Jamaica Province of the Moravian Church
The Jamaica Province of the Moravian Church (formally The Moravian Church in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands) is part of the worldwide Moravian Church Unity.
The work of the Moravian Church in Jamaica started with the arrival on 1754 -12-07 of missionaries Zecharias Caries, Thomas Shallcross and Gotlieb Haberecht from England at the invitation of the Foster and Barham families, owners of several plantations in St Elizabeth. They landed on the coast of St. Elizabeth, deliberately shunning the towns and opting to remain mostly in the rural areas to serve the large slave population. Their first base was on the Bogue estate.
During the first couple of years they had success in their work. Then, in 1755 Br Gottlieb Haberecht died and on 1756-12-24 his replacements Christian Rauch and ? Schulz arrived from America where Rauch had spent fifteen years working amongst Native Americans.
The new arrivals disagreed with Caries and Shallcross about the conditions to be met before a slave could be baptised. The disagreement lost them the respect of many and caused confusion amongst those awaiting baptism. As a result, numbers attending services started to fall and did not recover until 1764 when a Br Schlegel arrived. The revival continued until he died in 1770. Thereafter, little progress was made until 1809.
The work now prospered, particularly after the close of Old Carmel estate in 1823, with membership growing dramatically during apprenticeship (which started in 1834) and after emancipation on 1838-08-01.
By the centenary, membership had reached 13,129 including 4,249 communicants while there were 43 schools teaching 1,728 boys and 1,280 girls.
From the end of the 19th century, native Jamaicans began to be accepted into leadership positions in the church and in 1961, S U Hastings was consecrated as the first Jamaican bishop of the Moravian Church.
Following independence in 1962, and the resulting drive for Jamaicanisation throughout Jamaican society, full conversion to local leadership was gradually achieved, with the last British clergy departing in 19??.
The 250th anniversary was celebrated in 2004. As part of the celebrations the Jamaican Post Office issued a set of three stamps depicting pioneering Jamaican leaders of the church.
The current Bishops are the Rt. Rev Stanley G. Clarke and the Rt. Rev Devon O. Anglin
The Rev. Dr. Paul Gardner is the president of the PEC (the administrative body of the Moravian Church in Jamaica). Rev. Dr. Gardner was elected president of the World-Wide Moravian Church in 2008 and became the second Jamaican to be so elected.
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