Journal of Moravian History, vol. 13, no. 2, 2013 Copyright © 2013 The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA Markéta Křížová Charles University, Prague The Moravian Church and the Society of Jesus: American Mission and American Utopia in the Age of Confessionalization abstract: In this article, missions of the Moravian Church in North America in the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century will be compared with missions of the Society of Jesus that took place in New Spain (Mexico) in the period preceding and parallel with the Moravian ones. Through a detailed study of the goals, methods, and results of the mission projects we can understand better the ideological roots and aims of the two specific religious groups and the general intellectual and political atmosphere in Europe of the early modern period. It is well known to historians that the Moravian Church was somewhat unique among Protestant churches of the eighteenth century, due to its embedding in the specific intellectual history of the Bohemian Kingdom, as well as the circumstances of its founding in the 1720s and the distinctive lifestyle of its members. However, the church and its institutions, goals, and practices should also be considered within the broader frame of the effort for religious and cultural reform that developed in European society since antiquity and intensified considerably at the dawn of the modern period, as well as within the complicated sociopolitical processes of the early modern author’s note: Research for this article was made possible by a grant of the Grant Agency of Czech Republic (P 405/12/1242) and the program PRVOUK 12 “History in interdisciplinary perspective.” JMH 13.2_03_Krizova.indd 197 05/09/13 7:57 PM