Please read below 3 articles by World Vision Romania about Pro-vita Valea Plopului and Father Tanase.

Pro Vita: Child in a Box

Twelve-day-old Lucian Cizmaru was Father Tanase’s first charge. Lucian’s mother, a destitute, single woman, entrusted her son to her village priest who contacted Father Tanase, asking if he could find the child a home. Braving a mountain blizzard, Father Tanase traveled several hundred miles with the infant bundled in a cardboard box in the back seat of his rusting Mercedes, a donated car held together with bits of wire and wisps of prayer.

The next morning, he brought the baby to church, tucking him in a warm corner of the sanctuary before commencing the Orthodox liturgy.

“As we sang that morning, we heard a baby crying,” says Maria Cizmaru, a Valea Plopului parishioner. “Several people ran to the window because we thought the wailing was coming from the snow banks. Then we saw this child in a box!” Maria was still cradling Lucian after the service when Father Tanase asked if she would take him home. A mother of four, this farmer’s wife was uncertain how her husband, Ion, would react to another mouth to feed. Seven years later, Lucian is still their cherished baby.

Pots of love: “If your own children can live on what you have, you can cope with one more soul,” asserts Maria, a mother of five, including her foster son, Lucian. “What is one more child when you are cooking a pot of soup?” Left to right: Maria’s husband, Ion; Lucian, and Father Tanase.

Initially, neighbors in this cloistered, tradition-bound village did not laud Maria’s charity. “The men asked my husband how he could raise a stranger’s child,” says Maria, shaking her head sadly. Rumors spread that Lucian was the illegitimate son of the couple’s 18-year-old daughter. Snubbed in the market and openly ostracized, Maria drew courage from her conviction that Lucian was God’s gift.

“When I was young, I had an abortion. I felt very guilty afterward,” confides Maria, nervously fingering the collar of her faded cotton dress. “I prayed and confessed my sin for many months, but somehow I didn’t feel any better. When Lucian arrived, Father Tanase said to me: ‘God has brought you this child as a sign of his forgiveness.’ Today, Lucian is our son. I could never give him up. We love him too much.”

The Cizmarus’ devotion and acceptance of Lucian eventually sparked a transformation in Valea Plopului. Today, foster families here care for 97 abandoned children, and provide moral support for single mothers, like Eugenia, who come to stay in the village. Although they receive a small allowance from Father Tanase’s ministry, money is not their motivation.

“I would gladly care for one or two more children, but we only have one heated room,” says Vasilica Popescu, balancing 8-month-old Gabriela on her hip outside her shuttered cottage. Vasilica, a mother of two young children, took in Gabriela despite her husband’s unemployment. “This has been good for Gabriela and for our family. Our village has changed since we began working with Father Tanase. We are united in a common goal — helping these children and the pregnant mothers who seek refuge in our village.”

Father Tanase takes heart from the compassion he sees germinating in Valea Plopului. He prays Christians in other villages will emulate this pro-life model of community care.

“In the beginning, we just spoke out against abortion. We did not plan to bring children here, but the women began leaving their babies,” reflects Father Tanase, stroking his voluminous beard as he considers the reasons for his ministry’s success. “Then the pregnant mothers came, not for material help, but because they found love here.”

Pro Vita: For the Born and Unborn

Story by Karen Homer
Photography by Jon Warren

In Romania, World Vision supports the work of Orthodox priest Father Nicolae Tanase, 41, who models how community care can help prevent abortion and child abandonment.

Kids caring for kids: Eugenia Neagu, 15, refused to abort or abandon her daughter, Andreea Iasmina, despite pressure from her family. “Eugenia is still a child herself. She calls out for her mama in her sleep,” comments Eugenia’s roommate.”But she takes better care of her child than some mothers here. Most girls her age would have abandoned the baby.”

“Hristos a înviat,” shouts Eugenia Neagu, her breath feathered on the crisp morning air as she greets a passing neighbor. “Christ is risen!”

The kerchiefed farm woman, threatening her immobile oxen mired in the muddy path, waves back sheepishly. “Adevarat a înviat. He is risen indeed.”

These sacred words have echoed through this Romanian village, Valea Plopului, for more than a thousand years. Christians in Romania exchange this traditional greeting between Easter and Pentecost Sunday to celebrate their risen Savior. This Easter holds renewed hope for Eugenia Neagu, 15, and her 3-month-old daughter, Andreea Iasmina. Abandoned and rejected by her family and her child’s father, Eugenia found a home in Valea Plopului, a huddle of gingerbread-trimmed cottages tucked below the Carpathian mountains, 60 miles north of Bucharest, Romania’s capital.

