About Us

Our faith gets its name from the merger in 1961 of two religious groups the Unitarians and the Universalists. That’s a long name, so we call ourselves UUs for short. Today across North America there are more than 1,000 UU congregations serving 250,000 adults and children.

Unitarian Universalism evolved out of the Christian and Jewish traditions and we trace our roots back to the Protestant Reformation.

In the United States we’ve been here since the nation’s founding. We’re proud of our legacy of American Unitarians and Universalists including John Adams and John Quincy Adams, Paul Revere, Thomas Jefferson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Susan B. Anthony, Frank Lloyd Wright; and more recently Christopher Reeve, Kurt Vonnegut, Randy Pausch and Pete Seeger.

In Maryland, DC and Northern Virginia Unitarian Universalists have been a prophetic liberal religious voice for over 200 years. Our oldest church, First Unitarian Church of Baltimore was founded in 1817. All Souls in Washington DC was founded in 1821. Our newest congregation is the UU Congregation of the Chesapeake in California Maryland. It’s just 2 years young.

Each congregation is different – some have over 1,000 members, others less than 100.

Some preach a liberal Christian gospel; others embrace a more humanist theology.

You may find folks of many different religions – Buddhists, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Pagans.

You may find folks with different beliefs in god - from theists to agnostics, even atheists.

And we’re all worshipping together.

Sound improbable? Maybe so.

Quite amazing. Definitely delightful.