FRATRUM UNITAS. — “Jednota bratrská” (Unity of the Brethren), also called “Čeští Bratři,” a heretical sect in Bohemia from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries. It is a section of those called “Bohemian Brethren” (v.).
The F. U. arose in the atmosphere of religious exaltation and disorientation left by the Hussite wars. Ideologically, the F. U. derives its origins from the writings of Pietro Chelčický (born in 1390, died in 1460), a small landowner in southern Bohemia. Inspired by the doctrines of the Waldensians, Chelčický, in his works (especially The Net of True Faith and The Beast of the Apocalypse), teaches that the “pure” primitive Church was corrupted by Constantine through the introduction of the politico-religious system headed by the Antichrist Pope. To be saved, Christians must return to the purity of the primitive Church in doctrine and life. Chelčický condemns as innovations the cult of the Madonna and the saints, purgatory, the adoration and exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, the splendour of the liturgy, and denies the validity of the Sacraments administered by an unworthy priest. In life, Christians must flee the cities, devote themselves to agriculture and humble crafts, suffer, and never resist evil. A Christian may not hold any public office, since the State is a pagan institution irreconcilably opposed to Christ. Moreover, it is a mortal sin to be a soldier, merchant, master, innkeeper, painter, musician; to kill an aggressor in self-defence; to swear or defend oneself before a tribunal; to wear elegant clothing; to amuse oneself, etc. Marriage is not condemned, but celibacy is preferable and obligatory for the clergy, who must also live in poverty by their own manual labour, scorning learning, which is useless and dangerous.
The first organiser of the F. U. was a certain Brother Gregorio, who in 1457 withdrew with a group of devout laymen to the abandoned village of Kunvald in eastern Bohemia and there established a community according to the teachings of Chelčický. Other similar groups, formed around several fanatical preachers in Bohemia and Moravia, soon joined them. In 1457, sixty delegates of the local groups gathered at Lhotka near Bychnov, openly separated from the Church of Rome or from the Utraquist Church, elected three bishops, and ordained them through the laying on of hands by the elder Brethren. King George of Podlebrad (Podlebrad) took vigorous measures against the new sect in 1468. But under his successors, Vladislaus II (1471–1516) and Louis (1516–26), the F. U. developed peacefully, because Vladislaus’s decrees of 1503 and 1508 against it remained practically unenforced. Thus, around 1500, the F. U. numbered approximately 400 communities in Bohemia and Moravia.
In 1481, the bachelor Luca of Prague (born c. 1460, died in 1528) joined the F. U. and directed it as bishop from 1500 to 1528. Luca reconciled the Brethren with culture and worked in the numerous synods to mitigate the primitive rigorism, especially regarding studies, public offices, and certain occupations. The excessive austerity of worship was also modified, and the internal organisation was determined. The synods exercise supreme legislative power in the F. U. A “restricted council” of fourteen members (including laymen), presided over by the oldest bishop (“accior”), who “normally also” acts as judge, directs current affairs. The priests, no longer bound to celibacy and assisted by deacons and acolytes, administer the Sacraments. A council of the “elders” watches over the discipline of the individual communities of the Brethren, divided into three classes: aspirants, advanced or elect, and perfect.
Hidden Protestantism also invaded the F. U. Bishop Luca resisted Lutheranism, but Giovanni Augusta (born in 1500, died in 1572), bishop from 1532, drew up in 1535 a Confession deeply imbued with the doctrines of Luther. In 1547, the F. U. took part in the insurrection against the new king, Ferdinand I. After the revolt failed, Bishop Augusta was imprisoned, and the king renewed Vladislaus’s decrees against the F. U. A part of the Brethren then emigrated to Poland, Prussia, and Moravia (“first exile”).
Giovanni Blahovlav (born in 1522, died in 1571), bishop from 1557, although trained in Protestant schools, still sought to preserve the distinctive character of the F. U. and promoted cultural life, especially printing. In 1561 he published the celebrated Canzoniere di Szamotulc, and in 1564 the new version of the New Testament, which was later included in the so-called Bible of Kralice, published in 1579–93. In it, some books are already designated as apocryphal according to Protestant doctrines.
Under the reigns of Maximilian II (1564–76), Rudolf II (1576–1611), and Matthias (1611–19), the F. U. became increasingly reconciled with the world, but declined internally. Future priests studied in Protestant schools, and the F. U. increasingly yielded to the influences of Protestantism, especially Calvinism, which resembled the F. U. in its disciplinary rigorism. The activity of Jesuit missionaries supported by Catholic lords also caused significant losses for the F. U. In 1575, the Brethren, together with the Lutherans, drafted the “Bohemian Confession,” and on 9 July 1609 obtained from Rudolf II a solemn decree (“majesty”) guaranteeing them complete freedom of worship and placing the University of Prague at their disposal.
The F. U. again took part in the insurrection of 1618 and in the election of Frederick, Elector Palatine and king of Bohemia. After the defeat of the rebels at White Mountain (8 November 1620), King Ferdinand II exiled the non-Catholic clergy in 1624 and all non-Catholics in 1627. The Brethren then partly emigrated to Slovakia, Silesia, Poland, and Germany (altogether approximately 100 priests and 4,000–5,000 faithful), Comenius (v.), who had become the last bishop of the F. U.
In exile, the Brethren gradually merged with the Protestants. Those who remained in the country were almost all won back to Catholicism. The few descendants of the clandestine Brethren joined Lutheranism or Calvinism in 1771, authorised by Joseph II’s “Patent of Toleration.”
For a group of German Pietist peasants who emigrated in 1722 from northern Moravia to Saxony, Count Nicolaus Ludwig Zinzendorf founded the village of Herrnhut and drew up a statute inspired by the organisation of the F. U. From there they dispersed in small groups, especially in America, known as the Unity of the Brethren of Herrnhut or Moravian Brethren.
In 1918, the Reformed and Lutherans in Bohemia united, taking as their basis the “Bohemian Confession” of 1575 and that of the Brethren of 1602 (written by Comenius), and assumed the name Českobratrská cirkev evangelická “Evangelical Church of the Bohemian Brethren.” In 1930, this Church numbered 299,185 faithful, 2 per cent of the population.
Moreover, the Czechoslovak Baptist section took the name Bratrská Jednota Chelčického “Unity of the Brethren of Chelčický,” while another sect of American origin is called Českobratrská Jednota “Unity of the Bohemian Brethren.” Both insignificant sects present no continuity with the historical F. U.
In theology, the F. U. lacked its own clear and precise system. In 160 years, the Brethren drafted about fifty “confessions,” twenty of them differing in form and content. The excessive primitive rigorism prevented the F. U. from effectively influencing the spiritual renewal of the masses and, despite the later mitigations made especially out of consideration for the nobility, at the moment of its greatest expansion the F. U. embraced little more than 6 per cent of the population of Bohemia and Moravia. Through its hymnals, the F. U. promoted sacred singing, and through its editions contributed to the development of the Czech literary language. But because of its iconoclastic puritanism, it remained sterile in art.