BOHEMIAN Brethren, a sect of Christian reformers which sprung up in Bohemia in the year 1467. They treated the pope and cardinals as antichrist, and the church of Rome as the whore spoken of in the Revelation. They rejected the sacraments of the Romish church, and chose laymen for their ministers. They held the Scriptures to be the only rule of faith, and rejected the popish ceremonies in the celebration of the mass, nor did they make use of any other prayer than the Lord's Prayer. They consecrated leavened bread. They allowed no adoration but of Jesus Christ, in the communion. They rebaptized all such as joined themselves to their congregation. They abhorred the worship of saints and images, prayers for the dead, celibacy, vows, and fasts; and kept none of the festivals but Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide.
In 1504, they were accused by the Catholics to King Ladislaus II. who published an edict against them, forbidding them to hold any meeting either privately or publicly. When Luther declared himself against the church of Rome, the Bohemian Brethren endeavoured to join his party. At first, that reformer showed a great aversion to them; but the Bohemians sending their deputies to him in 1523 with a full account of their doctrines, he acknowledged that they were a society of Christians whose doctrines came nearest to the purity of the gospel. The sect published another confession of faith in 1535, in which they renounced anabaptism, which they at first practised: upon which a union was concluded with the Lutherans, and afterwards with the Zuinglians, whose opinions from thenceforth they continued to follow.