Klausner then granted civil injunctions against six people, including Emanuel Farkas, his wife, Margareta, and the two Oprea brothers. Citing a lack of evidence, she declined to issue injunctions against two others.
Though they were barred from initiating contact with Pastor Druhora, the Farkases drove to Elim the following Sunday morning, January 14, and stationed themselves across the street. Their 19-year-old daughter, Eva, entered the church more apprehensive, she says, than contemplative.
Eva Farkas spoke to Elim's congregation shortly after a near-riot at the church last January. Pastor Dorin Druhora, right, confers with church secretary Leo Isfan during the contentious session.
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"We have been living a soap opera," Eva Farkas explains. "In soap operas, lots of stupid things can happen."
The church board that day had hired two off-duty Phoenix police officers as security guards. Shortly before 9 a.m., a church usher told officers Carlos Rodriguez and Garrick Ward that three men inside Elim weren't members, and were trespassing. Officer Rodriguez cornered two of them before they entered the sanctuary.
Officer Ward says he was told Jacob Cotan was the third alleged trespasser: "I caught up with [Cotan] before he entered the sanctuary of the church, at which time I grabbed the coat arm of Mr. Cotan just as he entered the sanctuary, and he retracted and pulled away. . . . I didn't realize that I was that far into the sanctuary during services."
As it turns out, though Cotan despised Druhora by then, he still was a member in good standing at the church.
The cop had collared the wrong guy.
A potential riot ensued.
"I tried to calm everyone down," Ward wrote, "but it was not working. . . . [It] appeared to be out of hand on the part of the church members, because there were various members saying that the pastor was a Communist security agent from Romania and was acting as a dictator. The entire situation was a complete hazard to officers for at least 15-20 minutes."
Cotan told the cops he wanted to go to an emergency room for his injuries, which the officers later suggested he'd exaggerated.
Cotan's version goes like this:
"I'm with my wife and my 1-year-old daughter, who's in a stroller. Police are patrolling the premises. The scene is rather more like a Gestapo movie than a church. You must remember that we Romanians obey the law, but we are suspicious of authority. Imagine how I felt when I saw the cops there. Is this America?
"I told [Ward] that I was a member and a pastor of the church. Inside the sanctuary, I felt someone grabbing my arm, twisting it, and pulling it toward my upper back. I tried to resist, and I heard a crack in the lower part of my shoulder. [Ward] led me out by my vest . . ."
About a dozen police officers responded to Elim, leaving only after being convinced that tempers had cooled. They were wrong.
A few hours after the January 14 disturbance, Pastor Druhora addressed his parishioners from Elim's pulpit.
"The church cannot tolerate this anymore," he said. "Today, we need to reestablish order and discipline."
Druhora invited those who wanted to speak about the goings-on to raise their hands. He didn't specify men only, but that was implicit in a church where women are not allowed to preach (though they may sing and read poetry to the congregation).
Eva Farkas and her grandmother took a seat in the front row.
Eva is an earnest young woman who writes poetry, is a popular employee at a West Valley home-furnishings store, and is fiercely loyal to her family.
Now 19, she came to the States when she was 8, shortly after the 1989 revolution in Romania that ended with Ceausescu's removal and execution. She says that, during the uprising, she saw the burned bodies of a chief of police and a security agent on the streets of her native Cojia.
The Farkases proudly became American citizens in 1996. The next year, Eva was baptized in a ceremony performed by Pastors Druhora and Dorel Michula at Estrella Lake.
"When I came to God, you could say I was gullible," she says. "I thought everyone was godly. Elim used to be such a loving church, not hateful like it got. Druhora preached so good -- I thought it was God himself talking. Gradually, another influence got to him. I have wondered, how could I have been that wrong?"
The young woman instructed her grandmother how to operate a video camera -- point, shoot, and hold steady. Then Eva asked to be put on the list of speakers.
"Only men can talk," church secretary Leo Isfan brusquely told her from the pulpit, a few feet away.
"What is this, Communism?" Eva retorted loudly. "Please let me talk up there. Is this discrimination against women now?"
Her grandmother added, "This is Communist church. Not Pentecostal church."
After huddling with Druhora on the altar, Isfan added Eva's name to the list of speakers.
First, longtime church member Nelu Serban said mournfully, "Where are we now? My child said to me last night, 'Do we not pray for the Holy Spirit?' I said, 'No, we don't have prayermeetings anymore. We just have meetings.' I was walking on the streets the other day, and I told God, 'Take me, because I can't take this anymore.'"
