Pentecostal Union of Romania

The Pentecostal Union of Romania (Romanian: Uniunea Penticostală din România) is Romania's fourth-largest religious body and one of its eighteen officially recognised religious denominations. At the 2011 census, 367,938 Romanians (1.9% of the population) declared themselves to be Pentecostals. Ethnically, as of 2002, they were 85.2% Romanians, 10.6% Roma, 1.9% Ukrainians, 1.8% Hungarians and 0.5% belonged to other groups. They have 1,343 churches, 7,879 affiliates and 354 pastors, along with strong lay leadership. The denomination originates in the early 1920s and, headed by a central leadership, is divided into nine regional communities: Arad, Braşov, Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Constanţa, Oradea, Oltenia-Argeş (Craiova), Maramureş-Sătmar (Baia Mare) and Suceava. Membership is concentrated in Crişana, Banat and northern Moldavia.

Pentecostalism was introduced to Romania in 1922 by Gheorghe Bradin, who set up a thirty-member church in Păuliş, Arad County after living in the United States since before 1910; the new movement responded to a deep concern for spiritual renewal following the trauma of World War I. The church grew rapidly and it was declared illegal in 1923, presumably due to internal divisions within the church regarding its basic convictions, shared only by a few "initiated" individuals. Still, growth continued, but appeals for official status were denied in 1924 and 1929. During this time, a significant number of Pentecostal churches identified as Baptist in order to be registered with an official religious organisation as specified by the 1928 Law on Cults.

...
Wikipedia