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Scattered expressions of anti-Trinitarian opinion appear here early. At the age of 80, Catherine, wife of Melchior Vogel or Weygel, was burned at Cracow (1539) for apostasy; whether her views embraced more than deism is not clear. The first synod of the Reformed Church took place in 1555; at the second (1556), Gregory Pauli (Grzegorz Pawel z Brzezin) and Peter Gonesius (Piotr z Goniadza) avowed anti-Trinitarian and anabaptist views. The arrival of Biandrata in 1558 furnished the party with a leader.
In 1565 the diet of Piotrkow excluded anti-Trinitarians from the existing synod; henceforward they held their own synods as the Minor Church . Known by various other names (of which Polish brethren and Arian were the most common), at no time in its history did this body adopt for itself any designation save "Christian". Originally Arian (though excluding any worship of Christ) and anabaptist, the Minor Church was (by 1588) brought round to his own views by Fausto Sozzini, who had settled in Poland in 1579 (see Socinianism).
In 1602 James Sienynski ( Jakub Sieninski ) established at Raków a college and a printing-press, from which the Racovian Catechism was issued in 1605. In 1610 a Catholic reaction began, led by Jesuits. The establishment at Raków was suppressed in 1638, after two boys pelted a crucifix outside the town.
When twenty years public opinion widely considered them as Swedish collaborators during The Deluge, the Polish Diet gave anti-Trinitarians the option of conformity or exile. The Minor Church included many Polish magnates, but their adoption of the views of Sozzini, which precluded Christians from magisterial office, rendered them politically powerless.
The execution of the decree, hastened by a year, took place in 1660. Some conformed; a large number made their way to Holland (where the Remonstrants admitted them to membership on the basis of the Apostles' Creed), while others went to the German frontier. A contingent settled in Transylvania, not joining the Unitarian Church, but maintaining a distinct organization at Kolozsvár until 1793.
The refugees who reached Amsterdam published the Bibliotheca fratrum polonorum (1665 - 1669), embracing the works of Hans Krell ( Crellius, Jan Crell), their leading theologian, Jonas Schlichting (Szlichtyng), their chief commentator, Sozzini and Johann Ludwig Wolzogen. The title-page of this collection, bearing the words quos Unitarios vocant, introduced this term to Western Europe.
No distinct trace of anti-Trinitarian opinion precedes the appearance of Biandrata at the Transylvanian court in 1563. His influence was exerted on Francis David (1510 - 1579), who was successively Catholic, Lutheran, Calvinist and anti-Trinitarian.
In 1564 David was elected by the Calvinists as "bishop of the Hungarian churches in Transylvania," and appointed court preacher to John Sigismund, prince of Transylvania. His discussion of the Trinity began (1565) with doubts of the personality of the Holy Ghost.
His antagonist in public disputations was the Calvinist leader, Peter Juhász (Melius); his supporter was Blandrata. John Sigismund, adopting his court-preacher's views, issued (1568) an edict of religious liberty at the Torda Diet, which allowed David (retaining his existing title) to transfer his episcopate from the Calvinists to the anti-Trinitarians, Kolozsvár being evacuated by all but his followers.
In 1571 John Sigismund was succeeded by Stephen Báthory, a Catholic, and trouble began. Under the influence of John Sommer, rector of the Kolozsvár gymnasium, David (about 1572) abandoned the worship of Christ. The attempted accommodation by Sozzini only precipitated matters; tried as an innovator, David died in prison at Déva (1579). The cultus of Christ became an established usage of the Church; it is recognized in the 1837 edition of the official hymnal, but removed in later editions.
On the other hand, in 1621 a new sect arose, the Sabbatarii, with strong Judaic tendencies; though excluded from toleration they maintained an existence till 1848. The term unitarius (said to have been introduced by Melius in discussions of 1569 - 1571) makes its first documentary appearance in a decree of the Lécsfalva Diet (1600); it was not officially adopted by the Church until 1638.
Of the line of twenty-three bishops the most distinguished were George Enyedi (1592 - 1597), whose Explicationes obtained European vogue, and Michael Lombard Szentabrahámi (1737-1758), who rallied the forces of his Church, broken by persecution and deprivation of property, and gave them their existing constitution. His Summa universae theologiae secundum Unitarios (1787), Socinian with Arminian modifications, was accepted by Joseph II as the official manifesto of doctrine, and so remains, though no subscription to it has ever been required.
The official title is the Hungarian Unitarian Church, with a membership as of 1911 of 60,000, most of them in Transylvania, especially among the Székely (Szekler) population, a few in Hungary; their bishop had a seat in the Hungarian parliament. The church's principal college was at Kolozsvár, the seat of the consistory; others were at Torda and at Székely-Keresztúr.
Until 1818 the continued existence of this body was unknown to English Unitarians; relations subsequently became intimate. After 1860 a succession of students finished their theological education at Manchester College, Oxford; others at the Unitarian Home Missionary College.
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