A little follow-up for those historically inclined.
In a previous post I wrote about the proto-protestants and Jan Hus as one of them. The followers of Jan Hus were initially called Hussites, but as time progressed there was strife and splits among them.
The Moravians were the result of such strife:
A contingent of Hus’s followers struck a deal with Rome that allowed them to realise most of their doctrinal goals, while recognising the authority of the Roman Catholic Church; these were called the Utraquists. The remaining Hussites continued to operate outside Roman Catholicism and, within fifty years of Hus’s death, had become independently organized as the ‘Bohemian Brethren’ or Unity of the Brethren. This group maintained Hussite theology (which would later lean towards Lutheran teachings), while maintaining the historic episcopate, even during their persecution. Bohemian Brethren’s Church had been founded in Kunvald, Bohemia, in 1457.
The Moravians were some of the earliest Protestants, rebelling against the authority of Rome more than a hundred years before Martin Luther.
That was way back then, you might say, but what about more recent times?
Well, eventually Moravian missionaries came to America.
The Moravians later found a home in Pennsylvania, where the charter of the colony provided religious freedom. The towns of Bethlehem, Nazareth, Emmaus, and Lititz, Pennsylvania, were founded as Moravian communities. Later, colonies were also founded in North Carolina, where Moravians led by Bishop August Gottlieb Spangenberg purchased 98,985 acres from John Carteret, 2nd Earl Granville. This large tract of land was named die Wachau, or Wachovia, after one of Zinzendorf’s ancestral estates on the Danube River in Austria. Other early settlements included Bethabara (1753), Bethania (1759) and Salem (now Winston-Salem) (1766).
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, emerged as the headquarters of the northern church, and Winston-Salem, North Carolina, became the headquarters of the southern church. The Moravian denomination persists in America to this day, with congregations in 18 states; presently, the highest concentrations of Moravians exist in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The denomination is organized into four provinces in North America: Northern, Southern, Alaska, and Labrador. There are also congregations in three Canadian provinces, as well as about 40 Moravian congregations in England.
The Moravians are a small denomination, but they certainly left their mark on Pennsylvania.
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