Richard Wurmbrand
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Richard Wurmbrand (March 24, 1909 - February 17, 2001) was a Romanian evangelical Christian minister, author, and educator who spent a total of fourteen years imprisoned in Romania, as well as the founder of Voice of the Martyrs.
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[edit] Biography
[edit] Early life
Richard Wurmbrand was born in Bucharest, as the youngest of four boys in a Jewish family. He lived with his family in Istanbul for a short while; his father died when he was 9, and the Wurmbrands returned to Romania when he was 15.
As an adolescent, he became attracted to communism, and, after attending a series of illegal meetings of the Communist Party of Romania (PCdR), he was sent to study Marxism in Moscow, but returned clandestinely the following year. Pursued by Siguranţa Statului (the secret police), he was arrested and held in Doftana prison. Wurmbrand subsequently renounced his political ideals.
He married Sabina Oster on October 26, 1936. Wurmbrand and his wife were converted to Christianity in 1938 through the witness of Christian Wolfkes, a Romanian Christian carpenter; they joined the Anglican Mission to the Jews. Wurmbrand was ordained twice - first as an Anglican, then, after World War II, as a Lutheran minister.
In 1944, when the Soviet Union occupied Romania as the first step to establishing the communist regime, Wurmbrand began a ministry to his Romanian countrymen and to the Red Army soldiers. When the government attempted to control the churches, he immediately began an "underground" ministry to his people. He was arrested on February 29, 1948, while on his way to church services.
[edit] Prisons
Wurmbrand, who passed through the penal facilities of Craiova, Gherla, the Danube-Black Sea Canal, Văcăreşti, Malmaison, Cluj, and ultimately Jilava, spent three years in solitary confinement. His wife, Sabina, was arrested in 1950 and spent three years of penal labour on the Canal.
Pastor Wurmbrand was released in 1956, after eight and a half years, and, although warned not to preach, resumed his work in the underground church. He was arrested again in 1959, and sentenced to 25 years. During his imprisonment, he was beaten and tortured.
Eventually, he was the recipient of an amnesty in 1964. Concerned with the possibility of further imprisonment, the Norwegian Mission to the Jews and the Hebrew Christian Alliance negotiated with the Communist authorities for his release from Romania for $10,000. He was convinced by underground church leaders to leave and become a voice for the persecuted church.
[edit] Exile and mission
Wurmbrand traveled to Norway, England, and then the United States. In May of 1965, he testified in Washington, D.C. before the US Senate's Internal Security Subcommittee. He became known as the "The Voice of the Underground Church", doing much to publicize the persecution of Christians in Communist countries.
In April of 1967, the Wurmbrands formed Jesus to the Communist World (later named The Voice of the Martyrs), an interdenominational organization working initially with and for persecuted Christians in Communist countries, but later expanding its activities to help persecuted believers in other places, especially in the Muslim world. However, while intervening in the case of Colin Winter, the Anglican Bishop of Namibia, Wurmbrand criticized the latter's anti-apartheid activism, and prioritized resistance to communism — his attitude raised controversy.
In 1990 Richard and Sabina Wurmbrand returned to Romania for the first time in 25 years. The Voice of the Martyrs opened a printing facility and bookstore in Bucharest.
The Wurmbrands had one son, Mihai. Wurmbrand wrote 18 books in English and others in Romanian. His best-known book is entitled Tortured for Christ, released in 1967. His wife, Sabina, died August 11, 2000.
Pastor Wurmbrand died in Glendale, California. In 2006, he came fifth among the greatest Romanians according to the Mari Români poll.
[edit] Books by Richard Wurmbrand
- 100 Prison Meditations
- Alone With God: New Sermons from Solitary Confinement
- Answer to Half a Million Letters
- Christ On The Jewish Roads
- From Suffering To Triumph!
- From The Lips Of Children
- If Prison Walls Could Speak
- If That Were Christ, Would You Give Him Your Blanket?
- In God's Underground
- Jesus (Friend to Terrorists)
- Marx & Satan
- My Answer To The Moscow Atheists
- My Correspondence With Jesus
- Reaching Toward The Heights
- The Oracles of God
- The Overcomers
- The Sweetest Song
- The Total Blessing
- Tortured for Christ
- Victorious Faith
- With God In Solitary Confinement
