Memories of tyranny prompt religious liberty defense

Chicago pastor Cristian Ionescu grew up in Romania watching communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu close churches, jail pastors, and brand Christians as criminals. When he heard the news that Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker had issued an executive order banning religious gatherings of more than 10 people because of the coronavirus pandemic, Ionescu felt compelled to raise a challenge.

Ionescu’s Elim Romanian Pentecostal Church, along with Logos Baptist Ministries in nearby Niles, Ill., filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court on Thursday to stop the state from enforcing the order. The churches contend that worship services can follow the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines the same way as businesses that Pritzker, a Democrat, has allowed to stay open.

U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman declined to halt the restriction immediately on Friday, but Ionescu and five other Romanian pastors in the city went ahead with their pledge to hold worship services on Sunday. The churches implemented temperature checks at the door, provided masks and hand sanitizer, adhered to social distancing guidelines, and limited attendance to 15 percent of their sanctuaries’ capacity.

“We are not used to having people 6 feet apart, not embracing, not shaking each other’s hands, not having the platform full with singers,” Ionescu said.

The experience of pastoring a church during the pandemic reminds him of his youth in Romania. The Communist Party terminated Ionescu’s automatic membership in the party after he declined to join the Romanian secret police at age 16, cutting him off from further educational opportunities and exposing him to increasing persecution. After a seven-year wait, his family immigrated to the United States as religious refugees. “So when I hear about shutting churches down without consent, without communication, without dialogue … it sounds like the same playbook the Communists used,” he said.

Unlike in Soviet-era Romania, Ionescu and his co-plaintiffs can turn to the courts for remedies. The U.S. Department of Justice has expressed concerns about overly restrictive public health measures closing houses of worship and promised to fight for religious liberty. On May 3, it filed a statement of interest on behalf of a Virginia church that was seeking to stop an executive order similar to the one in Illinois. The Justice Department reminded the U.S. District Court in Norfolk that the state must show “compelling reasons” to treat churches differently than secular businesses. In response, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, said he would revise his order to allow churches to meet at 50 percent capacity while observing social distancing.

Other lawsuits over church services during the pandemic have had mixed results in the courts. In Kentucky, U.S. District Judge Gregory F. Van Tatenhove on Friday blocked enforcement of Gov. Andy Beshear’s gathering ban at “any in-person religious service which adheres to applicable social distancing and hygiene guidelines.” On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge John A. Mendez rejected arguments that in-person religious services in California can operate under the same restrictions as ordered by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom for grocery stores and public transportation facilities. In another case in Illinois, U.S. District Judge John Z. Lee dismissed a similar claim by a church on May 3, finding that, unlike visits to a grocery store, religious services “involve sustained interactions between many people.”

Lawsuits over restrictions on corporate worship continue to multiply, with new filings in Maine, Michigan, and Oregon. In Louisiana, Life Tabernacle Church pastor Tony Spell is seeking relief from criminal charges for violating Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards’ stay-at-home order and nearly hitting a protester with the church’s bus.

Ionescu’s attorney, Liberty Counsel’s Horatio Mihet, also lived under Ceausescu’s rule in Romania. He was 12 when the dictator was overthrown on December 25, 1989, in a revolution that began in his hometown of Timisoara. The son of a Baptist pastor, Mihet recalls being in the town square for peaceful protests when the tanks rolled in. He said bullet holes in the town’s buildings remain as a reminder: “It made an indelible impression in my mind of the cost of freedom.”