Pentecostal Union of Romania

[6] The denomination originates in the early 1920s and, headed by a central leadership, is divided into nine regional communities: Arad, Braşov, Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Constanţa, Oradea, Oltenia-Argeş (Craiova), Maramureş-Sătmar (Baia Mare) and Suceava.

[4] Pentecostalism was introduced to Romania in 1922 by Gheorghe Bradin, who set up a thirty-member church in Păuliş, Arad County after living in the United States since before 1910; the new movement responded to a deep concern for spiritual renewal following the trauma of World War I.

[8] In 1940 the Antonescu regime imprisoned a large number of Pentecostalists and Baptists, even planning to send them to concentration camps in Transnistria;[9] the church was outlawed from 1942 until after the Coup of 1944.

He called particular attention to the cross-cultural appeal of his church (generally lacking in more established bodies), noting that services were conducted in Hungarian, German, Slovak and Ukrainian in addition to the Romanian language of the majority.

[13] During the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia, when Ceauşescu feared Romania would be invaded next, an official relayed to him that a prophecy had been made by a Pentecostal believer in Vicovu de Sus to the effect that the country's borders were protected by angels.

[14] The church strove to transform its members to become model socialist citizens of industry and integrity; while some Pentecostal views clearly perplexed state authorities, they found within these communities signs of the moral qualities and ethnic reconciliation needed in Romanian society.

[15] In 1974, Pentecostal activist Vasile Rascol was sentenced to two years' imprisonment for illegal distribution of Romanian-language religious literature printed abroad, including translations of the Bible and The Pilgrim's Progress.

Its leaders have made frequent trips to the United States, where the Romanian Pentecostal Church has seen strong growth, due in large measure to a steady stream of immigrants.

[17] In Romania, the real strength of the movement is subject to some dispute: some sources suggest 450,000[18] or over 800,000[10] adherents, with church authorities claiming undercounting by hostile or careless census-takers.

They deplored what they saw as their leaders' "blind submissiveness", the "political elements" expected to be embodied in preaching, the censorship of the Buletin, the control of visits from abroad, and reports that had to be filed with the Securitate.