Richard & Sabrina Wurmbrand

Richard and Sabrina Wurmbrand were Romanian Christians and co-founders of The Voice of the Martyrs, a ministry serving persecuted Christians worldwide that survives today. Both Sabrina and Richard were born into Romanian Jewish families, where Richard lost his father at age nine.  He became deeply involved in Marxism as part of the Romanian communist underground.  As a “Comtern” agent he was dedicated to promoting communism and was arrested by the pre-Communist Romanian regime.  He would later marry Sabina.  Richard embraced Christianity as a result of the witness of Christian Wolfkes, a Romanian carpenter, who provided a Bible.  Richard would eventually become a Lutheran pastor. During WWII, Wurmbrands would evangelize fellow Romanians, occupying Nazi soldiers and later Soviet soldiers after the Soviet takeover of Romania.  Richard openly resisted atheistic communism resulting in 14 years imprisonment, including 3 years in solitary confinement.  Sabrina, who lost 5 family members in Nazi concentration camps, would be arrested and serve three years in a Communist forced labor camp.  Reflecting on his suffering, Richard would state: “It was in prison that we found the hope of salvation for the Communists… It was being tortured by them that we learned to love them.”  He would also say: “A faith that can be destroyed by suffering is not faith.”  How could a couple, born Jewish, who lost family to Nazis and were imprisoned by both Romanian fascist and communist regimes, still love their oppressors?  Richard played multiple life roles starting as a Communist agent and later creating an organization to assist persecuted Christians that still exists today, “The Voice of the Martyrs”.  Have you discovered your role to play in the Christian Story?