Travels in Transylvania In September I’ll be taking up a nine month position as assistant minister at the UU church of Bedford, Massachusetts. So, a couple of months ago, I was all ears when I got an email from my new buddy (my new boss!) Rev John Gibbons, saying he was going to be in Europe, and maybe we could meet up to discuss the year ahead. Well… Transylvania is in Europe… it’s even in the EU, since January… so just down the road, and the obvious place to meet up for a chat. And a great excuse to escape from my increasingly dull dissertation and take a little extra-curricular adventure. So, before I had time to think too much about it, I’d found myself a £70 return ticket to Budapest and convinced myself that this was all in the line of duty and the perfect way to refine my thinking on academic matters. Although I was going to Romania it seemed appropriate (and much cheaper) to fly into Hungary, as the Unitarian community in Transylvania are ethnically and linguistically Hungarian, and the half dozen words of Hungarian I’d learned would be more useful to me in Budapest than in Bucharest. On a grey day at the end of February I arrived in Budapest in the late afternoon with the prospect of an overnight bus journey ahead of me. With a few hours to spare, I hopped on the Metro into the city centre and found my way down to the banks of the Danube, with fine views across to Castle Hill, the historic centre of Budapest – a spectacular sight, with towering, floodlit castle, church spires and other Gothic edifices. But that grey February day turned to insistent chilling drizzle and I quickly retreated into the nearest warm establishment for cover… and so, I spent my few short hours in Budapest in a Thai restaurant, eating one of my standard favourite dishes – Thai green curry. However, I did have a seat at a large window looking out over Castle Hill, and I did make a point of ordering a Hungarian beer!! And then, an eleven hour bus ride to Udvarhely, in the centre of Transylvania; complete with daredevil bus driver who blithely careered back and forth across the winding single-carriageway road, over-taking articulated lorries, in what seemed to me pretty minimal visibility, as a foggy night closed in. I decided the best plan was just to close my eyes and pray. I was reminded of Denis Conway once insisting that when the plane’s going down, nobody’s a Unitarian; everyone’s busy making fervent intercessions – “sweet blessed virgin Mary mother of Jesus pray for us.” I did a bit of that on the winding roads through Transylvania!! 7 a.m. – the bus pulled into a dilapidated, grim-looking bus station and I groaned inwardly at the thought that I now had to find my way to a hotel in the centre of town, where transport would be arranged for me to the small village of Abasfalva. (Abasfalva’s population is made up of Hungarian Unitarians and Roma gypsies, and the one church in the village has a sister-relationship with the UU church in Bedford. John Gibbons was here on one of his regular partner-church visits.) As I stepped off the bus, weary and disoriented, not looking forward to the next task, imagine my delight as a friendly voice inquired, “Maud?” The voice belonged to Edit, wife of the minister of Abasfalva. I didn’t recognise her immediately, but we soon established that we had met on my brief visit to Bedford, 18 months previously. She had been there for the wedding of her son, who had taken seriously this sister-church relationship, and had moved to Bedford for high school and college, and in the process had found himself an American wife and decided to settle in Bedford. Off we set in Edit’s old bone-shaker – a Dacia – which I was to discover is the standard Romanian car, built to withstand the less-than-pristine rural roads of Transylvania. We headed out of town at a fair clip, on the rutted and pot-holed road, Edit filling me in on local life and geography in her pretty competent English. 10 km on, we turned off the ‘main’ road, and I realised that those great, gaping pot-holes were as nothing, compared to the last 5 km stretch to Abasfalva. We started bouncing slowly along an un-surfaced mud track – and in February, following lots of rain, there was mud in abundance. I began to appreciate John’s advice to bring boots that would withstand squelching through lots of mud. Finally, we rolled in through the gates of the minister’s house, and there I soon realised that in this neck of the woods a ministerial stipend doesn’t really amount to a living wage. In common with all the other folk in the village, Aron, the minister, operates as a subsistence farmer. Chickens scrabbled around the yard, where they also produce all their own vegetables, and chop firewood for the