Harminchárom and Roșia Montana!

A double greeting this month from the Transylvanian Partner Church Committee: the first is the number 33 in Hungarian, and the second is Romanian for Red Mountain.

We’ve told you how you can donate on-line to the Partner Church Committee through the UUCB website at https://uucb.org/our-community/donate-online.html. What if you made an on-going donation of $33 a month? That’s $400 a year (or nearly so) and it will enable a student from Homoródύjfalu to attend high school. The nearest high schools are far from the village, and even though tuition is free, room and board are not. Unlike many Transylvanian villages, there are still growing families in Homoródύjfalu so we have a continuing need to support the young people and their futures. Click that link today and set up your monthly donation!

If you’re reading The Beacon on-line, take a few minutes when you’re done to google “Roșia Montana” (don’t worry about the cedilla, a plain “s” will work just fine). We UUs are committed to social justice everywhere, not just here at home. Roșia Montana is shaping up to be one of the biggest environmental justice issues in the European Economic Union. Gold mining has been done in this area of western Transylvania since Roman times, but plans to reopen the mines on a widespread industrial scale has triggered protests throughout Romania and the rest of Europe. The threat of cyanide pollution to the land and water is great. The Romanian government has attempted to scuttle environmental and historic preservation laws to push the project through under the influence of international mining and financial interests. At the same time, the prospect of jobs in an area of high unemployment and a depressed economy cannot be discounted. UUs across the US are now starting to learn about this long-simmering controversy. Bishops from the four traditional churches of Transylvania (Reformed, Roman Catholic, Lutheran, and Unitarian) have signed a statement against the Roșia Montana gold mining project. How will we respond? Transylvania is a both a land of myth and legend, and a land with real-world 21st-century problems. The mission of the Transylvanian Partner Church Committee is to assist our partners in Homoródύjfalu in preserving their cultural heritage and living sustainably in the modern world. Will you join us in that mission?

Köszönöm! (Thank you!)