Who are the Unitarians? Unitarians are people of liberal religious outlook who are united by a common search for meaning and truth. Although of Christian origin and still following the teaching of Christ as a great and godly leader, Unitarianism today also seeks insight from other religions and philosophies. Individual beliefs within our religious community are quite diverse, and personal religious development is seen as a continuing process. We see religious beliefs as relevant to all aspects of life. Our services of worship can be viewed as the celebration of our deepest values. Unitarianism has no set doctrines or dogmas. The broad beliefs of Irish Unitarians are summed up in the introductory statement in the Dublin church’s monthly calendar, under the three central Unitarian principles of freedom, reason and tolerance. This statement reads: “Love is the doctrine of this church. The quest for truth is its sacrament, and service is its prayer. To dwell together in peace, to seek knowledge in freedom, to serve mankind in fellowship, to the end that all souls shall grow in harmony with the Divine – thus do we covenant with each other and with God.” The Puritan roots THE congregation which assembles in this church every Sunday can trace its descent back to English Puritans who arrived in Ireland at the end of the 16th and early 17th centuries. They took the view that the reformation of the Christian Church under Queen Elizabeth I – the breakaway from Roman Catholicism to form Anglicanism – was incomplete, and its hierarchies and practices remained corrupt and unscriptural. The earliest such congregation we know about was formed in Bandon, Co Cork, probably in the early 1700s. In this way, ironically, the seeds of Unitarianism in Ireland were Puritan ones, and thus a very long way indeed from the thinking of the present day congregation. What distinguished these early Dissenters – and made them comparable to their contemporary Unitarian counterparts – was their independence of mind and their willingness to challenge religious orthodoxies. At first, the English Puritans who came to Munster and Leinster, and the much greater number of Scottish Presbyterians who came to Ulster as part of the ‘plantation’ of the North, were generally tolerated within the established Anglican Church - although they were persecuted in the years leading up to the English Civil War. After the parliamentary side won that war, they flourished during the Cromwellian period. However all this changed following the restoration of the English monarchy in 1660, the parallel restoration of the established episcopal churches and the passing of the Acts of Uniformity in England and Ireland, making the Book of Common Prayer compulsory at all places of worship. As had happened in England, a number of Anglican Church ministers left and formed their own Dissenting or Nonconformist congregations. In Dublin, these were at Wood Street, New Row, Cook Street and Capel Street. Other breakaway congregations were formed in Tipperary town and Clonmel. Thus the passing of the Act of Uniformity led to the creation of a separate religious identity, that of Protestant Dissent, which absorbed the earlier Puritan ethos and became the main root from which Irish Unitarianism was to grow. Many such congregations were also established in Ulster, where the first planters from the Scottish lowlands had brought their Puritan ministers with them, and the first presbytery, the non-hierarchical gathering of elders which is the organisational base of Presbyterianism, was formed in 1642. Thus was organised Presbyterianism in Ireland born, out of which, in the following two centuries, emerged the ‘Non-Subscribing’ liberal Presbyterians, the Northern cousins of today's Dublin Unitarian congregation. The first Protestant Dissenting congregation for which authentic records can be found was in Wood Street (near the site of the former Adelaide Hospital), where a church was opened for public worship in 1673. This new church was attended by many wealthy families and people in influential positions in government and the professions: in 1710 it was able to contribute the huge sum – for those days – of ?6,750 to a fund for “the support of religion in Dublin and the South of Ireland”. It was led by pastors with international reputations, such as John Owen, Stephen Charnock and Joseph Boyse. The latter was particularly famous for his championing of those who disagreed with the restrictive religious orthodoxies of the day. The coming of Unitarianism During the first half of the 18th century a reluctance to accept the doctrine of the Trinity began to appear in some religious thought and writing. This was not yet called Unitarianism, but Arianism, after a Christian priest who lived in Alexandria during the 4th century and preached that Christ was not of one substance with God. Arianism was regarded, even in the Dissenting churches, as a heresy. However in 1702 Thomas Emlyn,

Segundo Palacios, a farmer in northern Peru, joins his community in a quest to save their land and livlihoods from mining development. "We may be poor," he says to the camera, "but we always have enough to eat. You can't throw gold and silver into the cooking pot." Segundo was one of the amazing people we met while making a documentary about this community's brave struggle. By Stephanie Boyd/Guarango Cine y Video