Zinzendorf and the English Moravians

Abstract This article begins by pointing to the tendency among British Moravians to downplay Zinzendorf's role in their church's history and arguing that that the difficult aspects of the relationship between the Count and the English Moravians of his day, which the article charts, help to explain that tendency. Zinzendorf's priority in England was relations with the Church of England. Recognition of the Moravian Church as a foreign episcopal sister church of the Church of England was important for the position of ordained Moravians working as missionaries in the British colonies. Zinzendorf feared that if the Moravian Church developed as a free church in England that would endanger such recognition. It would also conflict with his understanding of the 'Brüdergemeine' as a fellowship of awakened Christians within the existing churches. Evangelistic activity which effectively competed with the established church would similarly imperil recognition. British Moravians did not share these views.</jats:p