wood-burning stoves which are the only source of heating and hot water. Later I was introduced to the few goats and sheep which complete the family farm. But first things first – breakfast was served up; and I learned that an integral of every meal (including breakfast!!) is palinka – home-distilled moonshine, or plum brandy as it’s euphemistically called. I quickly developed the skill of saying “no, thanks” and if that didn’t work, of taking a polite couple of sips and conveniently forgetting about the rest. The palinka was often accompanied by beer, or home-made wine, or small cups of strong coffee – sometimes all at the same time. Over the next few days John and I ate and drank and hung out in half of the houses in the village, with John acting as interpreter in his – to my ears – pretty impressive “kitchen Hungarian.” I soon gathered that Abasfalva is facing a crisis of depopulation. In each of the houses we visited we were entertained by elderly couples, and in each case we heard that their children and their grandchildren now lived in Udvarhely, as there are no prospect in Abasfalva to work or support a family. There are over 30 empty houses in the village and it’s difficult to see how Abasfalva, and other villages like it, will survive in the years to come. Though there is some optimistic talk about the possibilities of tourism taking off in the villages. Apparently there is already a market in Hungary, with people there coming to Transylvania for an ‘authentic’ rural Hungarian experience, which no longer exists in Hungary proper. And who knows? I can only hope that rural Romania will benefit from EU funding for infrastructural development, as impoverished areas of the west of Ireland benefited in 1980s. Nevertheless, the elderly folk of Abasfalva are fearful of the EU, seeing only the demons of regulation and standardisation. In particular, they fear for their back-yard palinka stills and home-slaughtered pigs. After a couple of days in Abasfalva, John and I headed up to the big smoke of Kolozsvar, home of Unitarian headquarters and theological seminary. Over the next few days I caught up with my old friend Sandor (Sharpe scholar at HMC last year), had lunch with the bishop, attended a christening and met lots of friendly and welcoming Unitarians, as well as wandering the streets and sights of Kolozsvar – a small university city with a great buzz of youth and optimism. I was especially delighted to meet several young and fun-loving Unitarian ministers. John’s main purpose during this trip was to stand as godfather to Solomon, the son of David, a Unitarian minister and secretary to the bishop of Transylvania. At the christening party, I sat beside Zsolt, a young minister, who exhausted me just listening to tales of what he gets up to in an average day. As well as pastoral oversight for a rural congregation, Zsolt’s main job is as R.E. teacher in the Unitarian high school of Kolozsvar. As part of that job he seems to spend any free time he has taking groups of kids on cycling tours, taking a youth choir on a U.S. concert tour and most impressively, in collaboration with the high school students he’s set up a web radio station, operating out of the school. One evening a week, Transylvanian Unitarian Radio broadcasts in English and can be accessed through the website www.unitarianradio.ro. Zsolt has had email correspondence from as far afield as New Zealand. Then there was Boti who, in his pale green three piece suit, flowing locks and with his running commentary on life, in wry, cynical, comedic style, seemed to me a spitting image of a young dandified Oscar Wilde!! All of the above speak excellent English and together we laughed and drank and exchanged stories. I spent five days in Transylvania, but seem to have squeezed in more than five-days-worth of encounters and experiences, including long talks with John about our plans for next year in Bedford. As I boarded an early-morning bus back to Budapest I was exhausted but completely confident that this had been a week spent much more productively, than sat in front of a computer screen trying to say something academic and learned about what we Unitarians do when we gather for worship. Most importantly, when we gather for worship we affirm that we are part of a world-wide, diverse and thriving liberal religious community. Let us celebrate this world-wide beloved community whether we gather for worship in our own local communities or head off for Unitarian adventures in further fields. Incidentally, my final day in Budapest was blessed with clear skies, leaving me with memories of a stunning full moon over the Danube, followed by a bright crisp morning to wander the historic haunts of Castle Hill. Maud Robinson Cover