| Music Encyclopedia: Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf |
(b Dresden, 26 May 1700; d Herrnhut, 7 May 1760). German Lutheran Pietist, founder in 1722 of the Renewed Moravian Church. The Moravian Church began among Moravian refugees on his estate in Upper Lusatia. A bishop of the church from 1727, he encouraged the use of music in services and wrote some 2000 Moravian hymns, many of which were sung to German chorale tunes.
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| Biography: Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf |
Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf (1700-1760), a German-born clergyman of the Moravian denomination, tried to unite the German religious groups in Pennsylvania into one spiritual community.
Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf was born in Dresden on May 26, 1700. He was a godson of Philipp Jacob Spener, the founder of German Pietism. Zinzendorf was brought up under strong Pietistic influences. As a student at the University of Halle, he joined in organizing the Order of the Grain of Mustard Seed, whose members were pledged to the Pietistic ideal of a life of religious devotion and Christian service instead of belief in a creed.
In loyalty to this pledge, in 1722 Zinzendorf opened his estate at Berthelsdorf to a company of Moravian and Lutheran exiles who became the nucleus of the community of Herrnhut, which was one of the most active centers of missionary activity in the world in its time. After a period of harmony, Zinzendorf was accused of harboring views contrary to those of the Lutheran Church and in 1736 was exiled for ten years. Henceforth he identified himself with the Moravians.
In 1741 Zinzendorf went to America. He arrived in disguise under the name Domine de Thurstein at the Moravian settlement in Bethlehem, Pa. This settlement had formerly been located in Georgia but, through the courtesy of William Penn, had moved into the territory close to settlements of other Pietistic groups: Lutherans, Reformed, Dunkers, Ephrataites, Quakers, Mennonites, and Schwenkfelders. It was Zinzendorf's hope that all these groups could be united in what he called the "Church of God in the Spirit."
Zinzendorf labored diligently and in 1741 called a series of seven synods, in which ministers and representative laymen from each of the sects met to find the fundamental agreements as to the nature of God and the ideals of the Christian life they all shared. This was a noble conception which might have had a chance 2 centuries later, but in 1741 sectarian differences were still too important to these groups for any general basis of unity to be possible. Ardent sectarians in several groups misunderstood Zinzendorf to be attempting an organic union which would have authority over the various sects. Though his ideal was spiritual only, it was too early for such an ideal to be understood, and he finally gave up the project.
Subsequently Zinzendorf explored Indian territory and established Indian missions, several of which were notable among America's earliest attempts to Christianize the Indians. In 1749 he returned to Herrnhut, Germany, and continued to direct the affairs of Nazareth and Bethlehem in Pennsylvania. He died on May 6, 1760.
Further Reading
John Rudolph Weinlick, Count Zinzendorf (1956), is a biography. Studies of Zinzendorf are Henry Herman Meyer, Child Nature and Nurture according to Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf (1928), and Arthur James Lewis, Zinzendorf: The Ecumenical Pioneer (1962). See also Jacob John Sessler, Communal Pietism among Early American Moravians (1933), and Ruth Rouse and Stephen Charles Neill, A History of the Ecumenical Movement (1954; 2d ed. 1967), for background.
| German Literature Companion: Nikolaus Ludwig Zinzendorf und Pottendorf |
Zinzendorf und Pottendorf, Nikolaus Ludwig, Graf von (Dresden, 1700-60, Herrnhut), grew up in a pietistic religious atmosphere, becoming a man of great sanctity who devoted his life to missionary endeavours at home and abroad. He opened his estate at Herrnhut to the persecuted (see Herrnhuter) and took part in a missionary expedition to America.
A prolific religious writer, Zinzendorf, in addition to works of devotion and edification, wrote over 2, 000 hymns which were published in various collections beginning with Sammlung geistlicher und lieblicher Lieder (1725) and ending with Sammlung von Liedern (1755). Zinzendorf's
| Columbia Encyclopedia: Nikolaus Ludwig Graf von Zinzendorf |
Bibliography
See biography by J. R. Weinlick (1956); study by A. J. Lewis (1962).
| History 1450-1789: Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf |
Zinzendorf, Nikolaus Ludwig Von (1700–1760), poet, preacher, theologian, and religious leader. Count Zinzendorf was a controversial figure within German Pietism in the first half of the eighteenth century. He advocated a nonrational approach to Christianity that he called "religion of the heart." In addition to being a creative theologian and author, he was the founder of a dynamic religious community known as the Brüdergemeine (Community of Brethren, now commonly called the Moravian Church) that established communities on four continents.
