Înfiriparea unei comunități baptiste într-un sat transilvănean – Negrilești (județul Bistrița-Năsăud). Studiu de caz
Creation of a Baptist Community in a Transylvanian Village - Negrileşti (Bistrita Nasaud)

Summary/Abstract: This article aims to present the beginning, integration and evolution of the baptist movement in the village Negrilești, Bistrița-Năsăud county. The integration and evolution of baptists passed through different stages defined by rejection-acceptance, acceptance-rejection alternation. Zadic Ioan, the initiator of this movement, together with its continuationists, Duncă Gavril and Costea Simion, left their mark on a major part of Transylvania’s baptist movement. The devotion, courage and their implication stimulated baptist’s development process. Negrileşti remains a reference point for the baptist believers in Romania, as well as a strong confessional baptist centre in Transylvania. At the same time, the baptist believers’ persecution history in this area cannot be neglected. The social life of baptist believers’ and habitants of Bistrița-Năsăud county was strongly influenced by fear. The origin of this fears, as well as the problem of persecution, can be found in the repoort State-Church tandem and in the unavoidable errors brought by such a partnership. What is even worse is the total arbitrary mode of keeping the constitutional laws of citizens regarding religious aspects. On the strenght of what was understood by Romanian spirit or Romanian origin, the state Constitution´s regulations were ignored. Moreover, the major Church was becoming the ultimate decisional court of state´s social and political life. It was not only about isolated cases of overzealous priests with fundamentalist or extremist views, nor cases of unreasonable servilism towards the Church, coming from employees serving the State; it was about a generalised mentality developing across the countrymen´s households, reaching even the Parliament and the Romanian Government. In this extremley difficult context, caught between the personal ambitions of the orthodox and greco-catholic priests, as well as their impetuous desire to stop the baptist developement in Negrilești, the believers succeeded in a remarcable way to institutionaly self-organize, to build their own house of prayer, to self-finance, to be socialy envolved and to contribute to the baptist belief development in Transylvania.

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