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Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf's ecumenical ecclesiology is generally regarded as having been original, ahead of its time, and relevant to modern ecumenism. Particular attention has usually been devoted to Zinzendorf's often imperfectly understood ‘Tropus system’, which is supposed to have culminated in two events of 1749 — the recognition of the Moravian Church in England by Act of Parliament as ‘an antient Protestant Episcopal Church’ and the acceptance by Bishop Thomas Wilson of Sodor and Man of an office within the Tropus structure. This chapter, however, shows that both were not the seals of success, but rather acknowledgements of the failure of Zinzendorf's ecumenical endeavour in England. It also discusses the question of the Moravians' relationship to the Church of England, the separation of the first English Moravian congregation from the Fetter Lane Society, William Holland's dissatisfaction with the Moravian registrations, the General Synod of May 1746, the failure of the Tropus scheme, and the Moravian Church's acceptance of John Cennick as a prospective member in November 1745.

In 1749, the British Parliament passed an Act that allowed Moravians in America to make payment in lieu of military service, and permitted Moravians in Great Britain and Ireland as well as America to affirm rather than take an oath on all occasions. This Act, with its preamble describing the Moravian Church as ‘an antient Protestant Episcopal Church’, is crucial to an understanding of the history of the Moravian Church in England and important in wider Moravian history. This chapter examines the background to the 1749 campaign, focusing on the laws passed in New York and Pennsylvania, the 1749 Act, possible reasons for the 1749 Act, the 1749 Act in its international context, and its consequences. The English awareness of the Bohemian Brethren and the Moravians is also discussed, along with the support provided by four interest groups to the Moravians: the colonial proprietors, the bishops, Leicester House, and the Scottish peers. The bill's passage was achieved by means of a campaign which displayed many of the techniques of modern public relations and parliamentary lobbying.

Without the Moravians, English Church history would have been very different. It was the influence of a Moravian, Peter Böhler, that prompted the heartwarming experience that transformed John Wesley from a tortured High-Church Oxford don into a revivalist leader, and it was from the Fetter Lane Society which Böhler founded that the Revival burst out in 1739 to spread throughout England. The Moravians remained a key force in the English Revival throughout its initial years, until in the 1750s they withdrew into obscurity. However, despite general acceptance of the Moravians' importance in eighteenth-century English Church history and interest in their relationships with Methodism, the Church of England, and Parliament, the early English Moravians have remained something of an enigma; at best, they have been but imperfectly understood, and misunderstandings still surround their history. This book examines the Moravian Church's external relations within the Evangelical Revival and with the Church of England, Parliament, and public opinion.

In the Moravian Church, the Anglican bishops were confronted with another episcopal Church within England that claimed the apostolic succession, yet in 1749 they met at Lambeth and agreed to support a bill recognizing it as ‘an antient Protestant Episcopal Church’. This was a unique and significant event; Parliament, including the Anglican bishops, recognized another episcopate within England less than a year after the passing of an Act that retrospectively banned clergy ordained by bishops of the Scottish Episcopal Church (and was rigorously enforced). Most Anglican crises have raised the twin problems of identity and authority. This chapter looks at the Bohemian Brethren from whom the Moravians claimed descent, then examines the responses of four leading Anglican bishops of the 1730s and 1740s to the Moravian question: John Potter, Bishop of Oxford and Archbishop of Canterbury (1737–1741); Thomas Wilson, Bishop of Sodor and Man; Edmund Gibson, Bishop of London; and Thomas Herring, Archbishop of York and of Canterbury.

It was in 1738 that the Moravians became involved in English religious life for the first time, and their impact was dramatic. The ensuing two years saw them play a crucial part in the birth and extension of the English Evangelical Revival. The story of these turbulent years, from John Wesley's ‘conversion’ in 1738 to his withdrawal from the Fetter Lane Society in 1740, has often been told. The Fetter Lane Society was formed when four Moravians arrived in London on February 7, 1738, which opened a new chapter in the history of Moravian dealings with England. The four men were Peter Böhler, Georg Schulius, Friedrich Wenzel Neiβer, and Abraham Ehrenfried Richter. Many have described the Fetter Lane Society as a Church of England society and rejected any Moravian identity. This chapter examines the doctrine of stillness as a novelty introduced into London by them and the Moravian Church's need to decide whether to send a full mission to England to take over the leadership of events, or to refuse to become fully involved.