Zinzendorf was the son of George Ludwig von Zinzendorf, a counsellor in the court of the king of Saxony, and Charlotte Justine von Gersdorf. Because of the early death of his father, Zinzendorf was raised primarily by his grandmother, Henrietta Catherine, Baroness von Gersdorf (1648–1726), who was closely connected to the leaders of the Pietist movement, Philipp Jacob Spener (1635–1705) and August Hermann Francke (1663–1727).
When he was ten, Zinzendorf was sent to Francke's school in Halle, where he developed a strong interest in the Pietist program. He was then sent to the University of Wittenberg for advanced education to broaden his perspective, but Zinzendorf devoted himself to theological and religious pursuits rather than to politics and law.
After his marriage to Erdmuth Dorothea von Reuss (1700–1756) in 1722, Zinzendorf became deeply involved with a group of Protestant refugees from neighboring Moravia who claimed to be a remnant of the Unitas Fratrum (Unity of Brethren), a pre-Reformation Protestant church with roots in the Hussite movement. In addition to offering the Moravians protection from persecution, Zinzendorf organized their village of Herrnhut as a unique religious community.
The Brotherly Agreement of 1727 subordinated secular activities to a religious mission. Women assumed leadership roles almost equal to those of men. Artisans held leadership posts alongside nobles. Several distinctive Moravian practices originated in Herrnhut, such as the Daily Texts drawn from the Bible, making or confirming decisions through the lot, the Easter dawn confession of faith, foot washing, and love feasts. Through schools, publications, and Herrnhut-style communities, the Moravians established a strong presence throughout Protestant Europe, especially in Germany, Switzerland, the Baltic, the Netherlands, and the British Isles.
In 1735 Zinzendorf was ordained as a Lutheran minister, although he never held an official position in the church. Also in 1735 he arranged for the ordination of one of his Moravian followers as a bishop of the nearly defunct Unitas Fratrum. In 1737 Zinzendorf was consecrated a Moravian bishop.
Inspired by Zinzendorf, the first Moravian missionaries left for Saint Thomas (Virgin Islands) in 1732. Soon mission work was established among the Inuit in Greenland and Labrador, the Khoi Khoi in South Africa, the Delaware in British North America, and many other tribal peoples in the Atlantic world. On his voyage to Georgia, John Wesley (1703–1791) met Moravian missionaries and became interested in Zinzendorf's theology. Zinzendorf's writings played an important role in the early development of the Methodist movement.
Controversy swirled around Zinzendorf throughout his career. In 1736 he was exiled from Saxony because he sheltered religious refugees from Habsburg lands. Subsequently Zinzendorf traveled extensively, including two trips to North America, where he preached to slaves and tribal people.
During the 1740s Zinzendorf developed some of his most creative and controversial ideas. Among them were the "choir system" that replaced traditional family structures in Moravian communities with groupings according to age and gender. He also promoted a positive attitude toward sexuality. For instance, he argued that the incarnation of Christ made both male and female genitalia holy since Christ was born of a woman and had male organs. He also taught married couples to view sexual intercourse as a sacramental act symbolizing the mystical union of the soul with Christ. In addition, Zinzendorf encouraged his followers to worship the Holy Spirit as "Mother," and he maintained that all churches are expressions of the true, invisible church. Most controversial was his promotion of a Lutheran "theology of the cross" through a highly evocative worship of the wounds of Christ.
In 1747, Zinzendorf's banishment from Saxony was lifted and the following year, the Moravians received official recognition in Saxony because they had proven to be good subjects. In 1749 Zinzendorf persuaded the British Parliament to recognize the Moravian Church as "an ancient and apostolic church," paving the way for further mission work in the British colonies.
Also in 1749 Zinzendorf experienced the greatest blow to his work when Count Ernst Casimir of Ysenburg-Büdingen(ruled 1708–1749), the secular overlord of the Moravian community of Herrnhaag in the Wetterau, died. His son and successor Gustav Friedrich Casimir (ruled 1749–1768) ordered the Moravians in his realm to swear their fealty to him and repudiate their allegiance to Zinzendorf. Reports of eroticism connected to the veneration of the wounds of Christ among the Single Brothers in the late 1740s (the so-called Sifting Time) may have contributed to this crisis. Over a thousand Moravians chose to relocate in 1750 rather than reject Zinzendorf. They were forced to abandon Herrnhaag's expensive buildings, and the resulting financial crisis nearly destroyed the church.
In 1755 Zinzendorf returned to Herrnhut, where he edited and republished his works. Following the death of Erdmuth in 1756, he married his lifelong co-worker Anna Nitschmann in 1757. Zinzendorf's death in 1760 was a severe blow to the church. Under the leadership of August Gottlieb Spangenberg (1704–1792), the church became increasingly conservative in orientation.
