Moravian Church

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"Unitas Fratrum" redirects here. For other uses, see Unity of the Brethren.

Unity of the Brethren

Latin: Unitas Fratrum

Church emblem featuring the Agnus Dei.

Stained glass at the Rights Chapel of Trinity Moravian Church, Winston-

Salem, North Carolina, United States

Classification Proto-Protestant

Orientation Hussite (Bohemian)

with Pietist Lutheran influences

Founder followers of Jan Hus and Petr Chelčický

Origin 1457

Bohemia

Congregations 1,000+[1]
Number of followers 1,112,120 (2016)[2]

Official website unitasfratrum.org

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The Moravian Church (Czech: Moravská církev), or the Moravian Brethren, formally
the Unitas Fratrum (Latin: "Unity of the Brethren"),[3][4][5] is one of the
oldest Protestant denominations in Christianity, dating back to the Bohemian
Reformation of the 15th century and the Unity of the Brethren (Czech: Jednota bratrská)
founded in the Kingdom of Bohemia, sixty years before Luther's Reformation.
The church's heritage can be traced to 1457 in Bohemian Crown territory, including
its crown lands of Moravia and Silesia, which saw the emergence of the Hussite
movement against several practices and doctrines of the Catholic Church. However, its
name is derived from exiles who fled from Bohemia to Saxony in 1722 to escape
the Counter-Reformation, establishing the Christian community of Herrnhut; hence it is
also known in German as the [Herrnhuter] Brüdergemeine [sic][6] ("Unity of Brethren [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, that is reflected in their
broad global distribution.[8] Moravians continue many of the same practices established
in the 18th century, including placing a high value on a personal conversion to Christ
(called the New Birth), piety, good works, evangelism (especially the establishment of
missions), Christian pacifism, ecumenism, and music.[8][9]
The Moravian Church's emblem is the Lamb of God (Agnus Dei) with the flag of victory,
surrounded by the Latin inscription "Vicit agnus noster, eum sequamur" ('Our Lamb has
conquered; let us follow Him').

Contents

 1History
o 1.1Jan Hus and the Bohemian Reformation
o 1.2Counter-Reformation
o 1.3Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine, 18th-century renewal
o 1.4Missions
 2Opposition of Moravian Missions
 3Present
 4Organization
o 4.1Provinces
 4.1.1Membership
o 4.2Districts
o 4.3Congregations
o 4.4Unity Synod
o 4.5Unity Board
 5Orders of Ministry
 6Beliefs
o 6.1Spirit of the Moravian Church
 7Worship
 8Traditions
 9Former traditions
  10Uniformed and other organizations
 11Prominent Moravians
 12Ecumenical relations
 13Historical societies
 14Goals of the Moravian Missions
 15Publications
 16See also
 17Notes and references
 18Bibliography
 19External links

History[edit]
Main article: History of the Moravian Church
Jan Hus and the Bohemian Reformation[edit]
See also: Jan Hus, Hussite Wars, and Bohemian Reformation

Jan Hus

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.[3] Hus objected to some of the practices and doctrines of the Catholic Church;
specifically, he wanted the liturgy to be celebrated in Czech, married priests, and
eliminating indulgences and the idea of Purgatory. Since these actions predate the
Protestant Reformation by a century, some historians claim the Moravian Church was
the first Protestant church.[10][11]
Jan Hus Preaching at Bethlehem Chapel in Prague by Alfons Mucha (1916)

