Zinzendorf

To this day, if you walk around the city of Bethlehem, PA, you will find churches and schools named after the Moravians. Today, Dr. Stephen Nichols tells us about the influence that Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf had on the Moravian church.

Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf was born in 1700, and he died in 1760. He comes from German Pietism and is associated with the Moravian Church, also known at that time as the Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine, which is named for Herrnhut, a small town on the eastern border. If you were to draw a line right through the center of Germany, there on the far eastern border would be Herrnhut. Zinzendorf was born in Dresden. His father was a high-ranking political figure, and his father died in the very year that Zinzendorf was born. He was raised by his maternal grandmother on a vast estate. When he was of age, he was sent to study at Halle, center of German Pietism, and not only was he exposed to Pietism there, but also to mission endeavors. After study at Halle, he went to Luther’s University. He studied law at the University of Wittenberg, and when he graduated, he took up a government post.

1722 was a big year for Zinzendorf. He married. He also used his family’s resources to purchase a large estate. And that same year, a group of Moravians, fleeing religious persecution, came to him, and he gave them sanctuary on his estate. This group has its roots back to Jan Hus, the pre-Reformer in Bohemia, this is a Protestant group, and very quickly Zinzendorf used his study in law and his abilities to navigate governments to bring structure and organization to this movement. He brought a liturgy to this movement. And in 10 years, by 1732, these Moravians were ready to send out missionaries. They sent one to Greenland, cold climates, and they sent the other to a warmer climate, St. Thomas of the Virgin Islands in the Caribbean. Zinzendorf himself went to St. Thomas, I would say the wiser choice for a nice climate, in 1738 and 1739.

Then in 1741, he went to the Colony of Pennsylvania. Just North and a little to the West of Philadelphia, he visited with a small community of Moravians, and on Christmas Eve in 1741, he held a service for them. And at that very moment, he named the community Bethlehem. Moravian College is there to this day in the town of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Well, while in the colony of Pennsylvania, he attempted various mission endeavors to the Native Americans, and then right around 1750, he went to London. He spent the first five years of that decade trying to make London the home base for these Moravian mission endeavors. He also wrote a number of hymns, nearly 2,000 of them, over his lifetime. He published many sermons. He organized Moravian communities that literally spanned the globe and went around the world. These Moravian missionaries also had significant influence, not only on the Moravians, but on folks outside of the Moravian Church, most notably John Wesley. It was while on a ship sailing across the Atlantic that Wesley came into close contact with some Moravian missionaries who were headed to Georgia to do work among the Native Americans there.

He was so impressed by their piety that it caused him to, well, be rather self-critical of his own spiritual life, and also to recognize his deficiencies. As you know, John Wesley did not fare too well in this new world, so he went back to England. It was during a midweek evening that Wesley was walking along the streets of London and came to the Aldersgate meeting house, a Moravian meeting house, and he heard the reading of Martin Luther’s preface to his Romans commentary, and Wesley was converted. Well, that’s a bit of the reach of the Moravians and their influence, and that is the life of Nikolaus Ludwig Von Zinzendorf. And I’m Steve Nichols, and thanks for listening to 5 Minutes in Church History.