Now spread around the world in 20 different provinces, the Moravian church began over 550 years ago in what is now the Czech Republic. In the early 1400’s, John Hus, a Catholic priest and professor at the University of Prague, spoke out against the sell of indulgences. Hus was burned at the stake in 1415 and his death set off a nationalistic and religious revolt in Czechoslovakia. Several different groups emerged from the revolt, one in 1457 which was called the Unitas Fratrum or the Unity of the Brethren. Members of the Unitas Fratrum sought to continue many of Hus’ ideas. They translated the Bible into Czech which Hus had argued should be the final authority in deciding matters of doctrine. They produced hymnals in Czech and German in an effort to involve the laity in worship. Like the other reform groups born out of the Hussite revolt, they insisted on serving the laity both the bread and the wine during communion. By 1517, the Unitas Fratrum grew to include at least 200,000 members and over 400 parishes in Czechoslovakia.

Throughout its early history, the Unitas Fratrum experienced periods of persecution. The worst was the defeat of the Protestants in Bohemia at the battle of White Mountain in 1620. Members of the church were forced to go into exile or to go underground with their faith when Czechoslovakia again came under Catholic control. Bishop John Amos Comenius, known for his innovative educational theories, led the church through this difficult era, called the period of the “hidden seed.”

In 1722, a group of refugees from the old Unitas Fratrum came out of Czechoslovakia and settled on the estate of a Lutheran pietist, Count Nicholas von Zinzendorf. Nicknamed the Moravians because many of them had come from area called Moravia, the group gradually reclaimed and redefined its identity. Feeling a call to missions, the Moravians began to send missionaries to the West Indies in 1732. Settlements in Bethlehem, PA and Salem, NC were begun to provide economic support for missionaries to the American Indians. By and large, the Moravians felt called to send missionaries where no one else would go. The mission movement spread so that today there are more Moravians in the so-called “developing” countries than in Europe and America.

Today the Moravian church is a small Protestant denomination known primarily for its history in education, music, and missions. As in its past, there is a strong emphasis on education both in local congregations and in institutions of higher learning, on the involvement of the laity in worship especially through music, on participation in ecumenical work, and on missions. “Mission work” has now come to mean cooperative exchanges between all the provinces of the Unity. Respect for diverse viewpoints is also an important value which the church seeks to foster. It attempts to live by its motto, “In essentials unity, in non—essentials liberty, and in all things love.”