Moravians

Moravians are German-speaking Christians who originated in ancient Bohemia and Moravia in what is the present-day Czech Republic. The foremost of Czech reformers, John Hus (1369-1415) was a professor of philosophy and rector of the University in Prague. The Bethlehem Chapel in Prague, where Hus preached, became a rallying place for the Czech reformation. Gaining support from students and the common people, he led a protest movement against many practices of the Roman Catholic clergy and hierarchy. Hus was accused of heresy, underwent a long trial at the Council of Constance, and was burned at the stake on July 6, 1415.

The reformation spirit did not die with John Hus. The Moravian Church, or Unitas Fratrum (Unity of Brethren), as it has been officially known since 1457, arose as followers of Hus gathered in the village of Kunvald, about one hundred miles east of Prague, in eastern Bohemia, and organized the first Protestant church. This was sixty years before Martin Luther began his reformation Lutheran movement and a hundred years before the establishment of the Church of England (Anglican). By 1467, the Moravian Church had established its ministry, and in the years that followed three orders of the ministry were defined: deacon, presbyter, and bishop.

The spiritual journey for the Moravian Brethren began in 1722 when the religious reform leader Count Nicholas Louis von Zinzendorf offered refuge on his estate in the Saxony region of Germany to a group of religious dissidents from Moravia, a historical region in the eastern Czech Republic. This Unity of the Brethren eventually lived in the town of Herrnhut, Germany. Since many of them came from Moravia, their neighbors described them simply as "the Moravians."

The denomination was almost wiped out during the religious wars of the 1600s. After their rebirth under Zinzendorf's leadership, they became the first Protestant missionaries. The Church's mission was to found religious communities where everyone contributed according to ability and took according to need, not unlike the cooperative communities of the early Christians. Also, the Church hoped this new venture would be an economic success and bring money into the Church. During the 1730s, Moravian societies were established in many countries around the world and the American colonies. Their first mission in the British Colonies was in Savannah, Georgia but they eventually traveled north to Pennsylvania where they founded towns of Nazareth and Bethlehem. As these towns prospered, the Brethren wanted to expand in the colonies so they look south toward North Carolina.