Jan Hus-Council of Constance by Václav Brožík

The movement gained support from the Crown of Bohemia. However, Hus was
summoned to attend the Council of Constance, which decided that he was a heretic and
released him to the secular authority, which sentenced him to be burned at the stake on
6 July 1415. From 1419 to 1437 were a series of Hussite Wars initially between various
Catholic rulers and the Hussites, and then the political situation continued into a Hussite
civil war between the more compromising Utraquists and the radical Taborites. In 1434,
an army of Utraquists and Catholics defeated the Taborites at the Battle of Lipany. The
Utraquists signed the Compacts of Basel on 5 July 1436.
Within fifty years of Hus' death, a contingent of his followers had become independently
organised as the "Bohemian Brethren" (Čeští bratři) or Unity of the Brethren (Jednota
bratrská), which was founded in Kunvald, Bohemia, in 1457. A brother known as
Gregory the Patriarch was very influential in forming the group, as well as the teachings
of Peter Chelcicky. 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.
Because of this, they considered themselves separate from the majority Hussites that
did not hold those teachings. They received episcopal ordination through
the Waldensians in 1467.[10]: 36 ff [11]: 107 ff  These were some of the earliest Protestants, rebelling
against Rome some fifty years before Martin Luther.[10][11] By the middle of the 16th
century as many as 90 percent of the inhabitants of the Bohemian
Crown were Protestant.[12] The majority of the nobility was Protestant, and the schools
and printing-shops established by the Moravian Church were flourishing.
Protestantism had a strong influence in the education of the population. Even in the
middle of the 16th century there was not a single town without a Protestant school in
the Bohemian crown lands, and many had more than one, mostly with two to six
teachers each. In Jihlava, a principal Protestant center 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.[13]
Counter-Reformation[edit]
With the University of Prague also firmly in hands of Protestants, the local Catholic
church was unable to compete in the field of education. Therefore, the Jesuits were
invited, with the backing of the Catholic Habsburg rulers, to come to the Lands of the
Bohemian Crown and establish a number of Catholic educational institutions. One of
these was the university in the Moravian capital of Olomouc. In 1582, they forced
closure of local Protestant schools.
In 1617, Emperor Matthias had his fiercely Catholic brother Ferdinand of Styria elected
King of Bohemia, but in 1618 Protestant Bohemian noblemen, who feared losing their
religious freedom,[14] started the Bohemian Revolt with the unplanned
second Defenestrations of Prague and was defeated in 1620 in the Battle of White
Mountain near Prague. As a consequence the local Protestant noblemen were either
executed or expelled from the country while the Habsburgs placed Catholic (and mostly
German speaking) nobility in their place. The war, plague, and subsequent disruption
led to a decline in the population from over 3 million to some 800,000 people. By 1622,
the entire education system was in the hands of Jesuits and all Protestant schools were
closed down.
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 addition to the Renewed Unitas Fratrum or Moravian Church, which preserves the
Unitas Fratrum's three orders of episcopal ordination, The Evangelical Church of Czech
Brethren and the Czechoslovak Hussite Church also continue the Hussite tradition in
Czechia and Slovakia today, although they only account for 0.8% of the Czech
population (which is 79.4% non-religious, and 10.4% Catholic).
Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine, 18th-century renewal[edit]
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Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf preaching to people from many nations

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, a nobleman who had been brought up in the
traditions of Pietistic Lutheranism. Out of a personal commitment to helping the poor
and needy, he agreed to a request from their leader (Christian David, an itinerant
carpenter) that they be allowed to settle on his lands in Upper Lusatia, which is in
present-day Saxony in the eastern part of modern-day Germany. The Margraviates of
Upper and Lower Lusatia were governed in personal union by the Saxon rulers and
enjoyed great autonomy, especially in religious questions.

'Vogtshof' in Herrnhut - administrative centre of the worldwide Moravian Church.

The refugees established a new village called Herrnhut, about 2 miles (3 km) from
Berthelsdorf. The town initially grew steadily, but major religious disagreements
emerged and by 1727 the community was divided into factions. Count Zinzendorf
worked to bring about unity in the town and the Brotherly Agreement was adopted by
the community on 12 May 1727. This is considered the beginning of the renewal. Then,
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.
The episcopal ordination of the Ancient Unitas Fratrum was transferred in 1735 to the
Renewed Unitas Fratrum by the Unity's two surviving bishops, Daniel Ernst
Jablonski and Christian Sitkovius. The carpenter David Nitschmann and, later, Count
von Zinzendorf, were the first two bishops of the Renewed Unity. Moravian historians
identify the main achievements of this period as:

