PARIS — The Rev. Peter Richardson will be the speaker at 10 a.m. Sunday, May 20, at the South Paris First Universalist Church on Pine Street.

His topic will be “Universalism on the Frontier.”

Universalism was a product of frontier days in northern New England. Maine’s first organized Universalist congregation was convened in Norway and Paris. One of those founders, Gen. Levi Hubbard of Paris, named Oxford County after his hometown, Oxford, Massachusetts. A liberal religious impulse, Universalism opposed rigid doctrines of Calvinism and emotional excesses of revivalism in favor of openness to enlightened ideas and a loving, generous way of life.

With degrees from Tufts and St. Lawrence universities, both founded by the Universalists, Peter Tufts Richardson was ordained to the ministry of religion in 1965 by the First Universalist Church of Kent, Ohio. He also served congregations in Texas, Massachusetts and Kennebunk.

He is author of six books of history, psychological type and spirituality, religious philosophy and poetry and of a forthcoming work, “Universalists and Unitarians of Maine,” to be released in midsummer. He has made pilgrimages to more than 20 countries, using his photography in his writings and ministry and conducting workshops in four countries and 13 U.S. states.

All are welcome. The church is handicapped accessible.