There are other countries in which Church leaders courageously and whole heartedly stood up for the Jews and yet their interventions seldom had any result at all. In Rumania, however, the intervention of the Orthodox leaders seems to have been quite successful. It is typical of Rumania that no public protests were issued. Church leaders personally intervened. These interventions took place only after Chief Rabbi Safran had implored the Orthodox leaders to come to the rescue of the Jews. <177> It is difficult to ascertain what exactly moved these apparently reluctant saviours to take action. The change of heart with Patriarch Nicodemus seems to have come after Dr. Safran had spoken "of the terrible responsibility he was taking upon his conscience in the eyes of the Supreme Judge". Metropolitan Simedrea told Dr. Safran "of the feelings aroused in him by the sight of the Jews of Czernovitz being deported to the ghetto ". According to a report of Matatias Carp, there was in 1940 a Jewish population in Rumania of approximately 760,000, of whom 400,000 were massacred. "Among the victims, 250,000 lie on the conscience of the Rumanian Fascist Government directly. [407] There are two other non-Roman Catholic Churches of some importance in Rumania. The Reformed Church of Rumania is the Church of the Hungarian national minority. I have not been able to find any particulars about the attitude of this Church regarding anti-Semitism. The Evangelical (Lutheran) Church of the Augsburg Confession is mainly the Church of the German immigrants. In spring 1942, the National Consistory of this Church decided, on a motion of Bishop Staedel, that their Church would join the "Institute for Research into the Jewish influence upon German Church life", founded in Eisenach (Germany). A study group was formed, which, in close contact with the Eisenach Institute, sought "to make the results of its scientific work fruitful for the life and future form of the Lutheran Church in Rumania". At the first conference of the study group, at the beginning of March, 1942, the following statement by Bishop Staedel was accepted as the guiding principle for the work as a whole: "We are deeply convinced that at this time of national revival, we are making it extremely difficult for a German to come to Jesus Christ if we present him with a continuous and detailed treatment of the Old Testament. In the two hours every week, which are meant to be devoted to bringing the message of the Saviour to the German in his national character and community, we have absolutely no room for the national and messianic history of the Israelite-Jewish people. <178> Therefore we advocate the elimination of the Old Testament so far as possible from the religious life of the Germans, and thus from the Lutheran religious instruction." [408]