1. Setting up a watch of continuous prayer that ran uninterrupted, 24 hours a

day, for 100 years.
2. Originating the Daily Watchwords.
3. Establishing more than 30 settlements internationally on the Herrnhut
model, which emphasized prayer and worship, and a form of communal
living in which simplicity of lifestyle and generosity with wealth were held
to be important spiritual attributes. The purpose of these communities was
to assist the members resident there in the sanctification of their lives, to
provide a meeting place for Christians from different confessional
backgrounds, to provide Christian training for their own children and the
children of their friends and supporters and to provide support for the
Moravian Mission work throughout the world. As a result, although
personal property was held, divisions between social groups and
extremes of wealth and poverty were largely eliminated.
 4. Being the first Protestant church body to begin missionary work; and
5. Forming many hundreds of small renewal groups operating within the
existing churches of Europe, known as "diaspora societies". These groups
encouraged personal prayer and worship, Bible study, confession of sins
and mutual accountability.
Missions[edit]

Portrait of a group of Moravian Church members with King George II of Great Britain, attributed to Johann
Valentin Haidt, circa 1752–1754

Along with the Royal Danish Mission College, the Moravian missionaries were the first
large-scale Protestant missionary movement. They sent out the first missionaries when
there were only 300 inhabitants in Herrnhut. Within 30 years, the church sent hundreds
of Christian missionaries to many parts of the world, including
the Caribbean, North and South America (see Christian Munsee), the Arctic, Africa, and
the Far East. They were the first to send lay people (rather than clergy) as missionaries,
the first Protestant denomination to minister to slaves, and the first Protestant presence
in many countries.
Owing to Zinzendorf's personal contacts with their royalty, the first Moravian missions
were directed to the Dano-Norwegian Empire. While attending the coronation
of Christian VI of Denmark, Zinzendorf was profoundly struck by two Inuit converts
of Hans Egede's mission in Greenland and also by an African from the West Indies.
[15]
 The first Moravian mission was established on the Caribbean island of St Thomas in
1732 by a potter named Johann Leonhard Dober and a carpenter named David
Nitschmann,[16]: 7  who later became the first bishop of the Renewed Unity in
1735. 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.
Moravians also founded missions with the Mohican, an Algonquian-speaking tribe in
the colony of New York in the Thirteen Colonies. In one instance, they founded a
mission in 1740 at the Mohican village of Shekomeko in present-day Dutchess County,
New York. The converted Mohican people formed the first native Christian congregation
in the present-day United States of America. Because of local hostility from New
Yorkers to the Mohicans, the Moravian support of the Mohicans led to rumors of them
being secret Jesuits, trying to ally the Mohicans with France in the ongoing French and
Indian Wars.
Although supporters defended their work, at the end of 1744, the colonial government
based at Poughkeepsie expelled the Moravians from New York. [17]
In 1741, David Nitschmann and Count Zinzendorf led a small community to found a
mission in the colony of Pennsylvania. The mission was established on Christmas Eve,
and was named Bethlehem, after the Biblical town in Judea. There, they ministered to
the Algonquian-speaking Lenape. Bethlehem, Pennsylvania is today the seventh-largest
city in Pennsylvania, having developed as a major industrial city in the 19th and 20th
centuries. 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.[18]

In 1772, John Ettwein[19] and his group of some 200 Lenape and Mohican Christians traveled west along The

Great Shamokin Path from their village of Friedenshütten (Cabins of Peace) near modern Wyalusing on
the North Branch Susquehanna River to their new village of Friedensstadt (City of Peace) on the Beaver
River in southwestern Pennsylvania.

