[5][6] He served as the last bishop of the Unity of the Brethren (direct predecessor of the Moravian Church) before becoming a religious refugee and one of the earliest champions of universal education, a concept eventually set forth in his book Didactica Magna.

Comenius introduced a number of educational concepts and innovations including pictorial textbooks written in native languages instead of Latin, teaching based in gradual development from simple to more comprehensive concepts, lifelong learning with a focus on logical thinking over dull memorization, equal opportunity for impoverished children, education for women, and universal and practical instruction.

[7] Being lifelong proud of his origin from Moravia,[8][9] he nevertheless for most of his life – mainly due to the difficult wartime circumstances in the homeland and fear from religious persecution – lived and worked as an exile in various regions of the Holy Roman Empire and other countries: Sweden, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Transylvania, England, the Netherlands and Hungary.

[12] Martin and Anna Komenský belonged to the Bohemian Brethren, a pre-Reformation Protestant denomination, and Comenius later became one of its leaders.

[14] In 1616 he was ordained into the ministry of the Bohemian Brethren and four years later became pastor and rector at Fulnek, one of the denomination's most flourishing churches.

Comenius took refuge in Leszno (Lissa) in Poland, where he was head of the gymnasium school and was furthermores given charge of the Bohemian and Moravian churches.

In 1638 Comenius responded to a request by the government of Sweden and traveled there to draw up a scheme for the management of that country's schools.

He became one of the leaders in the encyclopaedia or pansophic movement of the seventeenth century, and, in fact, was inclined to sacrifice his more practical educational interests and opportunities for these more imposing but somewhat visionary projects.

[16] In 1641, Comenius responded to a request from the English Long Parliament and joined a commission there established to reform the system of public education.

[17][18] to work with Queen Christina (reigned 1632–1654) and the chancellor Axel Oxenstierna (in office 1612–1654) at the task of reorganizing the Swedish schools.

During the Deluge in 1655, he declared his support for the Protestant Swedish side, prompting Polish Catholic partisans in 1656 to burn his house, his manuscripts, and the school's printing press.

In 1659, Comenius produced a new edition of the 1618 Bohemian Brethren hymnal, Kancionál, to jest kniha žalmů a písní duchovních containing 606 texts and 406 melodies.

These texts were all based on the same fundamental ideas: (1) learning foreign languages through the vernacular; (2) obtaining ideas through objects rather than words; (3) starting with objects most familiar to the child to introduce him to both the new language and the more remote world of objects; (4) giving the child a comprehensive knowledge of his environment, physical and social, as well as instruction in religious, moral, and classical subjects; (5) making this acquisition of a compendium of knowledge a pleasure rather than a task; and (6) making instruction universal "to all men and from all points of view".

[20] John Amos Comenius was a bishop of the Unity of the Brethren church that had its roots in the teaching of Czech reformer Jan Hus.

The book represents his thinking about the world being full of various useless things and complex labyrinths, and that the true peace of mind and soul can be found only in one's heart where Christ the Saviour should dwell and rule.

This teaching is also repeated in one of his last works, Unum Necessarium (Only One is Needed), where he shows various labyrinths and problems in the world and provides simple solutions to various situations.

In his Synopsis physicae ad lumen divinum reformatae, Comenius gives a physical theory of his own, said to be taken from the Book of Genesis.

Attempting to interpret the Book of Revelation, he promised the millennium in 1672 and guaranteed miraculous assistance to those who would undertake the destruction of the Pope and the house of Austria, even venturing to prophesy that Oliver Cromwell, Gustavus Adolphus, and George I Rákóczi, prince of Transylvania, would perform the task.

Their son, Daniel Ernst Jablonski (1660–1741), Comenius's grandson, later went to Berlin in 1693; there he became the highest official pastor at the court of King Frederick I of Prussia (reigned 1701–1713).

The University of Jan Amos Komenský was founded in Prague in 2001, offering bachelor's, master's and graduate degree programmes.

In Poland, the Comenius Foundation is a non-governmental organisation dedicated to the provision of equal opportunities to children under 10 years of age.

In Skopje, North Macedonia the Czechoslovak government built a school after a catastrophic 1963 earthquake and named it after Comenius (Jan Amos Komenski in Macedonian).

[28][29] In the United Kingdom, the University of Sheffield's Western Bank Library holds the largest collection of Comenius manuscripts outside of the Czech Republic.

Comenius Hall was built as the principal classroom and faculty office building on Moravian College's campus in Pennsylvania, and the Comenian Society for the study and publication of his works was formed.

[citation needed] The Comenius Foundation is a non-profit 501(c)(3) charity which uses film and documentary production to further faith, learning, and love.