThe
Wurmbrand Letters, Cross Publications, INC Pamona, California, 1967, p. 23.
64 ViaŃa religioasă din România, EdiŃia a II-a, p. 11.
65 For more details on the atheist policy of the communist regime, see chapter 1 in the framework
of the present work, where we analyze, within a subchapter, the atheist propaganda and its
manner of development through the Society for the Development of Science and Culture.