they hesitated to take this step without unmistakable evidence that it would be in conformity with the will of God. On the occasion of a Synod, therefore, convened in 1467 at Lhota, in the Barony of Reichenau, the decision was left to the Lord by the lot, agreeably to the example of the apostles. Nine candidates were chosen and twelve lots put into a vase, nine being blank and three inscribed with the word Est. These lots were drawn singly by a lad, named Prokop, who presented one to each of the candidates. Three lots remained in the vase. It is evident that these three might have been the ones marked with Est, and that all the candidates might have received blanks, in which case the Synod would have accepted the result as a divine intimation that the time for instituting an independent ministry was not come. But the lots having been simultaneously opened, those with Est were found in the hands of Matthias of Kunwald, Thomas of Prelouc, and Elias of Chrenovic. Thus God both approved the creation of a separate ministry and designated its first candidates.[1]
But how were they to be ordained? Should the priests present at the Synod proceed to do this and thus establish presbyterial ordination? It was a question which, even prior to the meeting at Lhota, had caused the Brethren no little anxiety. “Their minds,” says Comenius, “were agitated by the tear whether an ordination would be sufficiently legitimate if a presbyter and not truly a bishop were to create a presbyter; and in what manner, in case of controversies, such an ordination could be defended either among themselves or against others.”[2] And now that the Synod was assembled, the subject was fully and earnestly discussed. The result of these deliberations is given by Adrian Wengersky (Regenvolscius Book I Chap. viii): “That in the times of the apostles there had existed no difference between a presbyter and a bishop; that the distinctive prerogatives of a bishop did not rest upon explicit instructions of the Bible, but upon a provision of the ancient Church; but, that, in order, to prevent in future all doubts
- ↑ Blaloslav’s Summa quaedam collecta &c., VIIIth Lisse Folio; Lasitius ii, 47, 48 (quoted by Pitt); Camerariusp. 93 and 94 (quoted by Plitt); Regenvolsius Book I Chap. v; Comenius Ratio Disciplinae, Sections 59 and 60; Gindely’s Geschichte der Bœhmischen Brueder I, 33–35: Zeschwitz “Die Katechismen d. Waldenser u. Bœhm. Brueder” 160.
- ↑ Comenius Ratio Dsciiplinae, Section 59 p. 17.
