The story of the building where the Salina Gymnasium Potaissa Guest House operates is old. It begins in the XVIth century, with the new religious turmoil that took place at the end of the Middle Ages. Protestantism has separated a number of new denominations from the Catholic Church. In this context, the Unitarian Church also appeared whose motto also explains the name: "God is One / Egy az Isten / Unus est Deus". Therefore, the Unitarians had a doctrine that criticized the Holy Trinity, anti-Trinitarian.
The Reformation also caused many religious wars at the time, covering almost all of Western and Central Europe. The Principality of Transylvania, however, had a much more balanced attitude and approach. Religious tolerance was proclaimed in the Diet reunited in 1568 right in Turda. The new cult, Unitarianism, thus found in Transylvania a land conducive to development. And as the Church has always placed great value on education, schools have been established in the main urban centres.
One of these schools, the first Unitarian, was the gymnasium where our guest house operates today. It also included classrooms, boarding schools for students, housing for teachers, a small museum and a chapel. The subjects taught were theology, rhetoric, syntax, dialectics and poetry. But shortly after it was built, the school was destroyed, just like much of the city, by the mercenaries of General Basta, the assassin of Mihai Viteazu. It was rebuilt and demolished again in 1706, this time by the Austrian army, which was fighting Rakoczi's uprising.
Eventually, a new reconstruction would prove more resilient and lasting to this day. The gymnasium functioned until 1878, after which it was turned into a high school, which was active until 1918. It was the most important school in Torda-Aranyos County, forming over time generations of intellectuals.