Editing Unitarianism (section)

== History ==
{{Main|History of Unitarianism}}
{{Further|Radical Reformation|Reformation in the Kingdom of Hungary}}
{{more citations needed section|date=July 2019}}
[[File:Körösfői-Kriesch Aladár Tordai országgyűlés.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.25|[[Ferenc Dávid]] holding his speech at the Diet of Torda (1568), in the [[Kingdom of Hungary]] (today [[Turda]], [[Romania]]). Painting by [[Aladár Körösfői-Kriesch]] (1896).]]

Unitarianism, both as a theology and as a [[Christian denomination|denominational family of churches]], was defined and developed in Poland, Transylvania, England, Wales, India, Japan, Jamaica, the United States, and beyond in the 16th century through the present.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Book Talk with Michel Mohr "Unitarianism in Japan: Unravelling Its Saga through the UUA Archives"|url=https://library.hds.harvard.edu/news/ahtl-book-talk-michel-mohr|access-date=2021-03-21|website=library.hds.harvard.edu|date=28 September 2018 |language=en|archive-date=2021-07-31|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210731112559/https://library.hds.harvard.edu/news/ahtl-book-talk-michel-mohr|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=Unitarians, Universalists, and Unitarian Universalists Around the World {{!}} International Unitarian Universalism {{!}} UUA.org|url=https://www.uua.org/international/uus-abroad|access-date=2021-03-21|website=www.uua.org|language=en|archive-date=2021-04-11|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210411001543/https://www.uua.org/international/uus-abroad|url-status=live}}</ref> Although common beliefs existed among Unitarians in each of these regions, they initially grew independently from each other. Only later did they influence one another and accumulate more similarities.<ref>"The religious movement whose history we are endeavoring to trace...became fully developed in thought and polity in only four countries, one after another, namely Poland, Transylvania, England and America, but in each of these it showed, along with certain individual characteristics, a general spirit, a common point of view, and a doctrinal pattern that tempt one to regard them as all outgrowths of a single movement which passed from one to another; for nothing could be more natural than to presume that these common features implied a common ancestry. Yet such is not the fact, for in each of these four lands the movement, instead of having originated elsewhere, and been translated only after attaining mature growth, appears to have sprung independently and directly from its own native roots, and to have been influenced by other and similar movements only after it had already developed an independent life and character of its own." Earl Morse Wilbur, ''A History of Unitarianism'', vol. 2 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1952), p. 166.</ref>

The ''Ecclesia minor'' or ''Minor Reformed Church of Poland'', better known today as the [[Polish Brethren]], was born as the result of a controversy that started on January 22, 1556, when [[Piotr of Goniądz]] (Peter Gonesius), a Polish student, spoke out against the [[doctrine of the Trinity]] during the general synod of the Reformed ([[Calvinist]]) churches of Poland held in the village of [[Secemin]].<ref>Hewett, ''Racovia'', pp. 20–21.</ref> After nine years of debate, in 1565, the anti-Trinitarians were excluded from the existing synod of the [[Polish Reformed Church]] (henceforth the ''Ecclesia maior'') and they began to hold their own synods as the ''Ecclesia minor''. Though frequently called "[[Arians]]" by those on the outside, the views of [[Fausto Sozzini]] (Faustus Socinus) became the standard in the church, and these doctrines were quite removed from Arianism. So important was Socinus to the formulation of their beliefs that those outside Poland usually referred to them as [[Socinianism|Socinians]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Livingstone |first=B. A. |url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199659623.001.0001/acref-9780199659623-e-5941 |title=The Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church |date=2014 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=9780191744303 |edition=3 |entry=Unitarianism |quote=Poland, where Faustus Socinus was their leader from 1579 until his death. |access-date=2022-09-17 |archive-date=2023-09-28 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230928230522/https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780199659623.001.0001/acref-9780199659623-e-5941 |url-status=live }}</ref> The Polish Brethren were disbanded in 1658 by the [[Sejm]] (Polish Parliament). They were ordered to convert to Roman Catholicism or leave Poland. Most of them went to Transylvania or Holland, where they embraced the name "Unitarian". Between 1665 and 1668 a grandson of Socinus, [[Andrzej Wiszowaty Sr.]], published ''[[Bibliotheca Fratrum Polonorum]] quos Unitarios vocant'' (''Library of the Polish Brethren who are called Unitarians'' 4 vols. 1665–1669).{{citation needed|date=May 2019}}

