MORAVIANS, or MORAVIAN BRETHREN, a congregation of Christians descended from the Bohemian brethren, who were a branch of the Humites. [Huss, Joue, in Broca Div.) The Bohemian brethren dissented from the Callixtines, and refused to subscribe to the articles of agreement between that party and the council of Basel in 1433. They then formed themselves into a distinct community, called "the Brothers' Union," and as they were obliged to live in seclusion through fear of persecution, they were called by their enemies " Ortibenheimer" or Troglodytes. They looked upon the Scriptures as their rule of faith, rejected transubstantiation, and were very strict in their dis cipline, excluding the vicious, the scoffers, and the worldly from their communion. They established among themselves a superintendence over the practical and domestic conduct of individuals, who were distributed into three classes, the beginners, the proficient, and the perfect. They had their bishops, seniors, presbyters, and deacons, who administered their civil as well as ecclesiastical affairs. Like the Quaker. they refused to do military service.
When the great Reformation took place in Germany, the Bohemian brethren sent euvoya to Luther in 1522, who approved of most of their doctrines and discipline, and although he did not admit every article of their confession of faith, yet he said that it might be tolerated as it was. (3loaheim, ' Ecclesiastical History,' art. cent., iii. 2.) In 1547 most of the brethren were expelled from Bohemia by Ferdinand L, upon which they took refuge lit Poland and Prussia, where they formed several settlements, especially at Marienwcrder. They were united for a time with the Lutherans by the convention of Sendontir, but afterwards drew closer to the Calvinists at the synods of Ostrorog in 1620 and 1627, and adopted Calvin's creed, retaining their own Bohemian forms of discipline. (Elsner, Brevis Conspectus Doctrines Fratruin Bohemorum,' in Gerdes's ' Miscellanea Groningiann; voL vi.) Under 31aximilian II., those brethren who had remained in Bohemia and 3Ioravia enjoyed full toleration, and they formed their chief settlement at Fulnek In Moravia, whence they received the name of Moravian brethren. But in the subsequent Thirty Years war, their settlementa In Bohemia and Moravia were utterly destroyed, and, after various migrations, their descendants were settled, in 1722, by Count Zinzendorf, on his estate of Betheladorf in Upper Lusatia, where their colony took the name of Iferrnhut, from a hill in the vicinity called Iintaberg. [Ztezeenonr, In Biog. Div.) They then established them selves as a new community under the name of the United Brethren, to which Protestants of every denomination were admitted, without being obliged to renounce their respective creeds, but on condition of conform ing to their rules of discipline, which were derived from those of the Bohemian brethren. Since that time the community of the United or Moravian brethren has greatly increased, and has spread through Germany, Holland, the United States, and other Protestant countries.
Wherever they have formed a new and distinct settlement, they have enforced their regulations of civil and religious discipline upon all the members of the community, but there are many 3Ioravians scattered about in towns among people of different communions, where they form email congregations and have their own meetings. The Moravians do not annum to constitute a separate sect, and whenever they have been required as a body to state their creed, they have professed a general adherence to the confession of Augsburg, and their preachers, without pledging themselves to all its articles, reject any doctrine which is repugnant to it. They avoid discussions on the speculative truths of religion ; they acknowledge the manifestation of God in Christ, and consider the life, shfferinge, death, and merits of the Saviour as the foundation of their faith. They look upon the Scriptures as the revelation of God. They also believe that the Spirit of God continues to enlighten inwardly those who pray for it for the purpose of regu lating their conduct, and they make a practice of Invoking it in circumstances of doubt and uncertainty, before coming to a determi nation. Each community, represented by its elders, presbyters, and deacons, provides for the spiritual wants of its members, for its churches, schools, hospitals, and other public establishments, and the funds for these objects are raised partly by subscriptions and partly by rates levied on the householders. In other respects every family in the community carries on its private affairs, and managed its own interests and property as In other communities. The erroneous notion of their having cummunity of goods arose from the circumstance that some of their tint settlers in North America, being few and forlorn among strangers, found it convenient for a time to put their earnings into a common stock.
One of the principal objects of the Moravian institution which they pursued nt a very early period, was to send out missionaries among the heathen. Their mission to Greenland has been celebrated by James Montgomery, and they have furnished missionaries for the Caffrey and Betehouanna in South Africa, for the Delaware Indians and the Cherokees In North America, for the Esquimau' of Labrador, and for the negroes of the West Indies.
The Moravian'', like the Quakers, reject gaudiness and ornament. Promiscuous assemblages of the two sexes are forbidden among them, as well as plays, games, and dancing. They have however church music and singing. The unmarried men live together in a separate building called the house of eingle brethren, under the superintendence of an older ; and there are likewise houses for single sisters and widows. Marriages among members of the society must be sanctioned by the elders. They wear no mourning for the dead, looking upon death as a happy release from earthly bonds : their expression on such an event is,that the deceased is gone home to the Lord.