In 1771, Moravians established a settlement at Nain, Labrador which became a

permanent settlement and the Moravian headquarters in Labrador. [20] The mission
stations expanded to Okak (1776), Hopedale (1782), Hebron at Kauerdluksoak
Bay (1830–1959) serving also Napartok Bay and Saeglek Bay, Zoar (1864–
1889), Ramah (1871–1908), Makkovik (1896), and Killiniq on Cape Chidley island
(1905–1925).[20][21] Two further stations were added after this period at Happy
Valley near Goose Bay (1957) and North West River (1960).[20]
Colonies were also founded in North Carolina, where Moravians led by Bishop August
Gottlieb Spangenberg purchased 98,985 acres (400.58 km2) 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. Other early
settlements included Bethabara (1753), Bethania (1759) and Salem (now referred to
as Old Salem in Winston-Salem North Carolina) (1766).
In 1801, the Moravians established Springplace mission to the Cherokee Nation in what
is now Murray County, Georgia. Coinciding with the forced removal of the Cherokees to
Oklahoma, this mission was replaced in 1842 by New Springplace in Oaks, Oklahoma.
Due to Civil War-related violence, New Springplace closed in 1862, and resumed during
the 1870s. Finally, in 1898, the Moravian Church discontinued their missionary
engagement with the Cherokees, and New Springplace, now the Oaks Indian Mission,
was transferred to the Danish Evangelical Lutheran Church.[22]
The start of far-flung missionary work necessitated the establishment of independently
administered provinces. So, from about 1732, [16]: 7  the history of the church becomes the
history of its provinces.
Eventually, the Moravian missions in Australia and Greenland were transferred to the
local Presbyterian and Lutheran Churches respectively.
The first mission station in present-day South Africa was established by the Moravian
Georg Schmidt at Genadendal in 1738. The mission at Wupperthal, established by
the Rhenish Missionary Society was eventually transferred to the Moravian Church.

Opposition of Moravian Missions[edit]

 The Moravians sought to unify the converts into "one people" living together
with the same religious beliefs. This idea was not accepted by the indigenous
converts. At one point Zeisberger, a significant Moravian missionary, chided
the converts to remember that they were "one people not two." What the
Moravians failed to recognize was how important place, leadership, and
language were to the tribal identity of the converts. [23]

Present[edit]

Mary Greenwoord was buried in Gracehill in County Antrim in 1752. Her gravestone is identical in style to
hundreds of others irrespective of their gender or former status

Friedensthal Moravian Church Christiansted, St Croix, USVI founded in 1755

The modern Moravian Church, with about 750,000 members worldwide, [1] continues to
draw on traditions established during the 18th-century renewal. In many places it
observes the convention of the lovefeast, originally started in 1727. It uses older and
traditional music in worship. Brass music, congregational singing and choral music
continue to be very important in Moravian congregations. In addition, in some older
congregations, Moravians are buried in a traditional God's Acre, a graveyard with only
flat gravestones, signifying the equality of the dead before God and organized by sex,
age and marital status rather than family.
The Moravians continue their long tradition of missionary work, for example in the
Caribbean, where the Jamaican Moravian Church has begun work in Cuba and in Africa
where the Moravian Church in Tanzania has missions in the Democratic Republic of
Congo and Uganda. This is reflected in their broad global distribution. The Moravians in
Germany, whose central settlement remains at Herrnhut, are highly active in education
and social work. The American Moravian Church sponsors the Moravian University and
Seminary. The largest concentration of Moravians today is in Tanzania.
The motto of the Moravian Church is: "In essentials, unity; in nonessentials, liberty; and
in all things, love".[24]
Some Moravian scholars point to a different formula as a guide to constructive debate
about faith. This formula was first advanced by Luke of Prague (1460–1528), one of the
bishops of the ancient Unitas Fratrum. Luke taught that one must distinguish between
things that are essential, ministerial or incidental to salvation. The essentials are God's
work of creation, redemption and sanctification, as well as the response of the believer
through faith, hope and love. Things ministerial are such items as the Bible, church,
sacraments, doctrine and priesthood. These mediate the sacred and should thus be
treated with respect, but they are not considered essential. Finally, incidentals include
things such as vestments or names of services that may reasonably vary from place to
place

