AmEmbassy - Bucharest APO AE 09213-1315 March 6, 1995 The Honorable Orrin Hatch United States Senator Senate Office Building Washington, D.C. 20510 Dear Senator Hatch: This letter is written on my own behalf, without instructions from the Regional Presidency in Frankfurt, Germany. As you may recall from previous correspondence, I am a retired Foreign Service Officer with almost forty years diplomatic experience. I am in Romania with my wife who is still on active duty with the Embassy (hence the return address given above). I have previously served as a member of a Stake Presidency, two Bishoprics, and five High Councils. Away from the Centers of the Church, I have served as District President, Branch President, and Bishop Pro-tem. I am currently Counselor in the Romanian Mission Presidency. I was personally responsible (under instructions from visiting Apostles Howard Hunter and Gordon Hinckley) for registering the Church in Spain under the new Religious Liberty Law (we were the first non-Catholic Church recognized in Spanish history). So I am not acting without background or experience. The Church has been in Romania for almost two and a half years now (see brief description in the enclosed paper of the founding of the Church in Romania). While we haven't yet achieved recognition as a Church, we are here legally as a "Religious Society". The enclosed memorandum will be largely self-explanatory. Dr. Earl Pope, an ordained Presbyterian Minister and Professor at Lafayette College in Pennsylvania, is acting as Consultant to the Romanian Ministerial Association, and has made it a point to keep abreast of LDS activities here. He has dined in our home with LDS Mission President John Morrey. And was a guest at a birthday dinner party for my wife on March 4, at which time he and I discussed some of the issues mentioned in the enclosed memo which have arisen during the past three or four days. Earl told me that in his opinion the person to help us resolve our impending problems most effectively would be an LDS Senator with political clout, that I should not try to fight my way through Church channels, but sit down and write you without delay, asking you to forward the enclosed materials through diplomatic channels to Ambassador Moses with instructions from the State Department to make inquiries through the Ministry of Cults to assure equitable treatment for the LDS Church here. In checking with Earl by telephone for the name of his university, as I was writing this letter, he told me he had since our dinner discussion, talked to several evangelical church leaders and discovered that the individual to whom Octavian Vasilescu, the head of the LDS Liahona Association, who was summoned to the Ministry, was indeed an old-line communist who considers himself in line to become the new Minister, and in the meantime has assumed virtual ministerial authority. Having no notable policies of his own, he is apparently acting on instructions from higher up -- meaning the will of the Orthodox Church which wishes to preserve its privileged position. Indeed, Earl believes Orthodox authorities are most interested in retaining for themselves all state monies devoted to supporting religion (under existing law, all approved religious leaders are entitled to a state salary and state support for their churches. The LDS Church of course has no interest in either salaries for our priesthood leadership or operation of our facilities. But it would be difficult to convince Orthodox authorities of this) According to Dr. Pope, the Ministry spokesman has no authority to overturn previous rulings, and what he has threatened is directly contrary to law and previous commitments. But he must be called on this without delay, or he may get away with marking out new ground. This is particularly important because with each draft of the Religious Liberty law being more restrictive than the previous version, and the bill scheduled for enactment later this year, we must stake out a position under which the LDS Church can effectively carry on its activities in this part of Eastern Europe. Sincerely, David Brighton Timmins AmEmbassy - Bucharest APO AE 09213-1315 April 26, 1995 Dr. Earl Pope 714 Hamilton Road Easton, PA 18042 Dear Earl: Got your wife's nice Easter card and message. She's so thoughtful. I'm sure you've found her an enormous boost to your ministerial career as well as a delightful helpmeet. As you know, the Orthodox Easter comes a week later than ours. Lola and I joined an Embassy group on a visit to Constantinople. Constantinople being the headquarters of the Greek Orthodox Church, and being there over the Easter weekend, Nick Grenias arranged with his friend and American Archdeacon at the Orthodox Patriarchy for us to attend the midnight service on Saturday evening. As you can imagine, it was more than a bit different than our traditional LDS service -- which consists substantially of a reading of the biblical account of the Passion, Crucifixion, and Resurrection of the Savior -- usually supplemented by a choral cantata. Their service, in which everyone stood for two and a half hours (a bit tiring for those of us accustomed to padded pews), was preceded by singing from a male octet which sounded as if they'd never sung together before -- let alone practiced the dirges they sang. And this at the archpatriarchy! Sort of like, in my mind, as if we'd done away with the Tabernacle Choir and replaced it with a pick-up group for the Sunday morning From the Crossroads of the West program on the CBS network. There was then a procession, in which civic dignitaries preceded up the aisle the acolytes, half a dozen priests, and finally the