United Brethren Church.—The church of the United Brethren in Christ resulted from a religious revival which took place among the Germans of Pennsylvania in the latter part of the 18th and opening years of the 19th centuries. Philip Otterbein and Martin Boehm, pastors of the German Reformed and Mennonite churches, respectively, were the leaders of this movement. Many converts were made, the first were called brothers, and it is believed this gave rise to the name of the church when it assumed an organized form.

At first no steps were taken for separate organization, but as the movement spread meetings were arranged and in 1789 a general council of the leading ministers, 15 in number, was called at Baltimore. A similar conference was held near York, Pa., in 1791. In 1800 the first regular annual conference was held at Frederick, Md., when the name United Brethren in Christ was adopted and Otterbein and Boehm were elected the first superintendents or bishops. Fifteen years later the first general conference met at Mount Pleasant, Pa., when a confession of faith and a discipline were adopted. The United Brethren have a quarterly and annual conference, with a quadrennial general conference, which is the only legislative body, composed of an equal number of clergy and laymen. The supervision of the church is in the hands of the bishops, who are elected every four years.

The first steps taken by the church to establish congregations in Kansas began late in the territorial period, when a church was organized at Lecompton with 5 members by W. A. Cardwell, a missionary and the first preacher of this denomination in the town. A church was established in Osage county early in the '60s but did not prosper and was disbanded. Subsequently it was reorganized and became a strong church. In July, 1869, a church was organized at Topeka with 8 members, and within a short time a church building was erected. Great progress was made by the United Brethren in Kansas during the next twenty years, as the census of 1890 gave the number of congregations as 155; the church buildings as 47 and the membership as 5,745. In 1906 the United Brethren ranked seventh in the state with a membership of 15,998.