Today there are about 70,000 Unitarians in Transylvania. Unitarianism had its beginnings in 1568 when court preacher, Francis David, bested his opponents--the Catholics, Lutherans and Calvinists--in an official religious debate before a young 23 year old king, John Sigismund. Francis David convinced the king not to impose one form of religion upon all his subjects, as was the rule in those days, but to issue an Edict of Religious Tolerance, permitting his subjects to follow their conscience and practice whatever form of religion most suited their spiritual needs. This was because "faith was the gift of God" and could not be imposed upon people by external means. Francis David called for a "continuing reformation" of the church and declared for non adoramus Christus, to not worship Jesus, but to follow him. Three years after his famous edict the young king died and was succeeded by a Catholic ruler. Francis David was thrown in prison and languished there till his death a few years later. But the movement he founded survived and has endured through periods of struggle and oppression for more than four centuries.
I am pleased to be on the Executive Committee of the Partner Church Council (now in its 7th year), an affiliate organization of the UUA, which coordinates partner church relationships between participating churches in the U.S. and Canada and Unitarian churches in Eastern Europe, including Romania, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. We have also been exploring the possibility of establishing partner church relations with the Unitarians in the Khasi Hills of India, and with Universalists in the Phillipines. Recently Unitarian congregations have been formed in Poland and Russia. They too may become part of our program. The Partner Church Program grew out of a trip to Transylvania (which is now part of Romania) in 1987 by then Moderator and President of the UUA, Natalie Gulbrandsen and Bill Schulz. They wanted to do something to help the Unitarian churches there, all of which had suffered under the oppressive regime of Ceausescu. Bill Schulz put a letter in U.U. WORLD in 1988 suggesting the Sister Church Program and nine churches immediately signed up. By March 1991 161 Transylvanian churches were matched with the same number of U.S. and Canadian churches.
Though Unitarianism in Transylvania tends to be more traditionally Unitarian Christian than here in America it is still the most liberal religious option available to Hungarians living in that part of the world. And yes, they do have a Bishop, who used to be elected for life. But since the death of their Bishop over four years ago, and his successor two years later, they have crafted a new church constitution which sets limits to the number of years a Bishop can serve, (two six year terms) and an age limit of 75. Bishop or no bishop we are very much linked to our brother and sister Unitarians in Transylvania by history and heritage.
Under the old Ceausescu regime Unitarians were limited to 2 theological students per year. Opportunities to study or to publish books were severely limited and almost entirely eliminated. In the past few years there have been over 40 students, one-third of whom are women. These are the first women to be admitted to the theological school in 50 years! Some of them have recently been placed as ministers in rural churches. And Unitarianism in Transylvania is largely a rural village religious cultural phenomenon. 95% of the churches are in the village countryside.
My home church in Norwell, Mass. has a partner church relationship with a small village congregation in Kadacs, Romania. I have had the pleasure of visiting there on three different occasions, once in March 1992, again in April of 1996 and 1998. And a month from now I will be making my 4th visit along with seven parishioners. I went alone the first time. Each successive visit more and more lay members have come with me. These visits have helped to cement ties between our two congregations. We have exchanged gifts and letters with one another and pen pal relationships have been established with some of the women in our two churches and also between the children.
During my previous trips I was able to visit numerous churches and to meet many of their ministers and church leaders. I love the names of the towns and villages and cities we saw. We visited churches and ministers in: Bolon village with its 100 year old Unitarian Basillica,...Nagyyajta (Large Door) and its Unitarian Fortress Church with its inside ceiling like the hull of a ship (much like Old Ship Church in Hingham), Almasfalva (Apple Village) with its remnants of Roman and Gothic periods,...St. Martin Unitarian Church and its new Youth Conference Center (their new young minister, Bela Krisbai, and his lovely wife, were very gracious, and spoke excellent English--their partner church in San Jose had burned to the ground and they sent them a $100 gift...Barolt with its brand new church building completed in 1995 and its talented minister, Alpar KissÉ Udvaherdley a city which had two churches, one old and one brand new...Brasov which had two congregations meeting in the same building...and of course the City of Cluj (Kolozsvar in Hungarian) which has three churches and the denominational headquarters and theological school.
Many times as we visited another church and minister we were offered a hit of palinka (plum brandy) which was hard to refuse. One time our translator told our kind host, only a little, kissy kissy, and he responded by saying it was a very thick glass (meaning the space inside was small). Well, I can tell you this, a little bit of palinka goes a long ways.
Let me tell you about some of the minor harassments which the Hungarian minority in Romania is forced to endure. The Unitarian Church in Brasov was not allowed to put a sign on the exterior of their building, unless they paid the city a $3,000 tax, which, of course, they cannot afford. The Romanian Orthodox Church has no such restriction. Another irritant: the roads in Brasov county, which is predominantly Romanian, are fairly decent and passable, while those in Harghita county, predominantly Hungarian, where are partner church resides, are atrocious. Our tour guide, referred to it as "the wretched road to Recsenyed" which was the name of one of the towns along the way.
