The History of the Unitarian Church of Transylvania III/1.

The first part of book III of The History of the Transylvanian Unitarian Church deals with the ‘things of the Unitarians in the 18th century, the persecutions and oppression they suffered for their faith’ in the Hungarian translation of Albert Márkos (1878–1949). The manuscript of the Unitarian Church by pastor-historians János Tőzsér of Kénos (1708–1772), István Fosztó of Uzon (1729–1778), Mihály Kozma (1723−1798) and János Kozma (1761–1840) is a large-scale work in Latin of around 4000 pages, the writing of which took nearly three quarters of a century, covered the church’s history between the 16th and 18th centuries.

The third book discussing the events of the 18th century is published in two parts due to its length and new structural features. The book III/I narrates the persecutions of the Unitarian ecclesia in Kolozsvár (today Cluj-Napoca), the destruction of their churches, schools, parishes; the Unitarians being forced out from their office; the decades-long mortification of the ecclesias of Torda (today Turda), Hévíz (today Hoghiz), Szentháromság (Troița), Kál (today Călușeri), Gálfalva (today Gănești) and Sinfalva (today Cornești). Thus, the third book is a narrative of personal traumas, but the fullness of the daily lives of 18th century Unitarian ancestors is also outlined. At the same time, we can learn about the activities of the principals, teachers, bosses and priests of the Unitarian School of Kolozsvár in the 18th century, their rich intellectual and scientific oeuvre, and the Disciplina Ecclesiastica, the ‘Church Order’; the list of ordained priests of the Unitarian Church from 1634 to 1812 is also included. Church history events are supported by archival resources: ordinances, petitions, grievances, letters, dissertations, polemical and pamphlets, various prints, and their manuscript versions. The source edition also took into account the four existing Latin manuscripts. The part dealing with the bishops of the 18th century will appear in the volume III/II.

The material of the volume is supplemented by indexes of people and place names, index of synods and indexes of the discussed works by author and title. We also published all the contents of the five books of the so-called Originalis from Kolozsvár, so that the reader can see the complete history as a single unit. Searching for all items and copies of this, we also publish the photos of their covers, and the volume is further enriched with illustrations from manuscripts and little-known prints.

The publication was supported by the Ministry of Human Resources, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Reformation 500 Memorial Committee, and the National Association of Unitarian Pastors.

(Publications of the Archival Collection and Grand Library of the Hungarian Unitarian Church in Cluj-Napoca 4/3/1. Series edited by Sándor Kovács and Lehel Molnár)