A small studio in Bucharest was once the scene for the Seventh-day Adventist Church's television production in Romania. Today, a national media centre stands in this capital city with the task of producing radio and television programs for the nation. On November 24, the media centre officially joined six other major church-owned media centres around the world.
"I come with joy to this place, and this centre is a way of bringing light to the hearts of many people," Romanian Senator Virginia Vedinaş told the audience of nearly 100 official guests and staff at the event. Vedinaş is an attorney and religious liberty scholar who also teaches at the University of Bucharest.
"It's a thrilling day for me," said Adrian Bocǎneanu, an Adventist pastor and former president of the church in Romania, under whose vision the media centre was developed. Bocǎneanu and other Romanian Adventists pioneered a nightly television talk show on life and spiritual matters that was produced in a basement studio at the church headquarters.
Other government officials in attendance included Romanian parliamentarians Dan Liga and Ciucǎ Bogdan, Attila Gáspárik, vice chairman of the Romanian National Audio-Visual Council, and Ştefan Ioniţǎ, who read a prepared statement from the Secretary of State of the Ministry of Culture and Religious Affairs. The statement mentioned that Adventist media would make a strong contribution to religious freedom and diversity under the Romanian constitution.
The facility covers an area of 2,500 square meters (approximately 25,000 square feet) and has a large television studio. On November 8, the centre received a television license from the Romanian government to broadcast throughout the country. It is expected the centre will produce more than 20 weekly radio programs and two hours of national television programming each week, as well as programs for the Adventist-owned Hope Channel (Europe). Thirty-eight private radio stations, are broadcasting Adventist programs to listeners in Romania; some stations also broadcast programs for the Hungarian minority in Transylvania.
The new media centre, which united radio and television production under one roof, "will add more to our efficiency, creativity and the output of more programs," said Pastor Nelu Burcea, director of the centre. The first transmissions from its own production and syndicated programs are to be broadcast in the second half of 2006.
Mark Finley, a general vice president of the Adventist world church, lauded both the visionary leadership of Romanian Adventists as well as the sacrificial giving of church members to make the centre possible. Pastor Brad Thorp, director of the Adventist church's Hope Channel, said the network was proud to have Romanian programming as part of its line-up. In a congratulatory statement, Rajmund Dabrowski, Adventist world church communication director, said through involvement in the media in Romania, and elsewhere, Seventh-day Adventists "build bridges of hope and embrace those looking for a better way of life, not giving into fear and despair, but being part of a solution."
There are 71,000 adult baptized members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Romania, and an estimated 100,000 Romanian Adventists in other nations around the world. [Editors: John Banks and Christian B. Schaeffler for ANN/APD]
