Union of Christian Baptist Churches in Romania

The Union of Christian Baptist Churches in Romania (Uniunea Bisericilor Creștin Baptiste din România) is a Baptist Christian denomination in Romania. It is affiliated with the Romanian Evangelical Alliance and the Baptist World Alliance. The headquarters is in Bucharest. The first modern-era Baptists in Romania were of German extraction. Karl Scharschmidt came to what is now southern Romania from Hungary in 1856 and settled in Bucharest. Scharschmidt, a carpenter by trade, had been baptized by Johann Gerhard Oncken in Hamburg in 1845. By 1863 enough converts had been made to form a church, and Oncken sent August Liebig to serve them as pastor. This church, the oldest Baptist church in Romania, in still in existence and meets on Popa Rusu Street (Bethany Baptist Church). Russian Baptist immigrants, mostly from the southern Ukraine, came to Dobruja around 1862 and founded a church in Cataloi in 1869. Hungarian Baptists formed a church in Transylvania in 1875. Baptist witnesses did not enter Old Romania until the 20th century, and Orthodox opposition was strong. Nevertheless, a church was organized in Jegalia in 1909. An ethnic Romanian church was formed in Bucharest in 1912 by Constantin Adorian (1882-1954), a Romanian who had previously joined the German Baptist church in Bucharest. Adorian led in forming the Baptist Union of Romania in 1920. He met in June 1919 with Radu Tașcă, Vasile Berbecar, Teodor Sida and other baptist pastors from Crișana in Buteni to discuss the formation of a "Union of Romanian Baptist Communities". The organization was formally created in February 1920, when, after gaining approval from the authorities, a congress was held in the same location with representatives from baptist churches from all around the country. In 1921, it founded the Bucharest Baptist Theological Institute, which would later become the Faculty of Baptist Theology, affiliated to the University of Bucharest. In 1930, the Union had 45,000 members. Before 1944, the legal status of evangelical groups such as the Baptists was not well-defined.