... to England.

In June - July, Mandy and I visited Romania to see Miti and his family.   Dave

Dear Dave
Yesterday, in the afternoon, I had a walk on the hill where the 'Monument of the Independence' is here in Tulcea. (It's the one where you took a photograph of Mandy). In Roman times legions would watch the Danube from here - it was a Castra - a place where a legion would camp. In English you have the word "Chester", also found mixed in with the names of Worcester, Manchester, Winchester etc... This particular Castra was called 'Aegyssus'.

After I had spent some nostalgic moments I then paid a visit to the Museum Of Tulcea County. There I was surprised to find out that at Enisala (my own village), archaeologists had found a indigenous necropol, with 500 tombs dating from about IV - V century BC. On display were a lot of different objects found with the cremated bodies and among them I could easily recognise some tools and symbols like 'heads of horses' for instance, a symbol that not so long ago could still be seen at Enisala. I asked my father once what it meant - the two-headed horse made from timber that was atop the roof of our house, but he could not tell me anything except it was a custom of the place. The meaning of it had been lost in time.
Now I see they came from this ancient people. It's incredible how they survived through such a long period when I think how many migrating waves of people came to devastate this land (especially between the 5th and 15th century): Tribes from the steppes of the Asia, the depths of Siberia, Cumans, Tartarians, Slavs, Bulgarians, Huns etc. Some of today's villages still preserve their names.
But I guess the answer is that every conqueror had the common sense to preserve what was good and useful from the inhabitants they subjected.

Not so the Marxist-Leninists. Their revolutionary ideology was one that on behalf of 'progress' whipped up an appetite to destroy the past completely, to the point of self destruction.
They had no interest in reconciling past with the present, no more than seeking a meeting of the social classes, or the different moral, philosophical or political doctrines of the world at the time, but wanted to smash them all to atoms, to eliminate the past and all that we generally mean by it:  history, customs, morals etc.
Bad people are just about everywhere in the world and to make them worse is not a hard business. But to have those good people commit evil, you have to make them believe what they do is virtue itself. That is what the communists did.
Equally, the spirit of justice and kindness is spread all over the world on all continents inhabited by human beings, and for its preservation and enhancement the best minds worked hard from ancient times.
My constant question during the communist regime in this country was how on earth it came to be that ordinary people, that normally would have had the natural ability to discern good from wrong, were still not able to do it. And tragically even now, after the cloud of that gigantic lie was scattered to the winds in 1989, still sadly I must tell you that most in this land are not able to discriminate between the wrong the communists inflicted in the moral conscience of this people and the 'good they so generously wanted to bring upon the whole humankind'.

The truth is that communist ideology perversely using the vocabulary and symbols of Christian religion, managed successfully to creep into peoples minds, corrupting every moral principle. Most people simply could not, and are not able to discern the difference. The essential principle of being a Christian, the charitable one, was destroyed. Especially in the big cities and towns, maybe less so in the countryside where the peasants are by their nature more conservative.
The good communist was a stone hearted guy, insensible to the pain and need of his neighbour. The Party and the state was responsible for pains and needs and assumed to itself all charitable mission, making it no longer the concern of ordinary people.

Ah, as I told you Dave after the end of World War Two, a plane coming from the USSR and flying over Enisala, crashed in the forest hills. The first ones to see the plane come down were those working in the wood, and some nearby shepherds with their flock of sheep. All of them ran to the place of this aerial disaster to find one pilot hung on a tree branch with his intestines out, and the other at some distance in the wood, out of the cockpit dead. Obviously the one in the tree needed urgent help but the people instead started to loot the plane, finding in it's cargo clothing and, much to their surprise, a cache of newly-minted Red Army medals. The Russian pilot soon died, of course. He was not a man but a 'Russian pig'.
Romania was under Russian occupation and soon a Bolshevik officer came to the village to make enquiries about the crash. Some kids told him the truth, but in any case he could see for himself the many villagers with medals pinned to their clothes. He was incensed with anger and ordered all those he saw wearing medals to be lined in a row... But a massacre did not take place because the mothers wept and implored him not to shoot them. He had a better heart than my fellow villagers. They did not see there a man in need for first aid but a Russian pig.
Maybe you could say they were victims of the propaganda and preconceptions of the time. I don't know.
But even now after so many years, people in the village refuse to talk about it. It's hard for some to repent and ask God, or their victims, forgiveness.

And you there in the rich west are not too interested to know the naked truth about the most destructive ideology that humanity ever has known. Never mind, I will tell it anyway. For I know that communist ideology inflicted deep wounds in our moral consciousness with incalculable effects on our lives today in Romania. Beyond the glittering facade of our emerging capitalism there still persists this poisoned moral environment.

Yes, the church is the only refuge for me... I am optimist that the future Ideology-free generation will continue that natural life, broken before by the catastrophe of '45. The moral regeneration will be possible by God's grace, only with these kids. People of the pagan countries like England - yes that's the truth - will come to God, I have no doubt whatsoever. But first the critical point must be touched - realising that life without God is impossible. This state of fact, in Britain and across Europe, is not new. It was the same in the pre-Christian Roman empire, too.
'Nothing is new under the sun' as Ecclesiastes put it.

Miti

Dear Dave,
I am feeling a lot like having just been awakened from a life-long sleep. Before going to the Library to gather some data for the church about the Dobrogea region (sacred places to visit and a short history of the whole region), I spent two hours with pastor Cristi in the church talking about religious issues. It was extraordinary, he conquered my heart by both his knowledge and warm feelings. We communicate in such a natural way, I thank the Lord, for it.
'Longing for love, thirst for knowledge, and pity for human sufferings, are the three wings that carried me all my life from one place to another' stated the British philosopher Bertrand Russell in his autobiography. I am not him, nor do I say that I have enough of the first two.
I am happy that the Lord is satisfying me in the eternal longing for His love, following in His way. In an unspeakable way. I feel like I am now becoming aware of my destiny and that my life makes sense, there is a purpose in it. Reading the word of God today, Cristi helped me to see things where I could not see them before. Where the Lords words are, there is life, isn't there?

God bless, Miti

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