Zinzendorf left a multifaceted legacy. He was a forerunner of the modern subjective theology exemplified in Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834), and he was an early Romantic poet. Moreover, his unusual understanding of race, gender, sexuality, and society attracts attention and even admiration. He established important Moravian communities in Bethlehem, Pa., and Salem, N.C., that continue to be centers of Moravian work in America. By the early twenty-first century the bulk of his followers were in eastern Africa, thanks to the Moravian mission effort.
Bibliography
Primary Sources
Zinzendorf, Nikolaus Ludwig von. A Collection of Sermons from Zinzendorf's Pennsylvania Journey 1741–42. Edited by Craig D. Atwood, translated by Julie Tomberlin Weber. Bethlehem, Pa., 2002.
——. Ergänzungsbände zu den Hauptschriften. Edited by Erich Beyreuther and Gerhard Meyer. Hildesheim, 1965–1971.
——. Hauptschriften in sechs Bänden. Edited by Erich Beyreuther and Gerhard Meyer. Hildesheim, 1962–1965.
——. Nine Public Lectures on Important Subjects in Religion, Preached in Fetter Lane Chapel in London in the Year 1746. Edited and translated by George W. Forell. Iowa City, 1973; paperback, 1998.
Secondary Sources
Atwood, Craig D. Community of the Cross: Moravian Piety in Colonial Bethlehem. University Park, Pa., forthcoming. Includes a discussion of Zinzendorf's theology and its impact on his followers.
Freeman, Arthur J. An Ecumenical Theology of the Heart: The Theology of Count Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf. Bethlehem, Pa., 1998.
Kinkel, Gary Steven. Our Dear Mother the Spirit: An Investigation of Count Zinzendorf's Theology and Praxis. Lanham, Md., 1990.
Meyer, Dietrich, ed. Bibliographisches Handbuch zur Zinzendorf-Forschung. Düsseldorf, 1987. An invaluable guide to research on Zinzendorf.
Meyer, Dietrich, and Paul Peucker, eds. Graf ohne Grenzen: Leben und Werk von Nikolaus Ludwig Graf von Zinzendorf. Herrnhut, 2000. A beautiful and informative text produced in connection with an exhibit for Zinzendorf's three-hundredth birthday.
Weinlick, John R. Count Zinzendorf. New York, 1956; reprint, Bethlehem, Pa., 1989. An English-language biography.
—CRAIG D. ATWOOD
| Wikipedia: Nicolaus Ludwig Zinzendorf |
| Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf und Pottendorf | |
|---|---|
 Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf |
|
| Born | May 26, 1700 Dresden |
| Died | May 9, 1760 (aged 59) Herrnhut |
| Occupation | theologian, priest, Bishop of Moravian church |
| Spouse(s) | Erdmuthe Dorothea, († 1756) Anna Nitschmann, († 1760) |
Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf und Pottendorf, Imperial Count of Zinzendorf and Pottendorf, (May 26, 1700 – May 9, 1760), German religious and social reformer and bishop of the Moravian Church, was born at Dresden.
Zinzendorf had a naturally alert and active mind, and an enthusiastic temperament that made his life one of ceaseless planning and executing. Like Martin Luther, he was often influenced by strong and vehement feelings, and he was easily moved both by sorrow and joy. He was an eager seeker after truth, and could not understand men who at all costs kept to the opinions they had once formed; yet he had an exceptional talent for talking on religious subjects even with those who differed from him. Few men have been more solicitous for the happiness and comfort of others, even in little things. His activity and varied gifts sometimes landed him in oddities and contradictions that not infrequently looked like equivocation and dissimulation, and the courtly training of his youth made him susceptible about his authority even when no one disputed it. He was a natural orator, and though his dress was simple his personal appearance gave an impression of distinction and force. His projects were often misunderstood, and in 1736 he was even banished from Saxony, but in 1749 the government rescinded its decree and begged him to establish within its jurisdiction more settlements like that at Herrnhut. He is commemorated as a hymnwriter and a renewer of the church by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America on their Calendar of Saints on May 9.
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His ancestors belonged to Lower Austria, but had taken the Protestant side in the Reformation struggle, and settled near Nuremberg. His parents belonged to the Pietist circle and the lad had Philipp Jakob Spener for his godfather. His father died six weeks after he was born. His mother married again when he was four years old, and he was educated under the charge of his pious and gifted grandmother, Catherine von Gersdorf, who did much to shape his character.
His school days were spent at Halle amidst Pietist surroundings, and in 1716 he went to the university of Wittenberg, to study law and fit himself for a diplomatic career. Three years later he was sent to travel in the Netherlands, in France, and in various parts of Germany, where he made the personal acquaintance of men distinguished for practical goodness and belonging to a variety of churches. On his return he visited the branches of his family settled at Oberbürg near Nuremberg and at Castell. During a lengthened visit at Castell he fell in love with his cousin Theodora; but the widowed countess, her mother, objected to the marriage, and the lady afterwards became the wife of Count Henry of Reuss.