Organization[edit]
Provinces[edit]
For its global work, the Church is organised into Unity Provinces, Mission Provinces and
Mission Areas and four regions of Africa, Caribbean and Latin America, Northern
America, and Europe. The categorisation is based on the level of independence of the
Province. Unity Province implies a total level of independence, Mission Province implies
a partial level of supervision from a Unity Province, and Mission Area implies full
supervision by a Unity Province. (The links below connect to articles about the history of
the Church in specific provinces after 1732, where written.)
In the Czech Republic and Honduras splits occurred within the churches
after charismatic revivals; non-charismatic minorities formed their own bodies, but both
sides remained connected to the international church. The minority communities are
listed as "mission provinces".[25]
Membership[edit]
 Congregation
Provinces (year of foundation) or mission area Membership[2]
s

Africa 907,830

Burundi (mission province) 40,000

Tanzania, North (2007) 25 3,910

Tanzania, East (2007) 56 28,510

Tanzania, Rukwa (1986) 60 66,410

Tanzania, South (1891) 170 203,000

Tanzania, South West (1978) 211 300,000

Tanzania, Lake Tanganyika (2005) 30 32,100

Tanzania, West (1897) 61 104,000

Zambia (1989) 17 5,210

South Africa (1792/1737) 87 98,000

Congo/DR Congo (2005) 80 21,500

Malawi (2007) 10 5,190

Caribbean & Latin America 204,980

Costa Rica (1980/1941) 3 1,900

Guyana (1878/1835) 960

Honduras (1930) 85 34,450

Jamaica (1754) 65 8,100

Nicaragua (1849) 226 97,000

Surinam (1735) 67 30,000

Eastern West Indies (1732)

Trinidad, Tobago, Barbados, Antigua, St. Kitts, and the Virgin Islands including St. 52 15,100
Croix, St. John, St. Thomas, Tortola and Grenada

Honduras (Mission Province) 16,870

Cuba (1997) (Mission Province) 600

North America 39,150

Alaska -1885 22 1,690

America (North) (1741/1735) 89 20,530

Greenland, Canada and the Northern States of the USA

America (South) (1753) 55 15,030

Southern States of the USA

Labrador (1771/1752) (mission province) 1,900

Europe 20,180

European Continental [de] (1727) 24 14,530

Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, Albania, Estonia, Latvia

British (1742) 30 1,200
Great Britain and Ireland

Czech Republic (1862/1457) 29 3,800

Czech Republic/Herrnhut Seniority (mission province) 650

Missiones Areas
Belize, French Guiana, Garifuna, Haiti, Kenya, Northern India & Nepal, Rwanda,
25,000
Zanzibar, Sierra Leone, Tanzania Kiwele Region, Kivu and Katanga in DR Congo,
Tanzania Iringa Region; Tanzania Ruvuma/Njombe Region, Uganda, Peru

Total 1,112,120

Other areas with missions but that are not yet established as Provinces are:

 Star Mountain Rehabilitation Centre, Ramallah, Palestine – under the care

of the European Continental Province. Work began among people
with leprosy in 1867 at the Jesus Hilfe (Jesus help) home in Jerusalem,
responsibility for which was taken over by the Israeli state. In 1980, the
former leper home on Star Mountain was converted for use as a home for
handicapped children of the Arab population. [26]
 South Asia [North India (Ladakh, Dehradun, Delhi), Nepal, Assam, Manipur]
– under the care of the British Province. Formerly the West Himalayan
Province (1853) and designated a Unity Undertaking in 1967.
Tanzania is divided into seven provinces because of the size of country and the
numbers of people in the church. The "Moravian Church in Tanzania" co-ordinates the
work in the nation.
The lists above, except for some details given under 'Other areas', can be found in The
Moravian Almanac.[26]
Each Province is governed by a synod, made up of representatives from each
congregation plus ex officio members.
The Synod elects the Provincial Board (aka Provincial Elders' Conference or PEC [27]) to
be responsible for the work of the Province and its international links between Synods.
Districts[edit]
Many, but not all, of the Provinces are divided into Districts.
Congregations[edit]

