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Partner Church Committee
Since 1990, our church has been committed to a supportive partnership with the Transylvanian Unitarian village parish of Gyepes, Romania.
We trace our tradition of religious freedom to sixteenth-century Transylvania (see "Unitarian Theology" below), and we believe that maintaining a link to our “living religious ancestors” is important to who we are today.
See the Gyepes church's website at www.unitarian.ro/gyepes. From the English version of the home page, click on "Gallery" to see photos of Gyepes and our Unitarian friends.
We have consistently raised money to support this church and have enjoyed several visits to and from Gyepes since 2001.
What This Committee Does
The Partner Church Committee
- learns about our partner community and church in Gyepes,
- shares what we learn with our congregation,
- raises money (about $1,000 a year) through food sales and fundraisers, to support our partner minister, church and community projects,
- and expresses gratitude for Transylvania’s legacy of liberal religious thought.
The money we have raised has contributed to community improvements in Gyepes, such as a new church roof, new kindergarten chairs for the village school, major renovations to the village community center including digging a septic system and installing a bathroom and kitchen, and supporting Sunday school programs.
High School Scholarships
Because there is no high school in Gyepes, the village’s high-school-age students must go to a high school in another town. Our church is coordinating scholarships to support their education. The $250 per student sponsorships help pay for room and board for one year.
Every year there are new young people from the village who want to continue their education but lack funding. We often are looking for individual members or small groups from our
Yarmouth
congregation who are willing to sponsor a student for a year. If you would like to sponsor a student in part or in full, please contact Ann Swardlick at 846-5921 or talk to any member of the Partner Church Committee.
The Personal Connections We’ve Made
A Visit from the Gyepes Minister, 2001
In spring, 2001, Krisbai Bela (in Hungarian the family name is written first, followed by the given name) the minister of the Gyepes church at that time, and his wife, Olivia, visited Yarmouth. Their week-long visit was a whirlwind of potluck dinners, area tours, and a Transylvanian Easter communion. Bela and Olivia showed slides of their village and church, and their faraway land became much more of a reality to us.
Visits to Gyepes, 2003 and 2004
In June 2003, a member of our church, Barbara Trentacosta pioneered our church's first visits to Gyepes, joining an annual trip arranged by the UUA’s Partner Church Council. The minister of the Gyepes church, Szombatfalvi József, was a wonderful host who coordinated visits to the homes in Gyepes, a potluck dinner in the community center, and a fascinating insider’s look at the local region.
Then, in June 2004, Barbara returned to Gyepes with Ann Swardlick to further strengthen this wonderful friendship. Again, József coordinated a wonderful visit, which included a horse-drawn wagon ride over the hills to a natural spring, as well as singing by the Gyepes youth in full regional costume and a rousing folkdance in the community center.
A Visit from Gyepes, 2005
We were delighted, in June 2005, to host the minister of Gyepes, József and his wife Erika, as they visited Maine for the first time. They were in the States for four weeks and also visited churches in San Diego, Vermont, and Concord, MA.
Recent Developments
A New Minister for Gyepes, 2008
Gyepes has a new minister, Orban Fitori Dezso, who arrived in November 2007, just 3 months after our own new minister in Yarmouth, Jennifer Emrich, arrived. As is normal in times of transition, maintaining contact and continuing our partnership will be a challenge. Our hope is that we can again soon meet face-to-face with our partners in Transylvania.
Thank You!
The Partner Church Committee thanks all the members of our congregation who have generously supported this partnership! We welcome any and all who would like to join in the exciting events to come! (Please contact Barbara Trentacosta or leave a message with Pat Wheeler in the office if you wish to be involved in this committee.) We are blessed by this connection, which has grown into something very special indeed.
Read this committee's most recent Annual Report here.
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Unitarian Theology
From the beginning of Christianity people had believed that there was only one god, but the establishment of the Trinitarian Doctrine by the Catholic Church in 381 AD made contrary views heretical and punishable. In the sixteenth century, a former priest, Francis David, formulated a doctrine of Unitarianism, which he successfully preached in Transylvania. Many of the people converted to his view and established Unitarian churches. King Sigismund became a Unitarian and issued the first-ever Edict of Religious Toleration and Freedom of Conscience: The Edict of Torda
"...in every place the preachers shall preach and explain the Gospel, each according to his understanding of it, and if the congregation like it, well; if not, no one shall compel them, for their souls would not be satisfied, but they shall be permitted to keep a preacher whose teaching they approve. Therefore none of the superintendents or others shall annoy or abuse the preachers on account of their religion, according to the previous constitutions, allow any to be imprisoned or punished by removal from his post on account of his teachings, for faith is the gift of God. This comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of God."
This beacon of liberal thought burned on for centuries in a region besieged by hostile neighbors, the Hapsburg and Ottoman Empires, Germany, and Russia.
After World War I, the Transylvanian part of Hungary was awarded to Romania as a war prize. Under the totalitarian rule of the Communists and Ceausescu, the pattern of cultural and religious oppression continued, with vestiges remaining to this day.
During the Communist period, old relationships with American and English Unitarians were broken, but after the deposing of Ceausescu, the links were rebuilt and American Unitarians began traveling to Romania, as well as to Hungary and Czechoslovakia, to renew the old Unitarian connections.
The American Partner Church program is the result. We are members of the Partner Church Council, which publishes a newsletter, provides a safe means of relaying gift funds to the Romanian churches and offers guidance and a network of informed folks to help sustain the Partner connections.
The UUA’s Partner Church Council partners UU congregations in North America with Unitarian churches in other countries. To date, about 200 partnerships have been arranged. For more information about this program, see the UUA’s Partner Church Council site (http://www.uua.org/uupcc/index.html).
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