Story number 3 for 17 Feb 2000

In a surprise move, the head of Romania’s Orthodox Church has asked for forgiveness not only for churches destroyed under communism, but also for the concessions made by the Church to the late atheistic dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu. New Hope International’s Marius Abrudan says this may well signal change. “Most of the time, the Orthodox Church tried to outlaw the evangelicals or considered them cults, not Christian denomination. But, that’s a great change, particularly when they’ve kind of started to become more Bible-oriented than [they were] traditionally.” Abrudan says with the advent of the official apology, things could improve even more. New Hope is excited about the growth already in place in their ministry. “Doors are open-we can go into public schools, we can go into orphanages, we can go most everywhere and do Christian missions. One of the new approaches that we have is in partnership with Focus on the Family-we want to go into high schools and present the abstinence alternatives from the Christian point of view.”