Baptist pastor recounts God’s grace during communist persecution

For many years, Romanian pastor Peter Dugulescu was a marked man. An outspoken opponent of Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu, Dugulescu was ordered executed by the communist dictator and was stalked by a government assassin known as the “Angel of Death.”
   
In the end, Dugulescu survived; Ceausescu didn’t. The infamous leader’s iron rule and life ended during a revolution in December 1989. 
   
And the “Angel of Death,” whose real name is Beniamin Jianu, was forgiven and later baptized in prison by the very man he had been assigned to kill.
   
Dugulescu recently shared his riveting testimony at First Baptist Church, Vincent, in Shelby Baptist Association and Shades Mountain Baptist Church, Vestavia Hills, in Birmingham Baptist Association.
   
He also brought a strong message of warning to America, the gist of which appears in his autobiography, “Repenters.”
  
“America needs to consider what happened to Romania and learn this lesson before it falls into the same pit,” Dugulescu wrote.
   
He said Romania’s problems began in 1944, when communists assumed leadership of the country’s government and declared it a land without God. 
   
Dugulescu now sees some of the same attitudes in America and is concerned about the possible consequences.
   
“A nation becomes vulnerable when it is rotten within,” he warned. “When we replace the love of God with the love of self, when secularism and hedonism become the defining traits of society — these things mean that a nation has come out from under God’s authority and, it follows, out from under the umbrella of His protection.”
   
Bringing his own nation back under the umbrella of God’s protection has been a driving force in Dugulescu’s life for the past 31 years. 
   
A Baptist pastor since 1974, his Christian stance often put him at odds with government officials of the communist regime. Despite attempts on Dugulescu’s life and other harassment, he never stopped proclaiming the gospel. 
   
“I had to suffer a lot, but I am alive today because my God is alive,” Dugulescu said.
   
One of the major thrusts of his postrevolution work began when he visited a local orphanage. 
   
The dirty, overcrowded facility was home to 250 boys, all considered mentally handicapped. Dugulescu was appalled at the conditions. The following Sunday, he called for a love offering to be taken at First Baptist Church, Timisoara, where he had been pastor since 1986. 
   
The money purchased stoves and wood, and church members  ministered to the orphans by hosting them in their homes.
   
Later Dugulescu began the Brothers of Onesimus project, named for the runaway slave in the New Testament Book of Philemon. 
   
The city of Timisoara donated a building with running water, and friends in America raised money to help fund the project for children living in the sewers and tunnels of Romania. These “throwaway” children are modern-day slaves and runaways, Dugulescu explained. 
   
Onesimus House opened in December 1992 as a home to seven filthy, lice-infested boys from the tunnels. Nineteen boys, aged 14 to 24, now live there. Many more have received help over the years.
   
A second facility, Bethany House, now houses 19 elderly people along with nine handicapped girls, some of whom have tried to commit suicide or are former prostitutes.
   
Another seed was planted in Dugulescu’s heart about six months after the revolution that also grew into a ministry. At the time, many flags in Romania still bore holes where the communist emblem had been removed. An American evangelist commented that the holes signifying the end of communist rule could also signify the spiritual void the government had left in Romania. 
   
“At that moment, God put a desire in my heart and a vision in my mind to found an interdenominational evangelistic organization and call it ‘Jesus, the Hope of Romania,’” Dugulescu said.
   
The ministry organizes evangelistic crusades, plants churches, teaches Bible classes, facilitates a feeding program for the elderly and provides help to the country’s orphans. It also supports a number of missionaries.
   
In 1992, Dugulescu became the first evangelical elected to the Romanian Parliament. He served until 2000. In 1993, he was instrumental in passing legislation allowing Bible teaching in public schools. “We made a big mistake taking the Bible away from children,” he said.
   
In 2002, Dugulescu resigned as pastor of First, Timisoara, to become a full-time evangelist. He has since traveled the United States raising support for spreading the gospel in Romania and sharing his message of warning and hope.
   
Dugulescu is currently seeking an appointment as Romania’s ambassador to the United States. “I can serve my country better here,” he said.