What are Unitarians?

A minority can become a majority, thereby creating its own excluded minority. An example of this can be seen in the Georgian Republic, which was a minority in the former large Soviet Union, and which itself now has a similarly oppressed minority - the Ossetians. Perhaps the Ossetians have their own minority.

The Hungarians often complain that we are also a minority amidst a great sea of other nationalities,¹ who are generally larger than we are. It is frequently asked of us, "Who are these Hungarian people?" This question is also asked, for different reasons, in neighbouring countries. However, if from time to time we grow into a majority, we do not, in turn shrink from excluding minorities from amongst ourselves. From example, the historical churches of Hungary ask about our minority church: "What is Unitarianism away from Transylvania?" What could the answer to this question be?

Unitarianism is like a projection in miniature of our homeland. In our homeland our church can be considered as proportional to the importance of our nation to the wider world. There are those who think that the 'Saturday Sect', which branched off from the Unitarian church is in fact a branch of Judaism.² Similarly , there are those who maintain negative feelings about our church, remembering the Unitarians' relations with Istanbul³ (forgetting, however, that the Catholic Prince István Báthori was only able to occupy the throne of the Principality of Transylvania in place of the Unitarian, János Zsigmond, with the help of the Turks).

As a consequence of all this, the world forgets that this minority amongst minorities, at the time of its birth, at the end of the 1560s, formed a near absolute majority, and was the official religion in János Zsigmond's Transylvania.

A village is oriented around its church spire, a community around its outstanding figures in history. The "triangulation points" of Unitarianism (originally "believers in oneness"), not counting the founder of our church, Francis David, comprise such giants of world history as Ralph Waldo Emerson, perhaps the greatest North American thinker and writer of the last century; or, returning home, Bölöni Farkas Sándor, the Hugnarian-American inventor and scientist; also Balázs Orbán, whom we know as 'the greatest Székely'⁴ and last, but by no means least, the best-known Hungarian on the world's stage, probably our century's greatest composer, and certainly last century's greatest Hungarian, Béla Bartók.

Moreover, I would add that most of these figures became Unitarian by their own choice. I would also add to this list Sándor Weöres, in spite of the fact that he was not a Unitarian, who at the age of scarcely twenty wrote to Kosztolányi⁵ that he planned to turn to Unitarianism and become a minister, because Unitariansm is not a 'revealed faith', but the faith of relativism, that it doesn't restrict belief, nor is it undiscriminating in its approach to the Bible.

History teaches us that the absence of dogma doesn't ensure the survival of and permanent adherence to anything in human consciousness. The age, full of scintillating ideas far beyond its time, in which Francis David lived and worked, has faded into obscurity in the awareness of the world.

Francis David, the only Hungarian to have founded a world religion, was written about, by the often overcritical and sceptical Dezső Szabó, that he was "the greatest Hungarian reformer, whose face was tragically beautiful, whose appearance was that of a Titan, who has a place in the spiritual history of Europe"; and László Németh described him as, "living in the spirit of revolution... having enormous abilities, who flew in a hurricane of faith and doubt toward the dungeon at Deva."

Certainly, the foundation of the Unitarian church was the creation of the first church to flower solely on Hungarian soil. It took with it the state as well and thereafter spread across our borders. Sándor Márai has remarked that the outward forms of this process have repeated themselves. He wrote to me that he had not been truly aware of that period in history - even he wasn't aware of it! - and of the similarities between the age of Francis David and the events of several centuries later. What was Márai thinking of when he wrote this?

The revolution of 1568⁶ reacted against dogmatism and ideological absolutism. It was, therefore, very similar in this respect to the Hungarian revolution of 1956. After the 1568 revolution came the restoration by István Báthori of the old order - shall we call it 'consolidation'?⁷ - with its prohibitions and destructive poison. Europe, also, at this time supported the restoration of the old order.

This suppressed, half-strangled church, was built on the same foundation of Christianity which is still accepted today, with the single exception of the doctrine of the trinity which was formalised in the fourth century.

The first true revolutionary of the 16th century religious reformation, Michael Servetus, attacked the doctrine of the trinity and for its neglect of Jesus's teaching. Would there have been a Reformation if the church had kept to Jesus's original teaching? Servetus's fate was to be burned at the stake in Geneva. The fate of the Italian doctor, Giorgio Biandrata, who brought Servetus's thought to Transilvania was symbolic burning at the stake;⁸ and the fate of Francis David, who carried the ideas of Servetus to fruition - the martyrdom of life imprisonment in Transylvania.

Today, their fates would have been different. While at the time of the Reformation, the Catholic Church permitted only priests to read the Bilbe, today the Catholic Church has changed over to the vernacular liturgy, and declares worthless more and more superficial dogma. A comparable event, occured in the first few years of our church's existence, when Francis David permitted the singing of hymns in services, in opposition to the dogma, previously held by early Unitarians, that this be forbidden.

These extremes have come ever closer together until only one important difference remains: Unitarians hold God to be a single entity, and other Christians regard God as having three identities. This difference, however, is enough to ensure that the Unitarian church is not accepted into the ecumenical community.

If this minority of 10,000 Unitarians in Hungary and of 100,000 Unitarians in Transylvania were to divert its energies to complaining about its fate of exclusion from the majority, it would be nothing more than an inward-looking panacea. Moreover, perhaps it is not such a bad thing to be in a minority, if thereby we can follow in the footsteps of Francis David and Béla Bartók.

TRANSLATOR'S NOTES

1. Török is referring here to the historical controversies over the original inhabitants of the disputed territories which the treaty of Trianon (1921) removed from Hungary and divided between neighbouring states.

2. The Szombatista, or 'Saturday Sect' was an offshoot of the Unitarian church in Transylvania which reverted for several centuries to orthodox Judaic law and custom, whilst remaining nominally Unitarian: for example they preached sermons, but prayed and worshipped in Hebrew. They were so-called because they held the Sabbath on Saturday, in compliance with Old Testament laws. They were, however, ethnically Székely.

3. After the Hungarian army was defeated at Mohács in 1526, the invading Turks established Transylvania as a semi-autonomous principality. The Ottoman Empire's initial suppression of Christianity was less severe for Unitarians after they sent emissaries to Istanbul to plead for lenience for their church, pointing out the theological similarities between Islam and Unitarianism.

4. The Székely are a semi-separate tribe of Hungarians inhabiting the eastern fringes of Transylvania, the so-called Székelyföld, or Székely lands. It was amongst the Székely that Unitarianism found its staunchest supporters. Balázs Orbán wrote a celebrated monograph about the region.

5. Sándor Weöres and Dezső Kosztolányi were both celebrated Hungarian writers.

6. On the conversion to Unitarianism of Prince János Zsigmond, the Edict of Torda proclaimed religious tolerance throughout Transylvania.

7. 'Consolidation' was a euphemism for the brutal suppression by the communists of political opposition after the failed uprising in Hungary of 1956.

8. Biandrata had already fled to Transylvania, and so was burned only in effigy.