Bro. Steve Rutherford
Missionary to Romania
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Mission of the
Month Bro. Steve Rutherford Missionary to Romania |
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| About Romania: In Ancient times, this area was inhabited by the Dacians & conquered by the Roman Empire in 106 (2nd century). The Romans withdrew from the area two centuries later, under pressure from the Goths & Carpi. In the Middle Ages the entire Balkan peninsula became part of the Ottoman Empire. In the Modern Age (1878) the Newly-Formed Kingdom of Romania fought a war of Independence against the Ottomans. In 1916 Romania joined WWI on the side of the Triple Entente - After the War, Transylvania, Bessarabia & Bukovina were awarded to Romania becoming Greater Romania. During WWII Hungary & the Soviets took parts of both East & West Greater Romania. The Soviet Union was removed from power in 1965. The Revolution in 1989 brought the former communist Lon Illiescu to power until 1996. The Current president is Traian Basescu who started his mandate in 2004. Which is the same year Romania joined NATO. Romania joined the European Union just this year (2007). |
| About the People: The culture of Romania is rich and varied. Like Romanians themselves, it is fundamentally defined as the meeting point of three regions: Central Europe, Eastern Europe, and the Balkans, but cannot be fully included in any of them. The Romanian identity formed on a substratum of mixed Roman and quite possibly Dacian elements (although the latter is controversial), with many other influences. During late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, the major influences came from the Slavic peoples who migrated and settled in nearby Bulgaria, Serbia, Ukraine and eventually Russia; from medieval Greeks and the Byzantine Empire; from a long domination by the Ottoman Empire; from the Hungarians; and from the Germans living in Transylvania. Modern Romanian culture emerged and developed over roughly the last 250 years under a strong influence from Western culture, particularly French and German culture. |
| Religion: Romania is a secular state, thus having no national religion. The dominant religious body is the Romanian Orthodox Church; its members make up 86.7% of the population according to the 2002 census. Other important religions include Roman Catholicism (4.7%), Protestantism (3.7%), Pentecostal denominations (1.5%) and the Romanian Greek-Catholic Church (0.9%). Romania also has a historically significant Muslim minority concentrated in Dobrogea, who are mostly of Turkish ethnicity and number 67,500 people. Based on the 2002 census data, there are also 6,179 Jews, 23,105 people who are of no religion and/or atheist, and 11,734 who refused to answer. On December 27, 2006, President Traian Băsescu approved a new Law on Religion; under the new legislation, religious denominations can only receive official registration if they have at least 20,000 members, or about 0.1 percent of Romania's total population. |
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