THE NEW RUMANIA
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sin,—The article on " The New Rumania " in your issue of July 30th refers to religious persecution directed against Unitarians and Jews. Unhappily, persecution is by no means confined to these groups. During the whole of the post-War period the Baptists in Rumania, the majority of whom are found in Transylvania, have been the victims of a policy of repression expressed in the closing of chapels, the silencing of preachers, fines, imprisonments, beatings by the police without formal charge or trial; dismissals from employment, refusal of promotion in the army, and so forth.
Within the last few days there has appeared in the Biserica si Scoala, an ecclesiastical paper published in Arad (where the bishop, a former official of the Ministry of Cultus, has distinguished himself as a zealous persecutor), an intimation that henceforth the children of " sectarians " are to be refused admission to the public schools, the Ministry of Education having issued an order that every child applying for entrance in September next must produce a certificate proving that his parents belong to a confession recognized by the State. Under Hungarian law the Baptists were such a confession ; under Rumanian they are not. This latest action of the Ministry affects a community that in Rumania numbers well over 30,000 communicants and, when adherents and children are reckoned, well over 130,000 persons. No other country of the world treats the denomination as Rumania does. It should be added that 70 per cent. of the Baptists in the land are Rumanian in blood and speech and sympathy. The persecution is on religious, not racial, grounds.—I am, Sir, &c., J. H. RUSHBROOKE
(Ex-President, Baptist Union of Great Britain and Ireland ; Seeretary, Baptist World Alliance).
4 Southampton. Row, London, W.C. 1.
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