The voice of the underground church.

Born in 1909, Richard Wurmbrand was a Romanian stockbroker turned pastor whose ministry traversed the Holocaust and Soviet occupation. Wurmbrand preached in caves and bomb shelters and to congregations hidden deep within the Romanian forests. He and his family worked in war zones, rescued Jewish children from ghettos, and smuggled Bibles at the risk of torture or death.

Wurmbrand was first arrested for preaching the Gospel in 1948. Ruled an enemy of the state, he was imprisoned for eight years - three of which were in an underground solitary confinement cell with no lights, windows, or communication with the outside world. Upon his release in 1956, he was ordered to preach no more. Wurmbrand courageously continued his ministry, and was arrested again in 1959. Sentenced to twenty-five years, he was repeatedly beaten and tortured. His wife, Sabina, was imprisoned for years in a slave labor camp while his nine-year-old son was forced to survive without his parents.

In 1964, Wurmbrand was amnestied from Romania and then, along with his family, fled to the United States. There, he spent the remainder of his life working on behalf of the persecuted church. Wurmbrand authored over twenty books, most famously Tortured For Christ, and founded an organization to help advocate for persecuted Christians around the world – Voice of the Martyrs.

Now internationally recognized as a hero of the persecuted church, the foundation and school’s namesake bears one of the most recognizable names in all of Romania. His memory serves as a reminder to each of the students that there is no calling too great and no trial too difficult for those seeking to serve Christ in all that they do