by Doru Radu
Costache Ioanid was a Romanian poet. He was born 1912 in Ukraine, and died in 1987 in Portland, Oregon.
Before WWII, Costache Ioanid was a successful sculptor, ballet director, sculptor and publicist for the sculptors magazine in Bucharest, Romania. He came to know Christ as his Savior through the testimony of a Romanian Jew—Richard Wurmbrand, founder of The Voice of the Martyrs—in the mid-forties. Costache’s conversion to Christianity came as a shock to his friends and admirers for two main reasons: he was a non-religious agnostic and his career as a Christian was put in jeopardy due to the communists that came to power with the help of the Russians.
In spite of his many difficulties, Costache was willing to give up on all his ambitions for his Savior. As the communists were afraid of any publications, he was forced to work a very modest position in the graphic department of a printing shop and was not allowed to have a typewriting machine. The poet was under house arrest for over a year and had his correspondence searched constantly. He wrote Christian poems, but his readers had to copy them by hand, learn by heart or cassette record them when the technology became available. They were beautiful and soon became recited in churches and youth meetings.
Biography by Doru Radu
Golgotha Romanian Baptist Church, Warren, Michigan
The Lord's My Banner*
(Jehovah-nissi – Exodus 17:15)
by Costache Ioanid
The Lord’s my Banner,
Hallelujah!
He’s my Banner, my own life.
I am carrying it, though He’s carrying me!
Let the storms howl,
All the greater flies the Banner.
Small and weak though I may be,
But the Banner is the Lord,
Hallelujah!
The Lord’s my Banner,
Hallelujah!
The Banner is glorious,
bloodied, but full of honors!
Full of blood drops from Calvary,
full of Caesar’s thorns.
Only dust and ashes am I,
But the Banner is the Lord,
Hallelujah!
The Lord’s my Banner,
Hallelujah!
Six thousand years in the world
He has fought to guide us;
in the boiling sea,
midst the serpents in the wilderness,
surrounded by flames and lions,
now by men, now by gods,
now by … my own blunders,
Hallelujah!
The Lord’s my Banner,
Hallelujah!
Eyes if you have to see,
and a spirit to believe,
here’s the Banner, like no other!
Bow to Him,
for thou are clay, and so am I,
But the Lord’s the Banner,
Hallelujah!
(*) Translated from the Romanian by Dorin Motz who approved its publication in The Beacon. Mr. Motz is retired in Washington D.C. and used to work for the Voice of America, Romanian department. He had translated many Christian books into Romanian; the books were illegally introduced in the communist Romania and were crucial to strengthening the faith and equipping the pastors and Christian leaders.