Archbishop. The Archbishop then lit his candle from the candle of an acolyte and we all proceeded to light our candles from his. I thought there were some commendable elements of the program -- particularly the custom of lighting each others' candles -- symbolic I suppose of passing on one's witness of the resurrection to others -- what we Mormons would call "sharing our testimony". Glad we had this experience. I'm really writing to bring you up-to-date regarding your strong urging that I write Senator Hatch about the harassment we've been experiencing, rather than trying to work my way through the LDS Church hierarchy. On March 6 I sent the Senator the enclosed letter, accompanied by a list of "Talking Points" he could use with the State Department detailing the problems we've encountered in functioning in Romania. Ten days later I was called on the carpet (as I'd fully expected to be) by Church authorities in Frankfurt. Seems the Senator, wise in the ways of Church politics, had touched base with Salt Lake before committing himself to do anything. Salt Lake told him to hold off while they came to me for an explanation. President John Morrey (whom you've met) had me fax Frankfurt both the Hatch letter, my talking points, and the copy of the provisional History of the LDS Church in Romania which I'd drafted at the request of Frankfurt European Area Counselor Dellenbach (and had also enclosed in my mailing to Hatch as background information). We then entered a period of quiescence. Next development was the Ministry of Cults' refusal to renew visas for about forty of our missionaries -- almost half our group. President Morrey used every artifice at his command to overcome this delay. Finally, all forty were in violation of the law for having overstayed their permitted time of residence. President Morrey phoned Frankfurt to relay this information, plus notifying them of increasing street harassment. There was a further delay of ten days while the matter was taken under advisement. At this point, President Morrey was summoned to Frankfurt to discuss the matter in person with the European Area Presidency. Semi-miraculously it had been learned that Senator Hatch was planning a visit to Bulgaria in mid-May, and he expressed a willingness to make a detour to include Romania. None of this would have happened without my having seized the bull by the horns and written Hatch when I did. He'd have not even been aware of our problem. Nor the Church have actively considered involving the civil political arm in our problems. President Morrey is in process of setting up an appointment with Ambassador Moses and his Political Counselor to give them a "heads up" on the Hatch visit and to try to get the Ambassador to arrange a courtesy call on President Iliescu -- during which time he'll briefly mention our problems, expressing satisfaction with our relationship with the government until the resignation of the last Minister and expressing hope the new Minister of Cults will be someone who will meticulously observe the government's commitment to freedom of religion. In short, your assessment of the situation was right on target. You anticipated the problem with visas (we've also had increasing minor harassment from Orthodox priests stopping our missionaries on the streets and attempting (apparently) to exorcise them by waving crosses at them and shouting prayers (or imprecations) at them -- particularly the young women missionaries. And you rightly anticipated the bureaucratic delays going through channels would have involved. Indeed, if I hadn't written Senator Hatch directly, I doubt the matter would have ever been brought to his attention and we'd have never learned of his Bulgaria visit -- or been looking forward to his most timely side-trip to Romania. I'll let you know how his visit with Iliescu goes. We're looking forward to your next trip to Romania. Let's be sure you and John Morrey get together to share impressions about non-Orthodox church relations with the government. With all best wishes, AmEmbassy - Bucharest APO AE 09213-1315 August 16, 1995 The Honorable Orrin Hatch United States Senator Senate Office Building Washington, D.C. 20510 Dear Senator Hatch: You will remember that as Counselor in the Romanian Mission Presidency of the LDS Church I wrote you on March 6 of this year about some problems we were encountering here as the Romanian Government drags its feet in transitioning from an outright communist regime to a more liberal democracy. I thought you would be interested in being brought up-to-date regarding the aftermath of that letter. First, you should be aware that Romania is perhaps the slowest of all the former communist bloc countries in making the transition to a pluralistic society. Ceausecu's Deputy Iliescu took over as Chief of State following Ceasescu's execution, holding out the promise of change. Yet five years after the "revolution", less than four per cent of the economy has been privatized, almost all of the old nomenklatura were retained in office, having the same mindset and performing pretty much as before (the "revolution" is increasingly being seen not as little more than a staged replacement of Ceasescu with the deliberate intention of avoiding real change below the surface), unlike the actual reforms which have taken place in other former bloc countries). I knew at the time I last wrote that I was jumping Church channels. But I learned during nearly forty years of diplomatic service that when truly important matters get caught in bureaucratic gridlock, it is sometimes worth risking reprimand to jump channels in order to get the issues to the decision making level. And seeing things