History

• 325: Nicene Creed adopted at the Council of Nicea under the emperor Constantine; establishes the dogma of the Trinity and suppresses the lower Christology espoused by Arius and his followers.
• 544: Another church council condemns as heresy the belief in universal salvation, a teaching traced back to second-century theologian Origen of Alexandria.

• 1531: Michael Servetus (1510-53) publishes On the Error of the Trinity
• 1539: Katherine Vogel of Krakow, Poland, burned at the stake for denying the Trinity; birth of Paustus Socinus, leader of the Polish Unitarian (Socinian) movement (d. 1604).
• 1553: Servetus burned at the stake in Calvin's Geneva.
• 1566: Francis David preaches against the doctrine of the Trinity of Transylvania.
• 1568: King John Sigismund of Transylvania, under the influence of David, issues the earliest edict of religious toleration.
• 1579: Francis David, condemned as a heretic, dies in prison.
• 1654: John Biddle, founder of English Unitarianism, banished to the Scilly Islands.
• 1658: The Polish Diet banishes Socinians.

• 1703: Thomas Emelyn imprisoned at Dublin for anti-Trinitarian beliefs; birth of George de Benneville, early Universalist advocate.
• 1723: De Benneville preaches Unitarianism in Europe; birth of Theophilus Lindsey, later leader of London Unitarians.
• 1741: De Benneville emigrates to Pennsylvania; birth of John Murray, founder of organized American Universalism.
• 1770: Murray emigrates to America; preaches in Thomas Potter's chapel at Good Luck, N.J.
• 1779: First Universalist congregation in America gathered at Gloucester, Mass., with Murray as minister.
• 1785: Liturgy of King's Chapel, Boston, revised to omit references to the Trinity.
• 1787: King's Chapel congregation ordains James Freeman as its minister, becoming "Anglican in worship, congregational in policy, and Unitarian in theology."
• 1794: Joseph Priestley, British Unitarian minister and scientist, emigrates to Pennsylvania.
• 1796: First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia organized with Priestley's encouragement.

Nineteenth-Century America

• 1802: The oldest Pilgrim church in America (founded at Plymouth in 1620) becomes Unitarian.
• 1803: Universalists at convention in Winchester, N.H., adopt a confession of faith.
• 1804: President Thomas Jefferson compiles his own version of the Gospels, inspired by Priestly.
• 1805: Universalist Hosea Ballou publishes A Treatise on the Atonement, rejecting the doctrine of the Trinity; Henry Ware, St., a Unitarian, elected Hollis Professor of Divinity at Harvard.
• 1819: William Ellery Channing preaches "Unitarian Christianity" in Baltimore, helps gather first Unitarian Church in New York City.
• 1825: The American Unitarian Association founded.
• 1833: The General Convention of Universalists in the United States founded.
• 1838: Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Divinity School Address" at Harvard.
• 1841: Theodore Parker's "Transient and Permanent in Christianity" preached in South Boston.
• 1850: Death of Margaret Fuller, author of Women in the Nineteenth Century.
• 1863: Ordination of Olympia Brown as Universalist minister, first woman to be regularly ordained by any denomination.
• 1864: Death of Thomas Scarr King, Universalist minister and pastor of the First Unitarian Church of San Francisco, who "saved California for the Union."
• 1865: National Conference of Unitarian Churches, organized by Henry Whitney Bellows, gives Unitarians a more effective denominational structure.
• 1866: Organization of the Universalist General Convention (renamed in 1942 the Universalist Church in America).
• 1867: Organization of the Free religious Association.
• 1884: Death of Emerson; American Unitarian Association becomes a congregational and representative body, later absorbing the National Conference; publication of Ten Great Relations, by James Freeman Clarke.
• 1890: Universalists establish churches in Japan.
• 1893: World Parliament of Religions held in Chicago, organized by Unitarian minister, Jenkin Lloyd Jones.
• 1899: A joint commission first discusses merger of Unitarian and Universalist movements.

• 1900: The International Congress of Free Christians and Other Religious Liberals formed (later the International Association for Religious Freedom).
• 1902: Beacon Press launched, broadening the American Unitarian Association's publishing program.
• 1908: Unitarian Fellowship for Social Justice organized by John Haynes Holmes (also a founder of the NAACP, the ACLU, and the Fellowship of Reconciliation).
• 1917: William Howard Taft, fifth Unitarian president, serves as moderator of the American Unitarian Association.
• 1921: Universalist women acquire Clara Barton homestead (later a camp for diabetic girls).
• 1931: Second Commission on Unitarian-Universalist merger.
• 1935: Washington Statement of Faith adopted by Universalists.
• 1936: American Unitarian Association Commission on Appraisal issues report.
• 1937: Frederick May Eliot elected president of AUA (d. 1957).
• 1939: Unitarian Service Committee organized.
• 1944: Church of the Larger Fellowship organized to serve Unitarians living areas without Unitarian congregations.
• 1950: A. Powell Davies, minister of All Souls, Washington, D.C., inspires the founding of ten suburban congregations; fellowship movement organized under Monroe Husbands.
• 1961: Unitarian Universalist Association formed, with Dana McLean Greeley as first president
• 1963: Hymns for the Celebration of Life published.
• 1965: James Reeb killed at Selma, Alabama.
• 1969: Robert Nelson West elected second UUA president; controversy over black empowerment vs. integration.
• 1977: Paul Carnes elected third UUA president; dies in office.
• 1978: Eugene Pickett elected fourth UUA president.
• 1985: William F. Schulz elected fifth UUA president; new statement of Principles and Purposes adopted.