Article June 14, 2004 Issue

POWER, POLITICS, AND PRAYER

Romania through a Romanian's eyes

By Warren Bolon Senior Writer

Power tends to corrupt , and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Nineteenth-century British historian Lord Acton's truism on power presaged with chilling accuracy what would happen in the following century to countries that fell under communist control. And Romania under Nicolae Ceausescu would be a worst-case example of Acton's insight.

Nicole Draghici (pronounced DrahGEECH) lives in Bucharest, Romania's capital city. She visited the Sentinel offices recently to talk with me about changes in her homeland. She has seen both extremes of corruptive power—the total personal power and corruption of the Ceausescu regime, and the near power vacuum and resulting social disarray in post-revolution Romania, after the communist government was overthrown and the Ceausescus were executed in 1989.

When Nicole was a young girl, her mother gave their copy of Mary Baker Eddy's book Science and Health, along with old issues of the Christian Science Sentinel, to Nicole's uncle for safekeeping. Her mother also burned her copy of an anthology of Mrs. Eddy's writings, fearing that in an unguarded moment young Nicole would say something she'd read or heard to someone who might reveal the family's religious convictions to the regime's security forces. At the least, the Draghicis could have been subjected to interrogation, as Nicole said did happen to at least one Christian Scientist.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

'Father, what will I do?'