The Balázs Scholars Program has brought a Unitarian Transylvanian Minister to study at Starr King School of the Ministry almost every year since 1994. In June 2020, Reverend Előd Szabó completed the program, joining a long line of Balázs Scholars: Transylvanian Unitarian ministers who are committed to not only improving the lives of their fellow congregants in their homeland but also to sharing with North American Unitarian Universalists the breadth and depth of their passion and caring for the Unitarian Universalist faith tradition.
The program is currently on hiatus due to changes brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. In lieu of a visiting minister/scholar the program has focused on sending someone each year from the Starr King community to Transylvania to attend conferences and learn the history, culture, and practice of Unitarianism there. Further, to support researchers and scholars around the globe, the program is funding a professional digitizing of the Earl Morse Wilbur Rare Book Collection so their contents will be available online.
Read about each of the Balázs Scholars and watch interviews with them here.
Rev. Előd Szabó
The program is named for Francis Balázs, a young Transylvanian Unitarian minister who graduated from seminary in Kolozsvar then studied at Oxford and Pacific Unitarian School for the Ministry, now Starr King School for the Ministry. After traveling across Japan, parts of China, India, and Palestine to learn from leaders such as Gandhi and Schweitzer about creating peace, he returned to Transylvania through Asia. He then became head of a Unitarian High School. In 1929, he became the minister in the village of Mészkõ, the Alabaster Village, where he also wrote poetry, prose, and music, mentored seminary students, and, with his wife, restored the historic Unitarian church, ministered to the village, and brought health programs and economic development throughout the valley. He died of tuberculosis in 1937 at the age of 36.
Watch a video documentary – “The History and Modernization of the Unitarians in Transylvania”
Starr King School for the Ministry provides fundraising and administrative assistance as well as waiving tuition for the Balázs Scholar. The volunteer Balázs Scholars Program Coordinating Committee provides hospitality and support for the scholar and their family, and schedules preaching engagements and transportation. The Committee is made up of representatives from the school, the Starr King community, the host churches, and a liaison to the Partner Church Council. The host church for the scholar rotates between the Unitarian Universalist churches in San Francisco, Oakland, Walnut Creek, and Berkeley.
The Balázs Scholars Program is funded by donations from individuals who recognize and support the importance of the international nature of Unitarian/Unitarian Universalist relationships, a grant from the Partner Church Council, and from honoraria, donations, and Sunday service collections from the churches where the Balázs Scholar preaches. We appreciate your help to sustain this important program. Gifts can be made using the form below. Checks for donations should be made out to Starr King School for the Ministry, with the notation “Balázs,” and sent to Starr King School for the Ministry, 414 13th Street, Suite 700, Oakland, CA 94612.
