Moravian Church

General Information

The Moravian Church is a Protestant communion closely linked to Lutheranism. It has its roots in the Czech Reformation and is a direct continuation of the Bohemian Brethren.

Influenced by the spiritual heritage of John Huss, Brother Gregory founded the Bohemian Unity of Brethren, which, having functioned within the Utraquist group of Hussites for a decade, separated in 1467 and established an independent ministry. The reform movement based itself solely on the Bible, and its leaders were able to procure non Roman ordination from a bishop of the Waldenses.

Occasional persecution of the Unity became systematic in the 16th century, a period marked by the theological creativity of Lukas of Prague (c. 1460 - 1528) and Jan Augusta (1500 - 72) and by contact with other Protestant reformers. Toleration obtained in 1609 was short lived as the Czech Protestants were expelled by Catholic advances in the Thirty Years' War (1627). John Amos Comenius, the Unity's last bishop, led the group into exile. A century later, representatives of German Pietism encouraged survivors of the Unity to migrate from Moravia to Saxony, where in 1722 the community of Herrnhut was founded. Graf von Zinzendorf assumed leadership, and a spiritual awakening swept the congregation in 1727, which is often taken as the founding date of the Moravian Church.

The Moravians were pioneers in Protestant home and foreign missions, seeking renewal of European Christianity and the evangelization of the non Christian world. August Gottlieb Spangenberg, sent to America in 1735, founded churches in Georgia, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina. Zinzendorf stimulated the church by his missionary leadership and religious genius, especially in community formation and cultic celebration. He also troubled the church with financial instability and devotional excesses that nearly wrecked it in the 1740s. After his death more moderate leadership was introduced by Spangenberg.

Moravianism is basically presbyterian in structure, and its bishops are chosen on spiritual merit to serve in pastoral and cultic roles rather than in administrative ones. Composed of approximately 360,000 members, the Moravian Church has played a major role in the development of Protestant worship, evangelism, missions, and theology in the last three centuries.

James D Nelson

Bibliography
G L Gollin, Moravians in Two Worlds: A Study of Changing Communities (1967); J T / K G Hamilton, History of the Moravian Church: The Renewed Unitas Fratrum, 1722 - 1957 (1967); E Langton, History of the Moravian Church (1956).