The ABCs of UU: T is for Transylvania
The Unitarian seeds planted by Michael Servetus (see the last article in this series “S is for…”) in the 16th century found two nations where there was fertile ground for reform: Poland and Transylvania. We have already considered the Polish experience when we looked at the community of Racow/Rakovia (See “R is for…”), however the longer lasting of the two was the Unitarian Church of Transylvania, which survives to this day in modern day Romania.
Way back in the very first of these columns in March, I wrote about the one and only Unitarian King in history: John Sigismund (1540-1571). Ruling during the height of the upheaval in Europe caused by the Protestant Reformation, John was deeply committed to bringing pacifying the religious conflicts in his realm, which included Roman Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Lutherans, Calvinists and Unitarians subjects. Starting in 1557, King John made several decrees of religious tolerance. The most famous came in 1563, the Act of Religious Tolerance and Freedom of Conscience which guaranteed freedom of religion in the kingdom. Today we can see the influence of this Transylvanian king in our 3rd and 4th Principles: “Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations” and “A free and responsible search for truth and meaning” respectively.
What I neglected to mention in that article was that it was the influence of John’s mother, Isabella, (who was the daughter of King Sigismund and Queen Bona of Poland), that provided the major impetus for the king’s actions. Isabella’s doctor, Giorgio Biandrata, had first introduced her to anti-Trinitarian thought, and it was Isabella who first issued a decree in 1557 that everyone could worship according to their own faith. When she died in 1559 John Sigismund continued this course, and it was he who convened the Diet of Torda in 1563 that confirmed his mother’s decree when he issued the Act of Religious Tolerance.
The religious debates raged on in Transylvania, though thanks to the monarchy’s leadership, with far less bloodshed than they were occurring in the rest of Europe. The following year (1564), Francis David became the court preacher in Transylvania. (It was David that reportedly gave Unitarians one of their clearest and most well-known statements of theology: We need not think alike to love alike. For a debunking of this attribution, (it was from a sermon by John Wesley) see this UU World article: Beloved quotes produced by the UU rumor mill | UU World Magazine ). Born in Hungary, David first studied Catholic theology in Wittenburg and Frankfurt as a priest, then became both a Lutheran then a Calvinist bishop, before finding his way to John Sigismund’s court. It was during his time as court preacher that David fully embraced a Unitarian theology. Biandrata and David collaborated on many theological works during this time and by 1568 David became a bishop for the third time, this time as a Unitarian.
Despite these advances, it was only in 1571 that Unitarian Churches were given official recognition as one of the four “received faiths” in Transylvania by King John Sigismund, giving it equal constitutional status in perpetuity with Roman Catholicism, Calvinism and Lutheranism. It was the king’s final official act. The following day he was severely injured in a hunting accident and died just over a month later at age 30. John Sigusmund’s successor, John Bathory, was Roman Catholic, and given the title of Prince, not King. David was quickly replaced as court preacher.
While the new monarch reconfirmed the edict of religious freedom in 1572, he also blocked further changes from occurring by passing a law preventing any further innovations in religious learning, a decision he hoped would prevent further religious conflict. The Unitarian Church would survive in Transylvania, but it would be in many ways caught like a fly in amber.
Today, the Transylvanian Unitarian Church has somewhere between 80,000-100,000 believers according to church officials, and is the only branch of Unitarianism which retains and episcopal, rather than a congregationalist structure, administered by a Bishop and two Curators-General and being divided into five Archpriestships (a term used in certain Eastern European faiths where an Archpriest is responsible for a number of parishes). Hungarian is the liturgical language and the church uses and teaches a catechism.
The Story Behind the Hymn: #221 Light One Candle
If ever there was required proof that Unitarian Universalism is a spiritual refuge for aging hippies, this is the place to start. Written by folksinger Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary fame, the group first performed it at a concert at Carnegie Hall in 1982. Yarrow wrote the song as a pacifist response to the 1982 Lebanon War.
Performing the song in Jerusalem in 1983 the group added the second verse in our hymnbook: “Light one candle for the strength that we need to never become our own foe. Light one candle for those who are suffering, pain we learned so long ago. Light one candle for all we believe in, let anger not tear us apart. Light one candle to bind us together with peace as the song in our heart…”.
The song was ultimately released on the studio album “No Easy Walk to Freedom” in 1986. ( in a sidenote, the album’s title is from Nelson Mandela’s writings released in 1965 long before he was released from prison.) Less thane a decade later it made it into our hymnal Singing the Living Tradition, first published in 1993.
Numerous versions of the song can be found on youtube, including this one:
Yours in Service,
Tim