keywords = Unitarian Universalis Partner Church Program Committee Erdely Transylvania Muttontown Plandome Shelter Rock Huntington Long Island Unitarian Universalist Fellowship MUUF church denomination district UUA Metro religio philosoph histor
Updated:  06 Jul 2006, 18:15  ET (05:20 in Erdély +7 hours ahead)
[Ref:  This is uupcp.html  (URL http://home.att.net/~Berliner-Ultrasonics/uupcp.html)]

S. Berliner, III's

UU Partner Church Program Page

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UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST
PARTNER CHURCH PROGRAM

in Erdély (Transylvania)

This site has now been visited times since the counter was installed.

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See also SB,III's UNITARIAN page.

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Page Index

THE PARTNER CHURCH PROGRAM - follows.

UNITARIAN HISTORY in Erdely.

Pronunciation of Magyar (Hungarian).

Romanian Accent Marks.

PLACE NAMES IN ERDÉLY.

U. S. ASCII Characters.

Magyar-Angol Book Source.

THE PARTNER CHURCH PROGRAM

The banner of the Partner Church Council (provenance lost)

[newer image now (10 Feb 00) courtesy of the Magyarországi Unitárius Egyház
(The Hungarian Unitarian Church)]

This emblem, the "Címer", popular in Hungarian and Transylvanian Unitarian churches and the device of Unitarian denominations in both areas, depicts a dove encircled by a serpent - "Be as peaceful as the dove and as cunning as the serpent", and often bears, or is accompanied by, the motto

Egy az Isten

("Edge uzh Eesh'ten")

[God is One]

as in this image:

(Paint image courtesy of the Petrozsény Unitarian Church)

A hand-carved wooden plaque bearing the "címer" image hangs on the wall of the Worship Room at Muttontown and appears on their Webpage; it was presented to Muttontown by their Transylvanian partner church, Bordos.

The church in Brasso (Brasov) has this beautiful stained-glass window (provenance lost):

[For your convenience, I have added a place name cross-reference
and a pronunciation guide.]

[Photo by E. M. Cherry]

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Unitarian History in Erdély

Dávid Ferenc (Francis David) started it all back in the 16th Century in Transylvania.

Dávid Ferenc
[Francis David, a drawing by prof. dr. László Gyula
from "Dávid Ferenc és az Unitárius Vallás" ("David Ferencz and
the Unitarian Religion") by Varga Béla, Hungary in 1979
(image courtesy of the Petrozsény Unitarian Church).]

"In every place the preachers shall preach and explain the Gospel, each according to his understanding of it, and if their congregation like it, well; if not, no one shall compel them, for their soul would not be satisfied, but they shall be permitted to keep a preacher whose teaching they approve.  Therefore none of the superintendents or others shall annoy or abuse the preachers on account of their religion, according to the previous constitutions, allow any to be imprisoned or punished by removal from his post on account of his teachings, for Faith is the gift of God; this comes from hearing and hearing by the word of God."

This marked the beginning of the Unitarian Church in Transylvania.

Dávid Ferenc declaring his theory of tolerance to the Diet of Torda.
(image courtesy of the Petrozsény Unitarian Church,
also available from multiple other sources.)

In August 1999, UUs from our River Road Unitarian Church in Bethesda, Maryland (from whose report this is taken), visited the pretty Unitarian church in Torda, which is undergoing renovation.  The stone on which David Ferenc stood on his return to Kolozsvar from Torda, which originally was near one of the nine gates in the now-destroyed city wall, is in the foyer of the church in Kolozsvar.  They had heard that he stood on this stone to give the sermon which "converted" the city.  The Reverend Balint told them that David stood on the stone to announce, "We won!" (the decree on tolerance).  River Road ended their report with "Isten adjon!" ("God's blessings!").

Erdély has always been Magyar (Hungarian-speaking) and was transferred to Romania by the League of Nations after World War I without any ethnic or cultural basis in fact.  During the brutal Ceaucescu régime, the Magyar Transylvanian minority was subjected to a deliberate policy amounting to genocide, with the Magyar tongue forbidden, entire villages razed, and the population evicted; the Unitarians fared even worse, with many churches expropriated and the seminary in Kolosvár closed.  Even after the dictator's overthrow in December 1989, repression continued.  Shortly afterward, our denomination sent a delegation, led by then-UUA President William F. Schulz, to Romania to intercede on behalf of our brothers and sisters there.  Some improvement followed, but most grudgingly.  Church properties have been returned and the seminary reopened.  There have been ugly incidents since, however; one church was badly damaged when workmen erecting a tall building next door deliberately dropped concrete blocks through the roof.  Even now (Jan 99), the official Romanian government Web site for its Embassy here doesn't even acknowledge Magyar as a minority language - "Romanian is the official language, although commonly spoken languages include French and English", even though Transylvania amounts to almost the entire northwest third of the country!.

