FRATERNITY OF UNITY. - "Jednota bratrská" (Unity of the Brethren), also called "Čeští Bratři," a heretical sect in Bohemia in the 15th-17th centuries. It is a section of those who are called "Bohemian Brethren" (v.).
The F. U. arose in the atmosphere of exaltation and religious disorientation left by the Hussite wars. Ideologically the F. U. draws its origins from the writings of Peter Chelčický (b. 1390, d. 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 with the introduction of the politico-religious system with the Pope as Antichrist at its head. To be saved, Christians must return to the purity of the primitive Church in doctrine and in life. Chelčický condemns as innovations the cult of the Madonna and the saints, purgatory, the adoration and exposition of the Most Holy Sacrament, the splendor of the liturgy, and he 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 oppose evil. A Christian cannot hold any public office, since the State is a pagan institution and irreducibly opposed to Christ. Furthermore, it is a mortal sin to be a soldier, a merchant, a master, an innkeeper, a painter, a musician, to kill an aggressor in self-defense, to swear an oath or defend oneself before a tribunal, to wear elegant clothes, to amuse oneself, etc. Marriage is not condemned, but celibacy is preferable, obligatory for the clergy, who moreover must live in poverty from their own manual labor, despising knowledge, which is useless and dangerous.
The first organizer of the F. U. was a certain Brother Gregory, 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 certain exalted preachers in Bohemia and Moravia soon joined them. In 1457, 60 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 by the imposition of hands of the elder Brethren. King George of Poděbrady (Podlebrad) took energetic 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 by around 1500 the F. U. counted in Bohemia and Moravia about 400 communities.
In 1481 the bachelor Luke of Prague (b. c. 1460, d. 1528) joined the F. U. and directed it as bishop from 1500 to 1528. Luke reconciled the Brethren with culture and worked at the numerous synods to mitigate the primitive rigorism, especially as regards studies, public offices and certain trades. The excessive austerity of the cult was also modified and the internal organization determined. The synods exercise the supreme legislative power in the F. U. A "restricted council" of 14 members (including laymen) presided over by the eldest bishop ("acciore"), who "normally also" as judge directs current affairs. The priests, no longer bound to celibacy, 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, the advanced or elect, and the perfect.
Hidden Protestantism also invaded the F. U. Bishop Luke resisted Lutheranism, but John Augusta (b. 1500, d. 1572), bishop from 1532, drafted in 1535 a Confession thoroughly 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. Then a part of the Brethren emigrated to Poland, Prussia and Moravia ("first exile").
John Blahoslav (b. 1522, d. 1571), bishop from 1557, although trained in Protestant schools, still strove to maintain the particular character of the F. U. and promoted cultural life, especially printing. In 1561 he published the celebrated Szamotuly Hymnal and in 1564 the new version of the New Testament, which was later included in the so-called Kralice Bible published in 1579-93. In it some books are already indicated as apocryphal according to Protestant doctrines.
Under the reign of Maximilian II (1564-76), of Rudolf II (1576-1611) and of 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. yielded more and more to the influences of Protestantism, especially of Calvinism, akin to the F. U. in its disciplinary rigorism. Also the activity of the Jesuit missionaries, supported by the Catholic Lords, caused noticeable losses to 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 ("majestà"), which guaranteed them full freedom of worship and placed the University of Prague at their disposal.
The F. U. again took part in the insurrection of 1618 and in the election of Frederick, prince elector of the Palatinate and king of Bohemia. After the defeat of the rebels on the White Mountain (8 Nov. 1620), King Ferdinand II exiled the non-Catholic clergy in 1624 and all non-Catholics in 1627. Then the Brethren partly emigrated to Slovakia, Silesia, Poland, Germany (in all about 100 priests and 4000-5000 faithful) with John Amos Comenius (v.), who became the last bishop of the F. U.
In emigration the Brethren gradually merged with the Protestants. Those who remained in the homeland were almost all won back to Catholicism. The few descendants of the clandestine Brethren joined in 1771 Lutheranism or Calvinism, authorized by the "patent of toleration" of Joseph II.
For a group of German Pietist peasants who emigrated in 1722 from northern Moravia to Saxony, Count Nicholas Louis Zinzendorf founded the village of Herrnhut and drafted a statute inspired by the organization 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 counted 299,185 faithful, 2 percent of the population.
Furthermore, the Czechoslovak section of the Baptists took the name Bratrská Jednota Chelčického "Unity of the Brethren of Chelčický," and another sect of American origin is called Českobratrská Jednota "Unity of the Bohemian Brethren." Both are insignificant sects and present no continuity with the historical F. U.
In theology the F. U. lacked a clear and precise system of its own. In 160 years the Brethren drafted about fifty "confessions," of which 20 differed in form and content. The exaggerated primitive rigorism prevented the F. U. from influencing effectively the spiritual renewal of the masses, and despite further mitigations, made especially out of regard for the nobles, the F. U. at the moment of its greatest expansion embraced little more than 6 percent of the population in Bohemia and Moravia. With its hymnals the F. U. promoted sacred song and with its editions contributed to the development of the Czech literary language. But because of its iconoclastic Puritanism it remained sterile in art.
Bibliography22 works
Giuseppe Olär