He became known as the 'The Voice of the Underground Church', doing much to publicize the persecution of Christians in Communist countries. before the US Senate's Internal Security Subcommittee. In May 1965, he testified in Washington, D.C. Wurmbrand traveled to Norway, England, and then the United States. He was convinced by underground church leaders to leave and become a voice for the persecuted church. 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. During his imprisonment, he was beaten and tortured.Įventually, he was the recipient of an amnesty in 1964. He was arrested again in 1959, and sentenced to 25 years. 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. His wife, Sabina, was arrested in 1950 and spent three years of penal labour on the Canal. 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. He was arrested on February 29, 1948, while on his way to church services. When the government attempted to control the churches, he immediately began an 'underground' ministry to his people. 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. Wurmbrand was ordained twice - first as an Anglican, then, after World War II, as a Lutheran pastor. 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. He married Sabina Oster on October 26, 1936.

Wurmbrand subsequently renounced his political ideals. Pursued by Siguranţa Statului (the secret police), he was arrested and held in Doftana prison. 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.Īs 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.

Richard Wurmbrand, the youngest of four boys, was born in 1909 in Bucharest in a Jewish family.

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