Talk:Unity of the Brethren (Texas)

Need for clarification

This is the most confused page possible ... it completely mangles together old Czech Reformation Unity of Brethern, Herrnhut’s renewed Moravian Church, and the American denomination in Texas founded by the Czech emigrants. The text desperately needs to be clarified, particularly whole history of the Czech original denomination abandoned in favor of History_of_the_Moravian_Church. Ceplm (talk) 13:43, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

@Ceplm: Agreed. I have tried to improve it by refocusing this page on the obscure American denomination, turning the title Unity of the Brethren into a dab page and pointing people to Bohemian Reformation and History of the Moravian Church for the original Unitas Fratrum. The whole "background" that I have left behind could be shrunk and/or removed, but I left most of it in case somebody else wants to cross-check it with the history article and merge it. Srnec (talk) 01:32, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

I fixed this. The old text is here, but I don’t think there is anything worthy of saving:

This map showing religious distribution in Central Europe c. 1618 goes with the label:

  Moravians

The reforms of Jan Hus, which included providing the Scriptures to the people in their own language and making both elements of communion available to the people, were popular with the Czech people, but met extreme opposition from church authorities. Hus was executed, but his preaching and writings were instrumental in the formation of the Hussite movement. The Hussite movement broke into several strands, one of which (the smallest) became known as the Unity of the Brethren.

The roots of this radical and pacifistic stream within the early Hussite movement go back to Petr Chelčický. Official formation is usually attributed to the year 1457 when the first ordinations took place in a small village called Kunvald near Žamberk and Litice, which was under the lordship of King George Podiebrad, in northeastern Bohemia. The original theological foundation for the future Unity of the Brethren was laid by Petr Chelčický and Brother Řehoř (Gregor), the latter often considered one of the main founders. Lukáš Pražský, whose theological ideas strongly shaped the movement after the passing of Chelčický and Řehoř, provided later leadership. Another important leader was Jan Augusta, who spent many years in horrible imprisonment. The "last bishop" of Unity of the Brethren, Comenius (Jan Amos Komenský) is known for his reforms in education. During the second half of the 16th century, members of the Unity of the Brethren translated the Bible from the original languages into the Czech. This translation is known as the Bible of Kralice (Bible kralická), which until recently was the most widely used Czech biblical translation, with an influence similar to the King James Version in the English-speaking world.

After 1620, due to a counter-reformation by the Roman Catholic Church, Bohemian Protestants were forced to choose between leaving the country or practicing their beliefs secretly. Descendants of members of the Unity of the Brethren who stayed in Bohemia and Moravia (keeping the Unity teachings alive by clandestine meetings), mostly from villages on the Moravian-Silesian border, made up the core of a regrouping a century later in Saxony under the influence of Count Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf.

During the Thirty Years War, the Unity of the Brethren churches were severely persecuted, as they were targeted by local counter-reformation nobles. As a result, they were dispersed to other Slavic lands, various German states, and as far as the Low Countries, where Comenius attempted to direct a resurgence in manner similar to the secret Jews (Marranos) in Spanish Habsburg and other Roman Catholic lands.

Those who stayed in Bohemia and Moravia practiced their beliefs in secret and privately passed their beliefs from one generation to the next. Even after Emperor Joseph II proclaimed toleration in 1781, only Lutherans, Calvinists and Eastern Orthodox were allowed to openly practice their faith. Many of the Brethren united with the Lutherans and Calvinists around that time. After the end of World War I and the formation of Czechoslovakia in 1918, Czech Lutherans and Calvinists formed a united church – the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren.

After the imperial edict of 1861, which granted legal rights to Reformed churches, Unity of the Brethren missionaries from Germany were able to restore the church to its original Czech homeland. The first congregations was founded in 1870 in Potštejn, and in Dube in 1872. Before the First World War, eight other churches had been planted. The Unity of the Brethren in the Czech Republic worked among the Czechs and the Germans, started orphanages in Čermná and Dubá, and conducted missionary work in South Africa.

The Czech-originated Unity of the Brethren should not be confused with the Unity of the Brethren Baptists, a Baptist organization in the Czech and Slovak Republics.