From the UU Commission on Appraisal report of June 1997, "Interdependence: Renewing Congregational Polity ":

"The oldest Unitarian organization in existence is also the most complex.  In the region bounded by Catholic Hungary to the west, Protestant portions of Bohemia and Poland to the north, Ottoman Muslims on the east and Orthodox Greeks and Slavs to the northeast and south, Transylvania gave rise to a Unitarian polity more akin to Lutheranism and Presbyterianism than congregationalism."

More good news - I found my copies of "400 Years", the history of Francis David and John Sigismund put out by the First Unitarian Society of Minneapolis (undated but probably ca.1985) and "Frances David - What Has Endured of His Life and Work?", written by Dr. Béla Varga, translated by the late Rev. Vilma Szantho Harrington, published by the Magyar Unitárius Egyház (Hungarian Unitarian Church) in Budapest, 1981, under the authority of the late Bishop József Ferencz and printed under the direction of the Rev. Ilona Szent-Iványi (now Orbok, the first woman Unitarian minister in Hungary).  I will excerpt these and add the history on this page.

The tiny Muttontown Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, of which I (SB,III) am a member, is partnered with the almost-as-tiny church in Bordos (pronounced BORRR'-dosh - roll that "R"!) in Erdély (Bordoiu in Romanian).  The minister when we first partnered was Kovács Sándor (Alexander Kovacs); we have become fast friends and I had the pleasure of hosting him on one of his visits to the U.S. and of greeting him at the 2001 General Assembly in Cleveland.  That alone is one of the greatest rewards for American UUs; the friendships formed.  The new minister of the Bordos Church is now the Rev. Pavelka Attilá (Attila Pavelka), who was previously in the Library at the Bishop's office and is assigned to Magyarzsakod, Gyulakuta, and Bordos, and, possibly, even Havadto!

The Bordos congregation was headed by Mr. Bernád András (Andrew Bernard), and we understand that his son is now their President.

Bordos is in the Maros district (Judetul Mures in Romanian) in north-central Romania [which is south-eastern Transylvania (Erdély)], southwest of Marosvásárhely (Tirgu Mures, along the Maros River), high up in the mountains on a dirt road half-way between there and Segesvár (Sisgisoara).  As Bernád-bácsi wrote us back in 1992, "Sovata {Magyar Szovata, a town about 30 miles north-northeast of Bordos, up on the crest of the Carpathians} it is a border; in Sovata it is the begining the land of Tirnava Mica and in Sovata it is the end of the Reformation - beyond of Sovata begin the Land of Ciuc (Czik) and the Land of Gheorgheni (Gyergyó) and in these lands there are only catolics {sic}; here {meaning to the East} didn't penetrate the Reformation."

I will explain more about this wonderful program of the Unitarian Universalist Association that links the churches in Transylvania with partner UUA churches in North America and the Partner Church Council which administers the program (with links).

REALLY BAD NEWS! - The winter of 1998-99 was just horrible in Erdély, with numbing cold and biting winds and severe flooding!  Keep in close touch with your Partner Churches; they need your support!

Technical Details:

Because most people can not yet access ISO 8859 characters, how DOES one write "Erdszentgyörgy"^# properly [the first "o" should have a double acute accent mark (as far as I know) over it]?  The ISO 8859-7 D5 and F5 and DB and FB ("O" and "o" and "U" and "u" with double acute accent marks) don't work, at least not yet.

How are we supposed to render the Magyar double-acute accent mark, ", ISO 8859-1, "dblac" (˝ - written in HTML as "& dblac ;"), above a vowel, or the ogonek below or the hachek above Romanian letters?  I have explored ISO 8859-2, Latin-2, but don't know how to implement it (or that anyone out there can read it).

[Ref.:  Roman Czyborra's ISO 8859 Character Sets List from the Web Design Group's site.]

To get us by here, I created a graphic "o" and a "u" with double acute accents and the Romanian "a" with an ogonek and "s" with a hachek.

I am using the IBM extended character set for the single acute marks, Alt 160 for á ("a" with an acute accent), Alt 130 for é ("e"), etc., and Alt 148 for ö ("o" with an umlaut.diaresis), Alt 129 for ü ("u"), Alt 135 for ç ("c" with a cédille), Alt 140 for î ("i" with a cirmcumflex), etc.

Here then is a preliminary set which you can copy off if you wish:

,  and , and  , and ,

as well as capitals:  ,  and , and  , and .

