Laszlo Tökes was a pastor who started preaching against the activities of the Regime from the pulpit. His church exploded to 5000 people in a very short time. When the Ceausescu regime tried to have him arrested, people from the church held a candlelight vigil (December 15th 1989). People from other churches heard about what was happening and came. The secret police couldn’t get in. The vigil lasted all night into the morning, and as the sun rose, students started shouting “Liberty! Freedom! Awake Romania!”.

The secret police got violent, forced their way through the crowd into the church, and beat the pastor badly, taking him and his wife away.

This caused the people to move the protest into the main square. They started flying flags with the communist symbol cut out with scissors. The communists opened fire on the unarmed crowd.

This galvanized the whole country. 10 days later, the vigils and protests has spread so far and so wide, the army sided with the people, and Ceausescu was removed. That Christmas, churches all over Romania were filled to capacity.