A Moravian church in Neudietendorf in Thuringia in Germany

Each congregation belongs to a district and has spiritual and financial responsibilities for
work in its own area as well as provincially. The Congregation Council (all the members
of a congregation) usually meets twice a year and annually elects the Joint Board of
Elders and Trustees that acts as an executive.
In some provinces two or more congregations may be grouped into circuits, under the
care of one minister.
Unity Synod[edit]
The Unity Synod meets every seven years and is attended by delegates from the
different Unity Provinces and affiliated Provinces.
Unity Board[edit]
The Unity Board is made up of one member from each Provincial Board, and acts as an
executive committee between Unity Synods. It meets three times between Synods but
much of its work is done by correspondence and postal voting.
The President of the Unity Board (who is elected by the Board for two years and not
allowed to serve for more than two terms) works from his/her own Provincial office.
The Unity Business Administrator is an officer appointed by the Unity Board to
administer the day-to-day affairs of the Unity through the office of the Unity.

Orders of Ministry[edit]
Ordained ministry in the Moravian Church emphasizes the pastoral role. 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. Deacons may serve in a pastoral
office and administer sacraments. A deacon is normally supervised by a presbyter who
serves as mentor. After several years of satisfactory service, the Deacon may be
consecrated as a Presbyter. Presbyters function in the local congregation in the same
manner as deacons, but may also serve to mentor deacons and may be assigned to
other leadership roles in a particular province.
An Acolyte is a layperson who has received approval to assist the pastor in a specific
local congregation. The acolyte may assist in the serving of Holy Communion but may
not consecrate the elements.
The highest order of ministry is that of a bishop. Bishops are elected by Provincial
Synods usually through ecclesiastical ballot without nomination. In the Moravian
Church, bishops do not have an administrative role but rather serve as spiritual leaders
and pastors to the pastors. Bishops serve the worldwide Unity. [28] The Moravian Church
teaches that it has preserved apostolic succession.[29] The Church claims apostolic
succession as a legacy of the Unity of the Brethren. In order to preserve the succession,
three Bohemian Brethren were consecrated bishops by Bishop Stephen of Austria,
a Waldensian bishop who had been ordained by a Roman Catholic bishop in 1434. [30]
[31]
 These three consecrated bishops returned to Litice in Bohemia and then ordained
other brothers, thereby preserving the historic episcopate. [30] In Berlin, 1735, the
Renewed Unity, i.e. the Moravian Brethren in Herrnhut, received the historic episcopal
ordination from the two surviving bishops of the Ancient Unity: Bishop John Amos
Comenius' grandson Daniel Ernst Jablonski and Christian Sitkovius. This bishop's
consecration continues today.

Beliefs[edit]
The Moravian Church teaches the necessity of the New
Birth, piety, evangelism (especially missionary work), and doing good works. As such,
the Moravian Brethren hold strongly that Christianity is a religion of the heart. [9] It
emphasizes the "greatness of Christ" and holds the Bible to be the "source of all
religious truths".[9] With regard to the New Birth, the Moravian Church holds that a
personal conversion to Christianity is a joyful experience, in which the individual
"accepts Christ as Lord" after which faith "daily grows inside the person." [9] For
Moravians, "Christ lived as a man because he wanted to provide a blueprint for future
generations" and "a converted person could attempt to live in his image and daily
become more like Jesus."[9] The Moravian Church historically adheres to the position
of Christian pacifism, evidenced in atrocities such as the Gnadenhutten massacre,
where the Moravian Christian Indian Martyrs practiced nonresistance, singing hymns
and praying to God until their execution.[32][33][34][35]
In the Book of Order[36][37] the several provinces of the Moravian Unity accept:

 The three Ecumenical Creeds: Apostles', Nicene and Athanasian

 The first 21 articles of the Unaltered Augsburg Confession
 The Confession of the Unity of the Bohemian Brethren of 1535
 The Barmen Declaration of 1934
 The Small Catechism of Martin Luther
 The Synod of Berne/Berner Synodus of 1532
 The Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England
 The Heidelberg Catechism
Moravian missions in which missionaries and the believers they ministered to lived
together and adhered to Moravian practices, such as the following taught by David
Zeisberger, John Heckewelder and John Ettwein:[38]
I. We will know no other God, but the one only true God, who made us and all
creatures, and came into this world in order to save sinners; to Him alone we will pray.