User:Cldumitrescu75/Nădejdea (Hope) Baptist Church Bucharest

Nădejdea (Hope) Baptist Church in the Giulești neighborhood is one of the first Baptist churches established in Bucharest at the beginning of the 20th century.

History
On April 10, 1932, Constantin Manolescu was ordained in the church established in his home, on Arad street no. 35, where the "Grivița" Baptist church was born, where several brothers from the area met. This church grew numerically also thanks to the missionary work done in the Giulești commune (the old name of the Costeasca commune outside Bucharest at the time) by Ioan Țopa, who was ordained in the Ferentari Baptist Church on July 12, 1931. Constantin Manolescu leaving for a school of the Baptist mission in Switzerland, leaves the management of the church in the service of the young pastor Ioan Țopa who, at the suggestion of several converted members from the area, buys a former carpentry workshop in Alexandru Costescu street no. 4 (today Luduș street no. 4) because the two rooms in Arad street were no longer enough space.

During the Great Economic Crisis, in 1933 (when the strike at Grivița Ateliers took place nearby the church), a group of Christians guided by the young carpenter, pastor Ioan Țopa, who came to Giulesti in 1931 as a missionary from the Baptist church in Ferentari, bought the land and the building of a carpentry workshop in the border neighborhood of Bucharest. In the fall of the same year, after renovation, on September 15, 1933, the Giulești Baptist Church opened its doors at the present location.