About US

Hopedale Unitarian Parish is a creedless, liberal religious community in covenant with the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations.

The founder of Hopedale and our first minister, Adin Ballou, had an intense desire to put his religious faith into practice.  From 1842 to 1856, he and his followers lived on farmland that now is the town of Hopedale. It was here that they worked to embrace an ethical idealism. Although his experiment made a promising beginning, it eventually dissolved. Many who had taken part in the noble effort to live out the demands of Christian socialist principles continued to worship with Adin Ballou, thus establishing this Parish.

The Hopedale Unitarian Parish was formed October 2, 1867. The Parish accepted the remaining members of the Community, its Meeting House, Sunday School, Cemetery and Funds. Today, the Hopedale Unitarian Parish is a member of the Unitarian Universalist Association, which has headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts.

Here you will find people who claim a wide variety of spiritual and philosophical identities including atheism, humanism, liberal Christianity, Buddhism, and Paganism. What holds our community together is not a common creed, but a covenant of how we will live in spiritual community together.