We are family: In return for their room and board, single mothers and homeless teenagers staying at Father Tanase’s center agree to care for abandoned babies who have been left in Valea Plopului.

Eugenia is one of 10 single mothers and their babies cramped into two bungalows with no indoor plumbing. But the women do not complain about the crowded conditions. They are only too glad to be in this safe haven run by Father Nicolae Tanase, an Orthodox priest and founder of Pro Vita, a national organization of believers, doctors, and priests committed to caring for single mothers and abandoned children. World Vision has supported this practical, pro-life ministry since 1993.

“I was three months pregnant before I even realized I was expecting,” Eugenia giggles with embarrassment while awkwardly diapering Andreea. “My mother took me to the doctor and offered him a lot of money to abort the baby late. I was glad he refused to do it.”

When Eugenia was seven months pregnant, her mother abandoned her and her three younger brothers. The landlord evicted them from their one-room apartment when they failed to pay the rent. Eugenia’s boyfriend, who left town for military service, offered no moral or financial support. Eugenia delivered her baby by Caesarean section in a Bucharest hospital with no family or friends beside her.

With nowhere to go, Eugenia stayed in the hospital for three months. Doctors tried to persuade her to give the baby up to an orphanage. “I ran out on the balcony and threatened to jump if they took Andreea from me,” says Eugenia, smiling defiantly. Finally, the hospital staff referred her to Father Tanase’s center. The priest drove to Bucharest himself to bring Eugenia and her baby back to Valea Plopului.

Copyright 1999 World Vision Inc.

Pro Vita: Eugenia’s Decision

Eugenia’s decision not to abort Andreea or commit her to an orphanage is significant in Romania, where more than 1 million abortions are performed annually. A decade after Romania’s revolution, the country still suffers the fallout from birth control practices entrenched during the former Communist regime.

A restrictive 1966 law permitted modern contraceptive use only for very limited medical and social reasons with the goal of rapidly increasing Romania’s population and work force. Without access to birth control, many women sought illegal abortions often performed by untrained practitioners. From 1979-1989, Romania’s maternal mortality rate was 10 times higher than any other European country. Most of these deaths were abortion related.

Village of Refuge:

“Our home is not beautiful, but it is open,” says Valea Plopului resident, Vasilica Popescu, with her foster child, 8-month-old Gabriela.

A young, single mother enjoys a warm welcome at Father Tanase’s center, and a hot bowl of ciorba, a tangy Romanian soup.

“I like to make the babies laugh,” says Bucharest volunteer Marc Tudose, 22. He came to Valea Plopului to hear his musician father perform a charity concert one night and stayed for a month to care for the children.

Even after contraception was legalized in 1991, Romanian women, suspicious and ill-informed about alternative methods, continued to use abortion as a family planning method. By 1993, Romania reported the world’s highest rate of legal abortions — almost 200 per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44 — a rate seven times higher than that of the United States.

Under communism, women who chose not to abort but who struggled to adequately care for their large families, were encouraged to place their children in state-run orphanages. Hundreds of thousands of unwanted and abandoned children were warehoused in understaffed, underequipped Dickensian institutions.

Today, the number of institutionalized children exceeds that of pre revolution Romania. While basic conditions in these centers have greatly improved thanks to the continued investment of personnel and resources by World Vision and other agencies, orphanage care is no substitute for a family’s care.

Economic analysts point to poverty as a source of Romania’s social woes, including child abandonment and abortion. As many as one in five Romanians live below the poverty line while the country transitions to a free market economy. An average salary here is just $100 a month — barely enough for families to cover rent and food.

However, Father Tanase, married with five children of his own, is convinced that a spiritual malaise underlies Romania’s crisis. “Ask 100 people and they will tell you this is an economic problem. That’s not true. Doctors abort because they do not have faith in God. Men beat their wives because they do not have the fear of God in their souls. The root cause is a lack of faith.”

Putting feet to his faith, in 1992 Father Tanase decided to tackle the problem. One by one he began bringing single, pregnant women and abandoned children to his parish in Valea Plopului, encouraging the community to care for them.

Fatherly frolic: Lucian Cizmaru, and his foster mother Maria, joke with Father Tanase. Lucian was the first abandoned child the priest brought to Valea Plopului in 1992. Almost 100 children are now cared for by village foster families.

Copyright 1999 World Vision Inc.