Moravian Church

The Moravians can trace their tradition at least as far back as Jan Hus (c. 1370-1415). Hus was a Bohemian student of John Wyclif (c. 1324-1384) of Oxford University. Being betrayed while under a safe pass, he was burnt to death at Constance. The Bohemian Brethren fled persecution, eventually settling in Moravia in Germany. Persecuted again, they spread out, John Wesley being strongly influenced by them. John Cennick was first one of Wesley’s lay preachers, who then joined the Moravians. It was he who planted the north Wiltshire ‘societies’, which then became Moravian churches or congregations.