Ooops! - back to the drawing board - but you get the idea {I hope}!

By sizing (and placing) them appropriately, you can insert them in your text; however, how does one get rid of an unwanted background rectangle on a graphic (or add the desired one)?

For that matter, how does one change background color in midstream?

30 Dec 99 - WOW! - I found an O with a bar over it in the source code of a Web page which showed up on my screen as !  I'll work on this and advise.  For the moment, let's try "& Otilde ;" => "Õ" and "& otilde ;" => "õ".  Hey, they work (at least on Netscape) as long as they aren't bigger!  As BOLD characters, they also have double acutes:  "& Otilde ;" => "Õ" and "& otilde ;" => "õ".

  What about making them bigger?

"& Otilde ;" => "Õ" and "& otilde ;" => "õ"

or bold "& Otilde ;" => "Õ" and "& otilde ;" => "õ".  ???

"& Otilde ;" => "Õ"

and "& otilde ;" => "õ"

or bold "& Otilde ;" => "Õ"

and "& otilde ;" => "õ".
  Clearly tildes!

  If anyone knows what this is all about, please let me know.

See U. S. ASCII Characters, below, for an easy way out.

Now, to the Pronunciation, itself:

Magyar (Hungarian) only uses three special accent or diacritical marks - a single acute (aigue), a double acute (aigue), and a double dot (diaresis/umlaut):

A  - a low sound, somewhat like in "dumb", "glum" (short sound)
Á  - like "mob", "rob", "car" (long sound)
B  - "bread", "butter", "bring"
C  - like "pizza", "tsar"
Cs - "champion", "child"
D  - "den", "dog", "dribble
E  - "fed", "head", "best" (short)
É  - "table", "shape" (long)
F  - "fang", "felon", "friend"
G  - "give", "grant"
Gy - no comparable English sound; perhaps "Nadia", "Magyar"

{Not so!  Try "adjust!} - (added 25 Nov 99)
H  - "hair", "have
I  - no comparable English sound(?); "literature", "Istvan",

"Istenem" (short)
Í  - "he", "bee", "leave" (long)
J  - "year", "yellow", "high"
K  - "keg", "Kaltenborn" {wow, that dates it!}
L  - "long", "lost"
Ly - sound similar to Hungarian "J" in "high"
M  - "man", "mystery
N  - "name", "nor"
Ny - "lanyard", Russian "nyet", French "magnifique", "denier",

Italian "lasagna"
O  - "horse", "moss" (short)
Ó  - "wrote", "quote" (long)
Ö  - "earth", "urn" (short)
  - "fur", "burn" (long)
P  - {omitted; suggest:} "Peter", "put"
Q  - not used in Hungarian
R  - a sharp, hard sound, vibrating from behind the tip of the tongue

against the inside front of the upper palate
S  - "sh", "short", "sham", "shrank"
Sz - "s", "sin", "sample", "sink"
T  - "tin", "tank", "turn"
Ty - no comparable English; nearest: "Matthias", "Mátyásföld"
U  - "put", "foot" (short)
Ú  - "lute", "moot" (long)
Ü  - no English equivalent; French "u" - "du" (short)
  - no English equivalent; French "sud", "lune" (long)
V  - "victor", "van"
W  - not a Hungarian letter.  In foreign words, it is pronounced "V"
X  - called "iksz", like in "mix";

no Hungarian use except in mathematics
Y  - called "ipszilon"; used only in combination with consonants

or in mathematics
Z  - "zest", "zinc"
Zs - "genre", "Zsuzsi", "azure" {or "measure" - SB,III}

The above was formulated for me some 20 years ago by my late Budapest-born mother.

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ROMANIAN ACCENT MARKS:

("a" with a hachek), as in Str. Drglina, street in Kluj-napoca (Kolosvár).

("s" with an ogonek), as in Tîrgu Mure or Media (Marosvásárhely and Medgyes, place names).

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Place Names in Érdely

PLACE NAMES IN ERDÉLY (TRANSYLVANIA) - Romanian vs. Magyar (Hungarian)

ROMANIAN			MAGYAR

Alba Iulia 			Gyulafehérvár
Armeni			      Czíkmenaság
Baiu Mare 			Nagybánya
Blueri			     Balavásár
Blaj 				Balázsfalva
Bordoiu			       Bordos

Careii Mari 			Nagykároly
Cluj-Napoca 			Kolozsvár

Fîntînele 			Gyulakuta

Gogan 				Gógánváralja

Jacodu 				Magyarzsákod

Leliceni 			Csikszentlélek
Lipova 				Lippa

Mnstirea		      Szentbenedek
Media 			       Medgyes

Nade			       Szásznádas

Oradea 				Nagyvárad

Petrosani			Petrozsény

Salauri			       Székelyszállás
Satu Mare 			Szatmár
Sebe Alba		       Szászsebes
Sighet 			  	Szeged {?}
Sighisoara 			Segesvár
Sîngeorgiu de Padure 		Erdszentgyörgy#
Sovata 				Szováta
Sumuleu 			Czíksomlyó

