Unitarian Church of Transylvania - History

History

The Unitarian Church was first recognized by the Edict of Torda, issued by the Transylvanian Diet under Prince John II Sigismund Zápolya (January 1568), and was first led by Ferenc Dávid (a former Calvinist bishop, who had begun preaching the new doctrine in 1566). Early on, the Unitarian Church had notable successes: it included 425 parishes, made use of the monumental St. Michael's Church in Cluj-Napoca, and attracted members of the eastern Transylvanian Székely community in large numbers.

The Church attracted suspicion from all other established religions, Roman Catholic as well as Protestant, with both camps deeming it heretical. After Dávid's imprisonment and 1579 death in custody, the institution entered a period of decline. The church in Transylvania received many refugees following the expulsion of the Socinian Polish Brethren from Poland on July 20, 1658 and maintained contact with the dispersed communities of Polish Brethren in the Netherlands and Lithuania. Andrzej Wiszowaty Jr., great-great grandson of Fausto Sozzini, was one of the Polish exiles who taught at the Unitarian College in Cluj-Napoca, in the period in the 1730s when the church was reorganized and strengthened by Mihály Lombard de Szentábrahám, author of the church's official statement of faith, the Summa Universae Theologiae Christianae secundum Unitarios.

Following the Union of Transylvania with Romania at the end of World War I, Unitarian congregations were established in regions of the Old Kingdom: the first Unitarian church in Bucharest was founded in 1933 (its building was later demolished).

American and British Unitarians became aware of the survival of the Unitarian Church in Transylvania following the visit of Alexander Farkas to Pennsylvania in 1831 and publication of his Account of the Unitarians of Transylvania, which was communicated in Latin to the Secretary of the British and Foreign Unitarian Association and published in the The Unitarian advocate and religious miscellany in 1832. On 5 June 1899 the American Unitarian Association sent a letter to Bishop Jozsef Ferencz of the Transylvanian Unitarian Church inviting the leaders of the church to the first International Association for Religious Freedom (IARF) conference in 1900. With the exception of 1920, Transylvanian Unitarian leaders have been present at all IARF congresses, and, in May 1975, Communist authorities allowed it to welcome the IARF's Executive Committee in the city of Cluj-Napoca. In 1994, the IARF European Conference was held in the same location. The Transylvanian Unitarian Church is also a founding member of the International Council of Unitarians and Universalists.