Four or five years ago the Romanian parliament passed a law making it mandatory to teach all children in the Romanian language, thus forbidding the use of Hungarian language in the schools. It was an unenforcable law which they finally rescinded a couple of years later. There were not enough teachers to make it effective and some of the villages and cities are nearly all Hungarian and have no intention of renouncing their language and culture and to deny their children their heritage. The Romanian mayor in Cluj/Kolosvar tried to get the statue of Mattias Rex, the historically famous Hungarian king, removed from the center of the city, but he met with so much political resistance that he relented. The last election in Romania, however, was a sign of hopeful change. For the first time a noncommunist was elected with the major support of the Hungarian minority because of promises of better relations. But inflation and economic conditions are still very difficult.
During my first visit to Kadacs we presented gift of one of our antique silver communion chalices, properly engraved, in Hungarian, a gift from our church to their church. The tears flowed down the cheeks of their minister, Jozsef Biro, as I made the presentation. It was a moving moment. Then followed their presentation of gifts to me and our congregation of a hand embroidered table cloth from the minister's wife, like the ones you see here before you, and some hand carved trays and a miniature carved gate with an inscription in Hungarian which means, "You can be at home anywhere, but you only have one homeland." The boys and girls of the church school, dressed in their colorful native costumes, recited poems and welcoming speeches in Hungarian and presented me with flowers and a kiss on both cheeks. The scene with the children was repeated again during subsequent visits with my fellow parishioners. During our last visit my colleague, Judy Campbell and I, were invited to participate in a Child Dedication/Christening for two of the children. It was a beautiful ceremony and the parents were so appreciative of the fact that their American visitors helped to bless their children.
During the service on my 2nd visit I mentioned with gratitude the Stole or Stohla which Anna (the ministerÕs wife) had designed and crafted and sent to me as a gift. I compared it to a banner of love from the Song of Solomon in the O.T. She started to cry, and her daughter Csilla followed suit. Then we presented to their congregation a quilted banner of our two churches which was hand crafted by my Associate Minister, Judy Campbell, who teaches art at Lesley College in Cambridge. More tears came as I spoke of the boundless love which it symbolized. During the service the minister's daughter, Csilla, read a prayer, about her native land Erdely (land of the forests). She read with such feeling that even the men began to wipe the tears from their eyes.
During the ten years of our partner church relationship we have provided modest financial aid to the congregation and minister's family which has been enormously helpful to them. With a $1,000 gift in 1992 they were able to do some long overdue painting and repairs of the church and school room, roof repairs on the meeting house, to dig a new well for drinking water for the minister and his family, and install an indoor toilet in the minister's parsonage. The old toilet was an old fashioned outhouse that sometimes was occupied by one of their chickens, which was great fun when you had to make a trek to the privy in the middle of the night. I know because it happened to me!
We always exchange cards and letters at Christmas and Easter and we are sure to send some money to help the children and elderly. As I tell my congregation this is our only foreign mission program and an important one. Without our help they would barely be able to survive in an economy with over 100% inflation. Four years ago our church sent $600 to the minister's wife for the purchase of a washing machine. That money bought not only the washing machine, but a new gas canister stove, with money left over to repair the kitchen windows. The parsonage has one of two washing machines in the entire village, and one of seven indoor toilets. In the winter there are still some women who break through the ice in the river to wash their family's clothes. Anna feels richly blessed by our gift. There are only three telephones in the village, the parsonage is not one of them, and the waiting list to get a phone is five years. Not very many people have cars. The minister's daughter, Csilla has one of them, a 26 year old clunker that gets her to her job and to school. She is now a well respected teacher of elementary age school children.
One of the things we did for the minister and his wife on one of our visits was to take the Biro family out to dinner in a nice restaurant. This was the first time they had gone out to eat in six years. We raised our glasses and shared a Hungarian toast , which I cannot pronounce, which means, "To Your Good Health." If you leave off the accent on one of the syllables the toast means, "To Your Whole Backside", which I said on one occasion.They all laughed. I've decided not to use that phrase anymore.
Having a personal relationship with the people of our Partner Church is key to its success and future development. Some churches have been able to bring the minister and spouse from Transylvania to America which helps make for an even stronger bond of friendship, and other churches have organized trips for high school youth to visit young people in Transylvania. I can tell you this. Making the Transylvanian connection changes both hearts and mindsÑours as well as theirs.
By having a larger vision of who and what we are, we deepen and extend our sense of purpose and outreach as a church and congregation. It is important, I believe, for American UUs to make the Transylvanian connection to our Unitarian heritage. As I told the congregation in Kadacs, back in 1992, "You have a proud religious heritage of faith and tolerance dating back four and a quarter centuries. We have much to learn from you (in terms of) your example of a strong and enduring faith born out of struggle and material hardship over many generations." And indeed we do. They are a proud people, but also a kind and generous and warm people, and we, as Unitarian Universalists, can count ourselves blessed to call them brothers and sisters in a common faith that treasures both freedom and tolerance.
Help us, O Spirit of Life, to see and know and feel our connections with our human brothers and sister both here and abroad, both those who share our religious affiliation and those who come from other religious traditions. Beneath our outward expressions of religion and culture we are truly one humanity under the sun. Amen.
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This page was last revised on 16 March 2000 by Doug Gage.
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