By 1753, the Moravians had almost 1,000 communicants in England. With regular attenders at the preaching and a large number of children, they put the total number of souls in their care in England in 1748 between 5,000 and 6,000. The majority of congregation members were former Anglicans, often claiming a ‘strict’ Church of England upbringing. This chapter analyses the motivation of those who joined the Moravian Church and describes those features that made it so different in character from Methodism. The reasons range from the difficulty of gaining admission to the Church's positive identity as Christ's Chosen Flock, its negative identity as a refuge from the trials of life in an unpleasant world, an extremely high level of pastoral care, the Moravians' highly distinctive spirituality, the Church's community life, its worship service, aristocratic sense of style, and culture of festivity and celebration.

On September 24, 1740, the Elders' Conference at the Moravian headquarters in Marienborn sent August Gottlieb Spangenberg to England, and in December the Moravian General Synod made plans for several colleagues to accompany him. The Moravian Church would now be directly, fully, and permanently involved in English religious life, and by the mid-1740s it would represent a third force, after Whitefield's Association and the Wesleyan Methodists, within the English Evangelical Revival movement. In just two years, John Wesley had moved from being inspired by the Moravians to separation from their English followers, but it was with them, and not yet definitively with the Moravians, that Wesley broke when he withdrew from the Fetter Lane Society. George Whitefield had formally acknowledged the authority of the Moravian-inspired Fetter Lane Society over the Revival in 1739, but having in practice remained independent, he had yet to work out his relationship with the Moravians.

The passage of the 1749 Act was the climax of the initial period of the Moravians' history in England. It secured the legal basis for the Moravian Church's future existence and accepted its identity as a church separate from the Church of England. In 1753, however, the Moravian Church suffered a financial collapse that was swiftly followed by the outbreak of a campaign of virulent opposition. The public recognition and favour secured in 1749 gave way to widespread condemnation. Whereas by May 1749 only one bishop (Lavington) had remained opposed to the Moravians, by the time of Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf's final departure from England in 1755 only one (Isaac Maddox) remained a definite supporter. Between November 1750 and early 1752, a spate of English anti-Moravian publications appeared, including one written by Johann Christoph Heinrich Rimius in 1753. Rimius may have been assisted, encouraged, or even inspired by Archbishop Thomas Herring. In December 1754, George Lavington of Exeter entered the lists anonymously with The Moravians Compared and Detected.

Having examined the Moravians' relationships with the other main figures of the English Evangelical Revival and noted their importance within the movement at large, this chapter now focuses on their own work. It highlights the differences between the Moravian Church, with its non-proselytizing stance, and Wesleyan Methodism, with which it is often bracketed. Most of the Moravian congregations had dependent societies, some of which would later become congregations themselves. The English Moravian congregations and societies can be reduced to seven groups according to their origins. The almost complete correlation between these seven areas of influence in 1760 and the locations of the thirty-two English Moravian congregations in 1994 is also striking. The Moravian Church in England in 1760 was almost entirely an agglomeration of the work of just four evangelists: Benjamin Ingham, Jacob Rogers, David Taylor, and John Cennick. Of the societies not taken over by one of these four, only the Fetter Lane Society was a Moravian foundation.

The story of the English Evangelical Revival begins in Central Europe. In 1722, three men, awakened by the revivalist Christian David, left their native Moravia with their families and made their way into Saxon Upper Lusatia, eventually settling on the newly-purchased Berthelsdorf estate of Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf. The exiles who established Herrnhut were descendants of the Unitas Fratrum or Church of the Bohemian Brethren. The gathering of the congregation for Holy Communion in the parish church at Berthelsdorf gained a renewed sense of unity. This quasi-pentecostal experience, which completed and sealed the inauguration of the new community of Herrnhut, can be taken as the birth of the Moravian Church. Members of this distant community, including August Gottlieb Spangenberg, were to visit England four times during the ensuing decade, and continuing contacts resulted in the first Moravian congregations in England being established in 1742. Moravian involvement in English religious life sparked off the English Evangelical Revival.