Kolozsvar and Meszko

We began the day with a walking tour of Unitarian sites in Kolozsvar, starting at the Unitarian high school, where we are staying. This is the fourth Unitarian high school in this city, the others all being confiscated during different eras of intolerance. This school also was seized during the communist era and didn't reopen as a Unitarian high school until the 1990s.

We next visited the First Church of Kolozsvar. Unitarians were forbidden from having churches in most of the 18th century, and worshipped in houses. This church was hurriedly built in 1796 after the ban ended. They were so afraid that the ban would be reimposed that they built too quickly, and the church started to lean. In true Unitarian fashion, it leans a little to the left.

We saw also the rock, upon which it is said Francis David stood after winning the theological debate at Torda and converting the whole town to Unitarianism.



Then we visited St. Michael's church, which was David's actual church, now a cathedral, thanks to Stephen Bathory, who reimposed Catholicism on Transylvania after the death of John Sigismund. In front of the church is the sociology of Transylvania in miniature: a heroic statue of the Hungarian King Matthias Corvinus, with everything indicating that he was a king of Hungary removed, facing recently excavated Roman ruins, to show who was here first. Just in case anybody still has any doubts, there's statue of Romulus and Remus around the corner.

Then we saw the dedication and first communion service (like a group Bar Mitzvah with 16 children each reciting answers to 136 theological questions), with all of the families looking on and preparing a celebratory lunch.

We had a Hungarian lunch in Kolozsvar, and split up to go either on a field trip or a visit to the ethnological museum of Transylvania. The field trip was to Meszko, the subject of the book The Alabaster Village. The church was small but wonderfully charming, with a ceiling painted with designs and drawings on wooden panels by its famous minister in the 1930s Ferencz Balazs, who also founded agricultural cooperatives, folk high schools, and rebuilt the church. We had a fascinating discussion with the current minister, Robert Balint, on the difference between what is chosen in religion and what is given, and Marta experienced what it might be like to preach in such a beautiful place. Balint, like Balazs, studied at Starr King Theological School in California.

Next we visited Torda Gorge, but we couldn't descend because the rain had raised the water over the path. But you can see in the photo what a spectacular place it is.

Yesterday we tweaked Marta on the subject of deep theological discussions, so today we just had to have one. After having wrestled with the fundamental problems of Being and Destiny, we went out to dinner at Agape (where else could we have gone after such a discussion?), a restaurant run by the Catholic church.