Abstract

In the eighteenth century émigrés came from Bohemia and Moravia to the German lands with the idea of becoming members of the Lutheran church. From reading Pietist literature they had gained the impression that this teaching corresponded to their religious convictions. They soon however realised that some ritual customs ran counter to their understanding and the superficial life of most Lutherans stopped them in their tracks. Their difference was predetermined by Bohemian Reformation tradition, by Pietist literature and by holding to the direct and unconditional authority of the biblical text as they understood it. When, because of their difference, they began to be looked on with suspicion, they had somehow to account for it and to identify it. Their only knowledge of Reformation tradition was of the Bohemian Reformation church, and that was the Unitas fratrum. Some were direct descendants of former Brethren families, others had at least met with the descendants of the old Czech brethren still in the Czech Lands and sought support from them. They did not call themselves the Czech Brethren while they were still in the Czech Lands, but once in exile they had no doubts about the justness of their identification with this Bohemian Reformation church, wellknown to them by repute. They called themselves the Czech Brethren. Of the inheritance of the Unitas fratrum, closest to them was church order and discipline. However, when they spoke of the "Czech confession", they really meant by that their own religious tradition.