A church embraces ghouls, gingerly

BEDFORD - Enter the sanctuary at First Parish in Bedford on Saturday and you’ll find classic horror films like “Frankenstein’’ and “The Fly’’ playing on one wall.

You may need to step over a zombie or two to get to the series of nine themed rooms in which the Unitarian Universalist church’s youth group will host its annual haunted house, expected to attract more than 1,000 visitors this month.

Most houses of worship tend to shy away from observing Halloween. For many traditional denominations, the day - thought to have its roots in Celtic and pagan celebrations of the end of summer and the harvest, and festivals of the dead - is seen as overly fraught with supernatural and theological tricks.

Three years ago, First Parish decided it would step out on a spiritual limb to create a Halloween celebration to benefit the Bedford Food Pantry, but with a few important exceptions. There will be no Count Dracula - nor his vampire kin from the popular “Twilight’’ and “True Blood’’ books and shows - during this monster-mash-themed tour, organizers said.

The Bedford congregation enjoys a warm, 15-year-old relationship with a sister Unitarian church in Abasfalva, in Romania’s Transylvania region, said First Parish’s senior minister, the Rev. John Gibbons, and doesn’t wish to play into outdated stereotypes about it being the birthplace of vampires, fueled by 19th-century novelist Bram Stoker’s famous work, “Dracula.’’

“They really weary of Dracula being the only things Americans know about their country,’’ said Gibbons. “They have such an incredible and rich history and culture, and so few people know that it’s not all about a story invented by a Westerner. So we just don’t do vampires.’’

The church also doesn’t do old-fashioned stereotypes of Halloween witches as green-faced and pointy-nosed. There are modern-day pagans and wiccans who worship at First Parish, and the congregation is sensitive to their feelings, said Lisa Rubin, First Parish’s director of religious education.

The omissions may sound a bit politically correct to some, but organizers say their Halloween celebration is meant to be great secular fun and still in line with Unitarian Universalist values of liberalism and acceptance.

In turn, the effort grows more popular every year. In 2007, the church put on its first production, a Harry Potter-themed haunted house complete with a “Cracked Cauldron’’ snack cafe and “Three Broomsticks’’ game area that attracted 400 people. Last fall, they expanded the Harry Potter theme and more than 1,000 visitors took the tour.

This year, organizers are expecting an even bigger crowd. Tickets are $5 for children, and $6 for adults, with proceeds going to food charities and church operations.

The 100-plus members of First Parish’s youth groups are the primary architects of the event, which offers two separate visiting times.

From 2 p.m. to 5 p.m., the experience is toned down for younger children; from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., the scarier show caters to ages 10 and up.

All children must be accompanied by an adult, and a back staircase is available for anyone of any age who wants to cut the tour short, organizers said.

The church’s young people act as tour guides, ghostly participants and behind-the-scenes engineers.

“It’s fun to see how they see some of these classic monster themes,’’ said Karl Winkler, one of the congregation’s adults involved in organizing the project. “I can’t tell you how enjoyable it is to see people of all different ages at these planning meetings having a great time.’’

None of the church members - young or old - have questioned the vampire avoidance policy, he said.

“Obviously, we don’t do anything too scary and violent, nothing Satanic, there’s no Jason running around with a chainsaw. That was just another no-brainer,’’ said Winkler. “First and foremost, it’s about having fun and something families can enjoy together. You don’t need to perpetuate stereotypes about Transylvania to have a great haunted house.’’

The partnership between the Bedford and Transylvanian churches began in the early 1990s, in the wake of threats by Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu to destroy the region’s villages populated by Hungarian-speaking Unitarians.

The faith was born in Transylvania in the late 1500s and has flourished for four centuries despite wars and political upheaval. (Unitarianism took root in America in 1825, and joined with the Universalist denomination in 1961 to form the Unitarian Universalist Association, headquartered on Boston’s Beacon Hill.)

After Ceausescu was overthrown and executed in 1989, more than 150 Unitarian Universalist congregations in the United States formed partnerships with their beleaguered counterparts in Romania.

Since then, life has much improved for the people of Abasfalva, Gibbons said, and the two churches remain close, exchanging visits by dozens of members over the years.

For some denominations, Oct. 31 is treated as a solemn day to honor the dead, and in Romania, as in much of Europe, many light candles in graveyards to remember loved ones.

In Bedford, Halloween has turned into a major outreach opportunity for the First Parish congregation, and other churches have started to ask for advice on organizing their own haunted houses, members said.

“It’s a great time, where we get to open the church to the community,’’ said Winkler.

“Even though the church is 200 years old and in the middle of town, there are so many people who live here but never walked in the doors before.’’

First Parish members know they might get some ribbing for putting on a culturally sensitive haunted house. But they can take it in good spirits.

“What’s so wrong with being mindful?’’ asked Rubin. “I’d much rather raise a child who can affirm other people, not just tolerate them.’’

Erica Noonan can be reached at enoonan@globe.com.