Richard and Sabina

About the Book

Richard and Sabina is a biography of the Reverend Richard Wumbrand and his wife Sabina.  Both were born to Jewish families in Romania.  Richard received little formal education but was an avid reader.  Sabina, after two years of study at the Sorbonne in Paris, met and married Richard who shortly after developed tuberculosis.  He convalesced in the Carpathian mountains where he came in contact with a Bible and accepted Christ as the Messiah.  After Richard's baptism, Sabina, having been raised by Orthodox Jews, went through a severe crisis but finally converted.

While Romania was under the control of the Nazis, the Wurmbrands managed to survive but Sabina's family, except for two brothers in Paris, was annihilated in the Holocaust. Their real suffering came when the Communists gained control of Romania.  At the Congress of Cults, all clergy having been summoned, Richard, at the urging of Sabina, defied the government and preached Christ.  He spent 14 years under torture in prison.  Sabina spent three years as a slave laborer helping to build the Danube Canal.  Their son Michael was assisted by friends.  When not in jail, the Wurmbrands held "underground" Christian services.  Richard had taken some courses at a school of theology and was ordained as a Lutheran minister.

A Norwegian mission bought Richard from the Communists for $10,000 and the three Wurmbrands escaped to Norway.  The mission sent them to the United States to preach the evils of Communism.  They preached but mostly to deaf ears as the West was trying to accommodate Communism.  Richard had a tussle at a pro-communist meeting in Philadelphia.  It was reported in a newspaper.  Connecticut Senator Dodd read the article and invited Richard to testify before his committee at which worldwide media were present.  As a result Richard was invited to speak throughout the world on all continents and major islands.  While doing so he founded an organization which later became known as The Voice of the Martyrs whose purpose is to give aid to persecuted Christians everywhere.

About the Author

In 1989 the author retired from the practice of family medicine but not from life. He studied creative writing at Northampton Community College and published several articles in magazines. In December, 1999 Mellen Poetry Press published his Wandering Voices, a collection of verse. Richard and Sabina is his second book, a work of love consuming five years.