Rev Maria Pap is our minister since June 2018. She is the first woman Minister of the congregation as well as the first Mansfield Minister from the Eastern European Unitarian movement, the Hungarian Unitarian Church, comprising the Unitarian congregations of Romania and Hungary. Maria is a born Unitarian, who studied at the Protestant Theological Institute in Kolozsvar/Cluj . She did postgraduate studies at UCM and HMC in England (1998-1999) and at SKSM Berkeley, California (2003-2004). She was a parish minister for 17 years and from 2012 until her appointment at the OMH, she was the secretary of the Bishop`s Office.
Rev Maria Pap:
“This appointment is a great honour and I hope it will be a great opportunity both for the congregation and for me. I bring an outsider`s perspective, but our common faith and values will be a bridge between our cultural differences and could give us a fresh look on ourselves and our calling.
We hope that honouring our tradition we will find together new ways to deepen our faith, to strengthen our service and to make our presence felt in the outside world. As Unitarians, both in Mansfield and all around the world, we have a long history of openness and acceptance and we strive to be a caring and welcoming community for whoever is in search of a spiritual home. We welcome all who would like to experience what Francis David, the founder of the Transylvanian Unitarian Church- the oldest Unitarian Church in the world- proclaimed: “We do not have to think alike, to love alike”.