Teiu			       Tövis
Timioara		       Temesvár
Tîrgu Mure		       Marosvásárhely
Turda 				Torda

Vetça 				Székelyvécke

Prepared by S. Berliner, III (22 March 1995), with the assistance of Rev. Kovács Sándor, then of Magyarszákod (in the Maros district of Erdély) [Jacodu (Transylvania), jud. Mure, Romania] and corrected 26 Feb 99 by Rev. Léta Sándor of Petrozsény (Petrosani).

Revised for Web:  26 Feb 1999

{^# - although the list has now been checked, the accenting of Erdszentgyörgy has still to be resolved.}

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U. S. ASCII CHARACTERS

Since our Erdélyi friends mostly use Magyar or European keyboards, it may help to know what their unfortunate American coreligionists use; the U. S. ASCII Keyboard reads as shown on my Language page (both this page and my Computer page are almost full).

However, selecting from it those of use for Magyar (after checking them via e-mail):

Alt 160 = á, Alt 130 = é, Alt 161 = í, Alt 162 = ó, Alt 163 = ú,
Alt 132 = ä, Alt 137 = ë, Alt 139 = ď, Alt 148 = ö, Alt 129 = ü,
 (none)    , Alt 144 = É,  (none)    ,  (none)    ,  (none)    ,
Alt 142 = Ä,  (none)    ,  (none)    , Alt 153 = Ö, Alt 154 = Ü.

{more to follow}

All you do is hold down one of the "Alt" keys and press the number pad keys for the numbers shown (do NOT use the numbers on the top line of the keyboard!) and then let go of the "Alt" key.  It even seems to work on e-mail.  For the "o" or "u" with a double acute accent (aigue), I suggest we use an [o] followed by a quotation mark ["] thusly: o", until someone more knowledgeable explains a better way.

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Magyar-Angol Book Source

For those who wish to buy Magyar or English books here for shipment to Erdély (or to use here to learn Magyar), I used to use Püski-Corvin in NYC, but they went out of business, so I suggest contacting Lajos Huszti (Huszti Lájos, owner) at his newly-opened (Sep 00) shop,

Blue Danube Gifts

225 East 83rd Street

New York, New York  10028

Tel. & FAX:  212-794-7099

e-mail:  blue-danube@hungary.com

http://www.blue-danube.com/ (Magyar)   (06 Jul 06)

http://www.blue-danube.com/eng/index.html (Angol)   (06 Jul 06)

[Unfortunately, Blue Danube does NOT ship books directly to Erdély;
you'll have to ship them yourselves.]

Years back, I bought (and have since packed and mislaid) an Angol-Magyar Kéziszótár (Országh László and Magay Tamás) and companion Magyar-Angol volume from Akadémia Kiadó via Püski-Corvin for only $28.00.  They are identical to the much-more-expensive set from the Oxford University Press.  I also sent an English grammar and English learning book by Szenczi (then $10.00) to Bordos.

I finally found my smaller útiszótár, Angol-Magyar U'tiszótár Magyar-Angol, also by Magay Tamás (with Mentlné Láng Ilona, Rátz Otto, Skripecz Sándor, and Végh Béla), Akadémia Kiadó, Budapest, 1990, ISBN 963 05 5720 7.  It's not quite pocket size, measuring 4" x 5.5" x 1.75" (10cm x 14cm x 4cm), but it's easy to keep to hand.

There is a Magyar-Angol dictionary online at Sztaki.  Travlang also has foreign language tutors (including Magyar) at Languages and dictionaries at Dictionaries, plus others.

There is virtual travel to Erdély at HipCat or at Szekely.

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I remain in faith, hope and love,
baráti szeretettel,
S. Berliner, III
[Greeting courtesy of Rev. Léta Sándor - I like it.]

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THUMBS UP!

THUMBS UP!  -  Support your local police, fire, and emergency personnel!

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S. Berliner, III

Consultant in Ultrasonic Processing
"changing materials with high-intensity sound"
Technical and Historical Writer, Oral Historian
Popularizer of Science and Technology
Rail, Auto, Air, Ordnance, and Model Enthusiast
Light-weight Linguist, Lay Minister, and Putative Philosopher

To contact S. Berliner, III, please click here.

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© Copyright S. Berliner, III - 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2006 - All rights reserved.

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