Comenius

Johann Amos Comenius (1592–1670).
The History of the Bohemian Persecution from the Beginning of their Conversion to Christianity in the Year 894 to the Year 1632.
London: Printed by B. A. for John Walker, 1650. (01252)

The Unitas Fratrum, or Unity of the Brethren, is a pre-Reformation religious body that traces its beginnings to the followers of Jan Hus (1369–1415) and Petr Chelčický (1390–1460). The author of this work, Johann Amos Comenius, was consecrated bishop in the Unitas Fratrum in 1632, the year he fled from Poland to Amsterdam. Comenius’s published writings include this history of the Bohemian persecution, a catechism, a book of discipline, and a textbook for children, Orbis Sensualium Pictus (“Visible World in Pictures”).

In the 1720s the Unitas Fratrum was reconstituted as the Moravian Church under the leadership of Count Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf (1700–1760). Zinzendorf was a German Pietist nobleman who welcomed Unitas Fratrum refugees onto his estate and subsequently discovered the closeness of their beliefs to his own.