Unitarian Universalist
Fellowship of Ames

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Overview

The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Ames has a partner church in Tordátfalva, Romania, led by the Rev. Lajos Lőrinczi. He and his wife, Tünde, visited Ames in 2002, and delegations from our Fellowship visited Romania in 2004 and 2007.

About 100 adults live in the village, down from as many as 600 in 1910. Most are older, but families with young children provide hope for the village's future. Tordátfalva's church was built in 1823 on the foundation of a 13th-century church.

After years of crushing oppression under one of the harshest of communist regimes, the Unitarians of Tordátfalva are struggling to reclaim their land, history, language, culture and religion. By partnering with them in that struggle, we show support and respect for their worth and dignity as individuals and as a group of Unitarians. This is something they do not take for granted.

We show support for their freedom to be Unitarians in a country largely Romanian Orthodox, and we may learn from them how to survive in difficult times. Through shared friendship and fellowship, we can learn from each other the values of the spirit and learn how to see ourselves more clearly as Americans and as Unitarians through their eyes.

Some Facts

Tordátfalva lies in Transylvania, which is a Hungarian-speaking part of Romania. The Romanian name of the town is Turdeni.

You can look at satellite images of the village on Google Earth; the church is located at 46° 22' 47.8" North, 25° 6' 9.45" East.

Links

As far as I can tell, all Unitarian web pages in Transylvania were built by two people named William Seaver and Jószef Szombatfalvi. They probably did this in their spare time, with insufficient tools. Many of the links on these sites don't go anywhere.

• Tordátfalvi Unitárius Egyházközség [Tordátfalva Unitarian Congregation]
  This is the web site of our partner congregation. It is entirely in Hungarian. The connection is fairly slow, so I have reproduced the home page below, with my own attempts at translation added. The reproduced page has no working links. (Only a few of the links on the original page work, for that matter).
• Székelykeresztúri Unitárius Egyházkör [Transylvanian Christian Unitarian Churches]
  This is the web site for the district.

TORDÁTFALVI UNITÁRIUS EGYHÁZKÖZSÉG (Tordátfalva Unitarian Congregation)   Történet History Lelkész Minister Képek Pictures Testvérgyülekezet Sister Congregation Egyházkör Church Vendégkönyv Guestbook Posta Mail Villámposta Email

The only interesting working link from this site is "Képek" (pictures), which I have reproduced below. There are no descriptions given. Click on a picture to see a larger version.