After 1918, the church rejected the merger with the newly created Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren and named itself the "Unity of the Czech Brethren", to manifest the spiritual heritage of the original Unity of the Brethren. In 1951, after the 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état, the Slovak "Association of the Blue Cross" and the "Society of awakened Christians" in Těšín with predominantly Polish members merged with the church. In 1967, the church adopted the new name "Brethren Church" to express the inclusion of non-Czech members.