Transylvania

I've been very bad about writing anything here. I've been hit by a very busy school year end and a very busy couple months at work.

On top of this, I have been given the once in a lifetime opportunity to go to Transylvania and spend six months working with a rural minister and participating in the life of his congregation. This parish immersion experience will be my first ministerial internship, though I will be applying for another internship in the US later.

During the week of General Assembly, I will be in an intensive Hungarian language seminar in Kolozsvar. I will then attend the ICUU symposium before I travel to the village of Homorodszentpal.

I believe that there is a lot we can learn from the lives of our brothers and sisters in Transylvania. I am particularly interested in how different liturgies develop in different cultural contexts and in how differently the same Unitarian ideals develop in different contexts. It is my hope that a broader awareness of Transylvanian Unitarianism can help many Unitarian Universalists come to terms with their relationship to their Christian roots such that they might be able to derive some meaning from the Christian tradition without necessarily identifying as Christian or forgetting whatever troubling experiences they may have had with the tradition.

Anyone interested in furthering the work of bringing Transylvanian ministers to study in the US or in how more American UU seminarians could have learning experiences in Transylvania should contact the Balazs Scholars Program at Starr King School For the Ministry.