Golden Age - Michael Gold2

The Brethren had all classes in their ranks. They had 17 rich and powerful barons of the stamp of John Zerotin; They had over 100 generals in the National Army and the Lord High chamberlain now complained that 2/3's of the people of Bohemia were Brethren. Nor was this all. For many years the Brethren had been renowned as the most industrious and prosperous people in the country which is why the barons wanted them as inhabitants of their estates. They were noted for their integrity, and were able to obtain good situations as managers of estates, houses, wine cellars and mills; many of their large settlements in Bohemia-Moravia conducted flourishing settlements, the most prosperous places in the country. The Brethren built hospitals, had a fund for the poor, and on many estates made themselves so useful that the nobles, set them free from the usual tolls and taxes.

At no time were these Protestant-German (Moravian) congregations very large. They were perhaps three percent of the total population of Moravia in the early 1600's. A congregation of 200-300 persons was considered quite large. It is estimated that at the beginning of the 17th century, about 40,000 Brethren (Unitas Fratum) lived in the Czech Homeland with 60 congregations in Bohemia and 90 in Moravia. But the important thing is that these German Protestants had a great measure of religious freedom and were not pressured by the Catholic majority.

But the movement was still in decline. About the only thing that distinguished it from the other Christian faiths, including the Catholic Church, was its strict moral demands.
The Brethren always put greater emphasis on practice rather than theology and veered doctrinally between Lutheranism and Calvinism by the end of the 1500's Unitas Fratum conversions had dropped off. But still the era, 1572-1603 is counted as the “Golden Age of the Moravian Church.” As one authority has stated:
"It was the age of material prosperity. A movement which originally was plebeian rooted among peasants and craftsman, broadened their appeal to burghers and nobles, the later since they controlled benefices could offer aid and provide support and protection.

To the Brethren business was now a sacred duty. They made no distinction between the secular and the sacred. Cooks and housemaids in the Brethren houses were appointed by the Church elders and were called from one sphere of service to another, just as much as the presbyters and the deacons. The Brethren clergy, though still doing manual labor , were now rather better off: the gardens and the fields of the peasant Brethren attached to the fiefs helped to swell the religious income.” (J.E. Hutton, HISTORY OF THE MORAVIAN CHURCH, 2-3)