Moravians and Anglicans: Ecumenical Sources
The Unitas Fratrum or Moravians emerged as an international religious movement growing out of the Hussite or Bohemian reformation of the fourteenth century. In an early period (1457-1620), the Moravian Church struggled to maintain its existence in the midst of persecution. The movement was renewed by Nikolaus Ludwig, Reichsgraf von Zinzendorf und Pottendorf, beginning in 1722, and spread quickly from German-speaking lands throughout Europe, Africa, and the Americas. Wherever Moravians and members of the Church of England and its daughter churches encountered one another, there were warm relations and mutual encouragement, but questions on the part of the Anglicans about the historical continuity of ordinations within the Moravian Church. The historical documents in this volume—hitherto scattered in archival collections in rare or unique copies—chronicle the two traditions’ engagement with one another’s attitudes toward ordination. These discussions culminated in the 1995 Fetter Lane Common Statement for Anglicans and Moravians in England and a full communion relationship for most American Moravians and Episcopalians in 2010.
Third-generation Moravian pastor David Allen Schattschneider (1939-2016) was Dean of Moravian Theological Seminary from 1988 to 2001. A graduate of Moravian College and Yale Divinity School, he received the Ph.D. from the University of Chicago for his dissertation on the missionary theology of Zinzendorf and Bishop Augustus Gottlieb Spangenberg. He served as Professor of Historical Theology and World Christianity at Moravian Seminary beginning in 1968, founded the Center for Moravian Studies in 1992, and was president of both the Moravian Historical Society and the Moravian Music Foundation.
Richard J. Mammana, Jr. (1979) is a graduate of Columbia College and Yale Divinity School. A descendant of Schwenkfelder exiles who were assisted in their flight to Pennsylvania by the Moravians, he serves as the Episcopal Church’s Associate for Ecumenical and Interreligious Relations and staff for the Moravian-Episcopal Coordinating Committee (moravian-episcopal.org). A member of National Episcopal Historians and Archivists and the Pennsylvania German Society, he is the founding director of anglicanhistory.org.
Forthcoming in December 2021
Richard Mammana 