Its name is derived from exiles who fled from Moravia to Saxony in 1722 to escape the Counter-Reformation, establishing the Christian community of Herrnhut.

[7] The modern Unitas Fratrum has about one million members worldwide,[1] continuing their tradition of missionary work, such as in the Americas and Africa, which is reflected in their broad global distribution.

[10] The Hussite movement that was to become the Moravian Church was started by Jan Hus (English: John Huss) in early 15th-century Bohemia, in what is today the Czech Republic.

This group held to a strict obedience to the Sermon on the Mount, which included non-swearing of oaths, non-resistance, and not accumulating wealth.

In Jihlava, a principal Protestant centre in Moravia, there were five major schools: two German, one Czech, one for girls and one teaching in Latin, which was at the level of a high/grammar school, lecturing on Latin, Greek and Hebrew, Rhetorics, Dialectics, fundamentals of Philosophy and fine arts, as well as religion according to the Lutheran Augustana.

[14] With the University of Prague also firmly in hands of Protestants, the local Roman Catholic Church was unable to compete in the field of education.

In the year that followed, Protestant Bohemian noblemen, in fear of losing their religious freedom,[15] instigated a revolt with the unplanned Defenestrations of Prague.

The Brethren were forced to go underground, and eventually dispersed across Northern Europe as far as the Low Countries, where their bishop, John Amos Comenius, attempted to direct a resurgence.

The largest remaining communities of the Brethren were located in Leszno (German: Lissa) in Poland, which had historically strong ties with the Czechs, and small, isolated groups in Moravia.

The latter are referred to as "the Hidden Seed", which John Amos Comenius had prayed would preserve the evangelical faith in the land of the fathers.

In 1722, a small group of the Bohemian Brethren, the "Hidden Seed", who had been living in northern Moravia, as an illegal underground remnant surviving in the Catholic setting of the Habsburg Empire for nearly 100 years, arrived at the Berthelsdorf estate of Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf in present-day Saxony in the eastern part of modern-day Germany.

Out of a personal commitment to helping the poor and needy, von Zinzendorf, a nobleman who had been brought up in the traditions of Pietistic Lutheranism, agreed to a request from their leader, Christian David, an itinerant carpenter, that they be allowed to settle on his lands in Upper Lusatia in Saxony.

The Margraviates of Upper and Lower Lusatia were governed in personal union by the Saxon rulers and enjoyed great autonomy, especially in religious questions.

On 13 August 1727, the community underwent a dramatic transformation when the inhabitants of Herrnhut "learned to love one another", following an experience that they attributed to a visitation of the Holy Spirit, similar to that recorded in the Bible on the day of Pentecost.

Herrnhut grew rapidly following this transforming revival and became the centre of a major movement for Christian renewal and mission during the 18th century.

Within 30 years, the church sent hundreds of Christian missionaries to many parts of the world, including the Caribbean, North and South America, the Arctic, Africa, and the Far East.

While attending the coronation of Christian VI of Denmark-Norway in 1730, Zinzendorf was profoundly struck by two Inuit converts of Hans Egede's mission in Greenland and also by an African from the West Indies.

Matthaeus Stach and two others founded the first Moravian mission in Greenland in 1733 at Neu-Herrnhut on Baal's River, which became the nucleus of the modern capital Nuuk.

In 1772, the first European-Native American settlement of what later became Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, occurred when Reverend John Ettwein, a Moravian missionary, arrived there with a band of 241 Christianized Lenape.

[22] Colonies were founded in North Carolina, where Moravians led by Bishop August Gottlieb Spangenberg purchased 98,985 acres (40,058 ha) 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 Lower Austria.

Eventually, the Moravian missions in Australia and Greenland were transferred to the local Presbyterian and Lutheran Churches, respectively.

A candidate for ministry who has been approved by their home province and has completed the prescribed course of study, usually a Master of Divinity degree in the US and Europe, may be ordained a Deacon upon acceptance of a call.

Whenever the stewards or helpers appoint a time to make fences or perform other work for the public good, we will assist and do as we are bid.

[40]According to the Ground of the Unity[38][39] of 1957, fundamental beliefs include but are not limited to: These tenets of classical Christianity are not unique to the Moravian Church.

Unintrusiveness is based on the Moravian belief that God positively wills the existence of a variety of churches to cater for different spiritual needs.

Shawe remarks that "none could give themselves more freely to the spread of the gospel than those Moravian emigrants who, by settling in Herrnhut [i.e., on Zinzendorf's estate], had gained release from suppression and persecution" (p. 26).

One aspect of Moravian history and mission is the diaspora work in Germany and Eastern Europe, seeking to deepen and encourage the Christian life among members of the territorial churches, particularly in Poland and the Baltic states and throughout German-speaking lands.

This Diaspora work suffered almost total destruction in World War II, but is still carried on within the territorial churches of Germany.

With the restored independence of Estonia and Latvia, it was revealed that much of the Diaspora Work there had been kept alive in spite of occupation and annexation by the Soviet Union, which had held to the doctrine of state atheism.