Acknowledgements
I am indebted to my grandfather Haralambie Ploscariu (Tata Mare), a lay pastor from the village of Mărășești in Mehedinți county, Oltenia, who saved issues of Farul Mântuirii from the 1920s, providing my first primary sources for this study. Dublin City University and the Irish Research Council provided crucial financial support, while Maria Falina’s invaluable confidence and guidance between 2017 and 2021 spurred my completion of the research. Vasile Filat shared with me his treasured Bessarabian Baptist documents, the newsletters Drug and Svetilnik, and his own personal discoveries of the communities, in the midst of his pastoral duties and his PhD studies. Natalia Pozdirca provided me with the first copies of the archival documents on Averbuch and Valentin Shekhotsov continues to share with me literature on the history of Jewish Christians from Ukraine. Dumitru Lisnic procured for me crucial documents from Moldova. He, Iuliana Cindrea-Nagy, and I became great friends as we navigated this history of interwar religious minorities in Romania during our time in Ireland. Corneliu Lingurar shared personal family documents for which I am sincerely grateful. Roland Fleischer’s digitized Täuferbote was an immense help for understanding Roma Baptist history. Marius Silveșan pointed me to the only photo available of Credința church. Viorel Achim, James Kapalo, and Beatrice Scutaru provided me with important documents, hard to find secondary sources, networking, and publishing opportunities.
My appreciation also goes to Heather Coleman, Marnie Hay, and Roland Clark for great advice through the process of turning the thesis into a book. It was Roland’s idea for me to include a chapter on music. Tomek Kamusella read every chapter when still in dissertation format and helped me see crucial nuances in my research. Mihai Ciucă sent me numerous documents, obscure memoirs, and was always a delight to converse with on the topic of Romanian evangelicals. We provided pieces to each other’s historical puzzles. He is sorely missed.
Kai and Kirsten Kjaer-Hansen warmly welcomed me into their home in Aarhus, sifted through the Danish Israel Mission archives with me, and exchanged stories of our findings on Averbuch and Mildmay Mission. My Moldovian mothers Irina Țurcan and Maria Secara in California translated Averbuch’s Russian sermons, publications, and archival material. Only after starting the research did I discover Maria Secara’s husband is closely related to Marcu Tarlev, Lev Averbuch’s right-hand man in Chișinău!
Mama Lia, Tata Beni, and Ani provided unending encouragement, always welcoming me home for periods of rest. My thanks to Luis, for patience with his wife’s curious academic pursuits. Thank you Abba for beauty in the dappled.
In memory of my great grandparents, Gheorghe and Maria Grozoni and Arcade and Maria Ciuraș, dappled evangelicals.