MODERN ARIANS. — They are a revival of the ancient followers of Arius (cf.). Today, better than “Arians,” they are called Unitarians, antitrinitarians (cf.), and sometimes Socinians, from the two Sienese Lelio (1525–62) and Fausto (1539–1604) Sozzini (Socini).
Their creed may be summed up in these few lines: fatherhood of God, brotherhood of man, guidance by Jesus, salvation through character and the constant evolutionary progress of humanity.
As an autonomous and distinct body from other Protestant bodies, the modern Arians seem to have organized themselves in the year 1568, when Bishop David Ferencz established the first Unitarian nucleus at Cluj-Köszvár in Transylvania, where, by the end of the century, there were 425 Unitarian communities. Other historians, however, trace the organization of Arianism back to a group of restless Italian heretics who, after their apostasy from Rome, took refuge abroad and soon rebelled also against the theocracy established at Geneva by Calvin. Among these stand out three apostate Piedmontese: the physician from Saluzzo Giorgio Biandrata (cf.), the man from Savigliano Giovanni Paolo Alciati (cf.), and Matteo Gribaudo (cf.). To these must be added the Calabrian Giovanni Valentino Gentile and the three Sienese Lelio and Fausto Socini and Bernardino Ochino (cf.).
In 1567 Biandrata published his work *De falsa et vera Dei Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti agnitione*, in which he formally claims to link his Unitarianism with all the true or supposed antitrinitarian currents preceding it, from Arius to Gioacchino da Fiore (cf.), from Erasmus to Servetus (cf.).
In Poland, the Italian antitrinitarians and their disciples widely propagated their heresy, especially Fausto Socino with his treatise *De Jesu Christo Servatore*, in which he denies the expiatory sacrifice of the Son of God, while maintaining that His work operates directly upon man not by virtue of the cross but through His example, the imitation of which secures eternal life. Thus the imitation of Christ assumes a purely humanistic value and reflects not the saving light of Calvary but that of the Italian humanist circles of Basel and the rationalistic trends of Padua.
From Poland Unitarianism spread to England, where today there are 350 Unitarian communities. It is also widely diffused in North America, where, supported by Jefferson, the heresy gained ground through the preaching of W. E. Channing (1780–1842), Emerson, and Theodore Parker (1810–60). The 370 Unitarian communities in the United States today number about 600,000 members, a figure in constant decline.