becoming immobilized through indecision here, I thought I'd try to break the logjam by writing you. You quite appropriately decided to touch base with Salt Lake. You may, or may not, know that Salt Lake bounced the matter back to the Area Presidency in Frankfurt, and I was (appropriately) called on the carpet. But within two weeks, the minor harassment I'd mentioned in my letter broke out in major form with the refusal to renew the visas of forty missionaries -- over half our missionary force. This threatened to shut down Church operations here, making my unauthorized intervention look a bit prophetic and raising my stock considerably both here and in Frankfurt. Everyone was happy that I'd sent you background and talking points so you were fully read-in regarding the situation. Mission President John Morrey at once phoned Frankfurt, Frankfurt called Salt Lake, and Salt Lake decided that while they'd prefer not to approach you officially to ask you to involve the Department of State in our problem, they hoped that by letting matters rest you might choose to go ahead and make inquiries on our behalf. Of course no such thing happened, and matters began to look worse and worse. (May I say here that unlike businesses. other churches, and private citizens, the LDS Church appears almost perversely reluctant to use U.S. government resources in its own behalf). At this darkest moment, we almost providentially got word that you would be making a trip to Bulgaria and would stop over in Bucharest on the return leg of your trip. President Morrey immediately called on the Ministry of Cults and the American Ambassador to give them a "heads up" regarding your visit, and voila , the visas were renewed. As matters transpired, you apparently ran into scheduling conflicts and had to cancel your trip. While we were disappointed not to see you -- or have the opportunity to accompany you to see President Iliescu, the Minister of Cults, or the Ambassador, our immediate problem had been resolved. To bring you further up to date, we had hoped that when Mr. Fonta (who we'd been prescient enough to get invited to the Church's General Conference last April -- and who told us he was much impressed by the courtesies he was accorded during his trip) -- was named new Minister, our problems were over. Regrettably, this is not so. There is still a troublesome bureaucrat at intermediary level who just this week refused to renew visas for another eleven missionaries. Seems Minister Fonta, under considerable pressure from Orthodox Prelates and Orthodox partisans within his Ministry, is finding it necessary to tack and trim to maintain his authority within the Ministry. We got around the visa problem this time by taking the advice of the American Embassy and making a four hour drive with the eleven missionaries to the Bulgarian border, where we were able to obtain new tourist visas -- avoiding the risk of having them deported for being in illegal status. I guess the reason why I'm jumping channels again, risking further wrist slapping (or getting fired as Mission Counselor) is to make sure that you're aware that Church Headquarters, while it won't ask you to intervene, is hoping that you will follow through by approaching the State Department (as per my earlier letter), asking them to instruct Ambassador Moses to make representations on our behalf with President Iliescu and Minister Fonta. If you are reluctant to do so, absent a direct request from Church Headquarters, we'll just have to accept this. But I can say that we still hope you might yet find time to visit this part of Eastern Europe. It would be an enormously morale-boosting event for our young people to know that a highly important American government official is a member of the LDS Church. And it would send perhaps the only kind of message the Romanian authorities understand, that the LDS Church has significant political power in Washington, the capital upon which they depend for acceptance in the world -- as well as in their quest for acceptance and membership in the European Union. I enclose a memo written to the Church's (former) legal counsel in Frankfurt (he's just been called as a mission president) detailing other problems we have, or shortly may have, with the Government of Romania (and recounting the favorable results of your aborted trip). I also enclose a letter to The Reverend Earl Pope, a Presbyterian Minister who's been asked by the World Council of Churches in Geneva to work with the non-Orthodox churches in Romania to help them achieve operational freedom in post-Communist Romania. Earl has taken a special interest in our LDS problems here and has been a source of good advice. He's met with President Morrey twice, most recently at our home, where they talked for almost four hours. President Morrey later told me he'd been much impressed by Earl's counsel and had just sent a memo to Frankfurt reporting his meeting with him. Reading between the lines, you'll perhaps see that I had a bit of encouragement from two sources for my earlier unorthodox approach to you. Bill Wingo was also carrying out some tentative legal maneuvers without the full knowledge of Church authorities here or in Frankfurt. You'll also note that some who are familiar with Romanian government attitudes and behavior see the possibility of even more drastically detrimental decisions not far down the road which could impair (or end) Church operations here, unless we early demonstrate some spine, getting the message across that the LDS Church is not just another insignificant sect, but has influence it can bring to bear should we experience further harassment. Sincerely, David Brighton Timmins