Unitarian Universalist Meeting of South Berkshire

 

 

January 11, 2004

 

 

“Servetus & Hus: The Flame of Early Unitarianism”

 

 

Rev. Kathy Duhon

  

 

            Michael Servetus and Jan Hus have much in common.  They were neither one actually Unitarians or Universalists, although both contributed to the stream of religious protest and reform that led to these two religions that are our heritage.  They were European Christians – Catholics actually – who both died at the stake for their beliefs, both in their early 40s.  We honor their sacrifice and have much to learn from their lives.  They lived in dark times of abusive power; some would say we live in murky times of corruptive power.  The flame of the Radical Reformation burned brightly because Jan Hus and Michael Servetus were deep thinking, courageous, and strongly religious men.  Perhaps we can be inspired through their stories to bring more of our own light to these times.

            Jan Hus (or John of Husinec) was born in Bohemia in 1373, or thereabouts, and lived until 1415.  He came from a poor family and was a brilliant student of theology.  He became a university instructor and a priest, and finally the rector in charge of the University of Prague.  He lived in the time before Martin Luther’s famous protest about the excesses and injustices of the Medieval Catholic Church, but he had similar concerns.  He opposed the sale of indulgences, and he believed that the common people were equal to the priests, not that the priests were on some higher plane of existence, as the Church of the Middle Ages taught.  He criticized the immorality of the clergy and the abuses of the Church.

            Jan Hus was a universalist in a way because he said that the Church was for all people, equally, and that it should not be seen as an intermediary.  He served Communion of both bread and wine to the laity, not done at that time.  He conducted the mass in Czech, not Latin.  He taught from the Bible in Czech – unheard of in his day.  He had his own reformation going on.  He said, “Love one another and always speak the truth.”  Jan Hus was excommunicated, more than once actually, and tried for heresy, with false accusations.  In his early 40s, he was put to the stake, and prayed loudly, until he could no longer.

            A symbol lives on among us because of Jan Hus – the symbol that has become our chalice lighting.  Because he had offered the chalice of wine to the laity in communion, when the church had reserved it for priests only, the people celebrated his life and commemorated his martyrdom with drawings of the chalice, with a flame in it.  That stood for the truth, for religious freedom, for the power of the common people.  During World War II, when the symbol for the Unitarian Service Committee was created by a Czech man, he was harkening back to this 100s of years old symbol of Jan Hus’s martyrdom.  Only later did we use the image to actually put flames into chalices, and speak about the meaningfulness of such.

            Jan Hus protested abuse of power from the inside of the system, as a priest.  He tried to give the people equality in religion and spoke the truth in love.    

            Michael (actually Miguel) Servetus was born about a century after Hus died, in 1511 in Spain, as a Catholic.  He only lived 42 years before he was burned at the stake by the reformers, including John Calvin, 450 years ago last year.  Servetus was brilliant; he discovered the pulmonary circulatory system, was a medical doctor, editor, studied law and mathematics, wrote a comprehensive geography, and wrote a controversial theological treatise called On the Errors of the Trinity.  This first book was published when he was only 20.  He also opposed infant baptism, the doctrine of original sin, and the corruption of the wealthy Catholic Church.  Servetus did not believe that people were depraved or that only a small elect of the faithful would go to heaven, as Calvin taught.  At a time when the Reformers and the Catholics would fight each other for power, with the group in ascendance repressing the other group, they were united in their hatred of Servetus.  He was condemned as a heretic, an enemy and outcast by both religious groups, a bit unusual at the time.

            Servetus expressed his belief in God in a way that was similar to what would be called Unitarian not long after his death.  Servetus and the early Unitarians stressed the idea of one God, which Christians also believe, but pointed out that the traditional theological understanding of trinity can be fairly close to three gods.  Servetus was concerned that his study of the Bible did not support the trinitarian belief of three persons with one substance, the second person being present from the beginning of time, the third person flowing from the first two – a theology that was largely worked out at the fourth century Council of Nicaea.  Which is not to say that Servetus did not believe in the divinity of Jesus, or in the Holy Spirit – he just believed differently from the Church.  He actually wrote that he believed in the Trinity, but that the Church was getting it wrong. 

            When Michael Servetus published his criticism of the Trinity beliefs, he was ostracized and pursued by the Spanish Inquisition.  He fled to France and changed his name to Michel de Villeneuve.  That is where he studied and delved into many new subjects, including medicine.  He was the first person to understand and publish how the heart and lungs worked together, and he did so in a metaphorical reference within his theological writing.

            In France, he wrote The Restoration of Christianity and he corresponded with the leader of the Reformists, who was an old acquaintance, John Calvin.  Servetus thought he could convince Calvin of the truth as he understood it about the trinity, and about Christianity.  Calvin cut off the correspondence and betrayed Servetus’ identity and location to the Inquisition.  Servetus was interrogated and imprisoned, yet escaped the Catholics, but while going through Geneva, he was recognized and tried for heresy by the Protestants.  He was convicted of antitrinitarianism and opposing infant and child baptism.  John Calvin asked for Servetus to be beheaded, but the Council of Geneva had him burned at the stake.  Servetus prayed loudly as he died and people were impressed with his faith.

            When Servetus was executed, he stood out among the slain religious folks of his time as a martyr.  Folks were very upset with John Calvin, who defended the death sentence. Castellio argued against Calvin, and wrote that "to kill a man is not to protect a doctrine; it is but to kill a man."  Just as in our time the deaths of civil rights leaders repulsed our nation and turned people toward greater tolerance and new laws, the death of Servetus helped lead to greater religious tolerance and to the birth of the Unitarian religion, with the first Unitarian king signing the first religious tolerance law in Transylvania in 1568, only 15 years after Servetus was killed.

            The brilliance and the courage of both Michael Servetus and Jan Hus have lived on to fuel the liberal religious movement and to inspire us.  Whether we try to tell the truth and practice equality and compassion from within corrupt systems, as Jan Hus did, or we have to move to another place in order to continue to study and tell the truth, as Michael Servetus did, we are not likely to face execution, or even imprisonment.  But our voices are needed to continue the flow of truth and justice, or else we will lose our freedoms and return to such repressions.  The flame of religious freedom has been passed on to us by those who gave their lives.  We must hold it and keep it and never let it die.