--------------------- Forwarded message: Subj: Re: BERKS COUNTY, PA... Date: 97-10-22 13:10:22 EDT From: JYoung6180 To: EllieSS,janiceaf@ix.netcom.com In a message dated 97-10-22 07:42:27 EDT, you write: > Can anyone tell me more about the Moravians and their doctrine.. found we > > have Moravian family in the Host Cem.... Ellie and Janice, here is some information about the Moravians for you. It is a very old religion. In the very early days of Christianity 2 brothers, Cyril and Methodius, missionaries of the Greek Church came to the Kingdom of Moravia in the year 863. They travelled around the little country preaching their doctrine and more than 500 years later their teachings found a follower in John Huss. He graduated from the Univ. of Prague and became interested in theology. He became a preacher in Bethlehem Chapel in Prague. He preached against the Catholic Church. Because of this he was forced into exile. Then he was tricked into attending a meeting of the Catholic Church Council in Bohemia which proved fatal. He was seized and imprisoned, and on June 5, 1415, he was taken before the Council and was tried and convicted as a heretic. He was bound with wet ropes and tied to a stake driven into the ground. Straw and wood were piled around him. He was asked several times if he would recant, but each time he replied, "I shall die with joy in the faith of the Gospel which I have preached." The torch was applied and John Huss died, a martyr to his cause. His followers among the Bohemians formed a league. There was a war. As a result of this war the Unity of Brethren was formed. Thus, in 1457, sixty years before Martin Luther began his Reformation, the Moravian church was formed. After many years of persecution the Brethren were finally led, in 1628, across the mountains into Poland by John Amos Comenius. For 20 years they worshipped in peace until once again they were persecuted. They secretly kept their faith alive in Moravia, Bohemia, and Poland over the next 100 years. Another leader, Christian David, in the spring of 1722, spoke to Count Nicholas Louis von Zinzendorf, a young nobleman in Saxony. He was touched by their story and granted them asylum. Zinzendorf gradually decided that his beliefs coincided with the Brethren and he became their leader and protector. To find a home free from the dangers of persecution, and in order to carry the Gospel to the Indians, a settlement was first attempted in America at Savannah, Georgia, in 1735. Within five years the Moravians, who were pacifists, abandoned the Georgia colony due to threat of war with Spain and made their way to Pennsylvania. Under the leadership of Bishop Nitschmann and the learned Peter Boehler, the Moravians launched their new colony by founding the cities of Bethelehem, Nazareth, and Lititz. These were "closed communities," founded under a system of exclusiveness, which made them strictly church settlements in which all social, economic, and industrial pursuits were directly controlled and conducted by church authorities, for the benefit of the church organization. Such a system may have worked in Europe but met with limited success in America. From the beginning in America the Moravian church sent out missionaries and sought new members, and they also aided greatly in keeping the Indians peaceable due to their work among these people. By the 1740s many of the Lutheran Churches in PA were unable to provide enough ministers to meet the needs of the growing German and Swedish populations--the Moravians moved in and provided the needed services and their congregations swelled with former Lutherans. I might add that the Moravian Church is still active in PA and North Carolina. Joan Myers Young