The [[Unitarian Church of Transylvania]] was first recognized by the [[Edict of Torda]], issued by the [[Transylvanian Diet]] under [[Rulers of Transylvania|Prince]] [[John II Sigismund Zápolya]] (January 1568),<ref name="poperamet">Earl A. Pope, "Protestantism in Romania", in Sabrina Petra Ramet (ed.), ''Protestantism and Politics in Eastern Europe and Russia: The Communist and Postcommunist Eras'', [[Duke University Press]], Durham, 1992, p. 160. {{ISBN|0-8223-1241-7}}.</ref> and was first led by [[Ferenc Dávid]] (a former [[Calvinism|Calvinist]] bishop, who had begun preaching the new doctrine in 1566). The term "Unitarian" first appeared as ''unitaria religio'' in a document of the Diet of [[Leț|Lécfalva]], [[Transylvania]], on 25 October 1600, though it was not widely used in Transylvania until 1638, when the formal ''recepta Unitaria Religio'' was published.{{citation needed|date=May 2019}}

The word ''Unitarian'' had been circulating in private letters in England, in reference to imported copies of such publications as the ''[[Bibliotheca Fratrum Polonorum|Library of the Polish Brethren who are called Unitarians]]'' (1665). [[Henry Hedworth]] was the first to use the word "Unitarian" in print in English (1673), and the word first appears in a title in [[Stephen Nye]]'s ''A Brief History of the Unitarians, called also Socinians'' (1687). The movement gained popularity in England in the wake of the [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]] and began to become a formal denomination in 1774 when [[Theophilus Lindsey]] organised meetings with [[Joseph Priestley]], founding the first avowedly Unitarian congregation in the country. This occurred at [[Essex Street Church]] in London.<ref name=":0" /> Official [[Doctrine of the Trinity Act 1813|toleration came in 1813]].

The first official acceptance of the Unitarian faith on the part of a congregation in America was by [[King's Chapel]] in Boston, which settled [[James Freeman (clergyman)|James Freeman]] (1759–1835) in 1782, and revised the Prayer Book into a mild Unitarian liturgy in 1785. In 1800, [[Joseph Stevens Buckminster]] became minister of the [[Brattle Street Church]] in Boston, where his brilliant sermons, literary activities, and academic attention to the [[Historical criticism#Application|German "New Criticism"]] helped shape the subsequent growth of Unitarianism in New England. Unitarian [[Henry Ware (Unitarian)|Henry Ware]] (1764–1845) was appointed as the [[Hollis Chair of Divinity|Hollis professor of divinity]] at Harvard College, in 1805. [[Harvard Divinity School]] then shifted from its conservative roots to teach Unitarian theology (see [[Harvard Divinity School#Harvard Divinity School and Unitarianism|Harvard and Unitarianism]]). Buckminster's close associate [[William Ellery Channing]] (1780–1842) was settled over the [[Federal Street Church (Boston)|Federal Street Church]] in Boston, 1803, and in a few years he became the leader of the Unitarian movement. A theological battle with the [[Congregationalism in the United States|Congregational Churches]] resulted in the formation of the [[American Unitarian Association]] at Boston in 1825. Certainly, the unitarian theology was being "adopted" by the Congregationalists from the 1820s onwards. This movement is also evident in England at this time.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bowers |first1=J. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LVQd6MitmpoC&q=congregationalists++adopting+Unitarian+theology&pg=PA245 |title=Joseph Priestley and English Unitarianism in America |date=2010 |publisher=Penn State Press |isbn=978-0271045818 |page=245 |quote=...Before 1819, American Unitarians followed the teachings of [England's] Priestly...[in the next few decades] the liberal Congregationalists adopted their Unitarian theology. |access-date=21 July 2020 |archive-date=28 September 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230928230521/https://books.google.com/books?id=LVQd6MitmpoC&q=congregationalists++adopting+Unitarian+theology&pg=PA245#v=snippet&q=congregationalists%20%20adopting%20Unitarian%20theology&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref>

The first school founded by the Unitarians in the United States was the [[Clinton Liberal Institute]], in [[Clinton, Oneida County, New York]], founded in 1831.