Zinzendorf seems to have considered this disappointment as a call to some special work for God. He had previously, in deference to his family, who wished him to become a diplomat, rejected the invitation of August Hermann Francke to take Baron von Canstein's place in the Halle orphanage; and he now resolved to settle down as a landowner, spending his life on behalf of his tenantry. He bought Berthelsdorf from his grandmother, Baroness von Gersdorf and called Johann Andreas Rothe for pastor and John George Heiz for factor; he married Erdmuth Dorothea,Countess Reuss-Ebersdorf, sister of Count Heinrich XXIX of Reuss-Ebersdorf, and began building on his home.
His intention was to carry out into practice the Pietist ideas of Spener. He did not mean to found a new church or religious organization distinct from the Lutheranism of the land, but to create a Christian association the members of which by preaching, by tract and book distribution and by practical benevolence might awaken the somewhat torpid religion of the Lutheran Church. The "band of four brothers" (Rothe, pastor at Berthelsdorf; Melchior Schäffer, pastor at Görlitz; Friedrich von Watteville, a friend from boyhood; and himself) set themselves by sermons, books, journeys and correspondence to create a revival of religion, and by frequent meetings for prayer to preserve in their own hearts the warmth of personal trust in Christ. From the printing-house at Ebersdorf, now in Thuringia, large quantities of books and tracts, catechisms, collections of hymns and cheap Bibles were issued; and a translation of Johann Arndt's True Christianity was published for circulation in France.
A dislike of the dry Lutheran orthodoxy of the period gave Zinzendorf some sympathy with that side of the growing rationalism which was attacking dogma, while at the same time he felt its lack of earnestness, and of a true and deep understanding of religion and of Christianity, and endeavoured to counteract these defects by pointing men to the historical Christ, the revelation of the Father. He seems also to have doubted the wisdom of Spener's plan of not separating from the Lutheran Church, and began to think that true Christianity could be best promoted by free associations of Christians, which in course of time might grow into churches with no state connection. These thoughts took a practical turn from his connection with the Bohemian or Moravian Brethren. Zinzendorf offered an asylum to a number of persecuted wanderers from Moravia and Bohemia, (part of Czech Republic today), and permitted them to build the village of Herrnhut on a corner of his estate of Berthelsdorf. The refugees who came to this asylum (between 1722 and 1732—the first detachment under Christian David) from various regions where persecution raged, belonged to more than one Protestant organization. Persecution had made them cling pertinaciously to small peculiarities of creed, organization and worship, and they could scarcely be persuaded to live in peace with each other.
Zinzendorf devoted himself to them. He, with his wife and children, lived in Herrnhut and brought Rothe with him. He had hard work to bring order out of the confusion. He had to satisfy the authorities that his religious community could be brought under the conditions of the peace of Augsburg; he had to quiet the suspicions of the Lutheran clergy; and, hardest of all, he had to rule in some fashion men made fanatical by persecution, who, in spite of his unwearied labours for them, on more than one occasion, it is said, combined in his own house to denounce him as the Beast of the Apocalypse, with Rothe as the False Prophet. Patience had at last its perfect work, and gradually Zinzendorf was able to organize his refugees into something like a militia Christi, based not on monastic but on family life. However his ideas of family were centered not on a traditional nuclear family of parents and children. Indeed, he wanted to break traditional family bonds by organizing communal families based on age, marital status and gender. These communities, such as Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, were designed for the sole purpose of serving Christ, who also was considered to be the community leader. Zinzendorf was also able to establish a common order of worship in 1727, and soon afterwards a common organization. He was consecrated a bishop at Berlin on 20 May 1737 by Bishops David Nitschmann der Bischof and Daniel Ernst Jablonski.
Zinzendorf took the deepest interest in mission, sending out missionaries among slaves in the Danish-governed West Indies and the Inuit of Greenland. His personal relations to the court of Denmark and to King Christian VI facilitated such endeavours. He saw with delight the spread of this Protestant family order in Germany, Denmark, Russia and England. He travelled widely in its interests, visiting America in 1741-42 and spending a long time in London in 1750, engaged in establishing a community at Lindsey House in Chelsea. Missionary colonies had by this time been settled in the West Indies (1732), in Greenland (1733), amongst the North American Indians (1735); and before Zinzendorf's death the Brethren had sent from Herrnhut missionary colonies to Livonia and the northern shores of the Baltic, to the slaves of South Carolina, to Suriname, to the Negro slaves in several parts of South America, to Tranquebar and the Nicobar Islands in the East Indies, to the Copts in Egypt, to the Inuit of Labrador, and to the west coast of South Africa.
Zinzendorf was a very eclectic theologian. He called his group the 'Church of God in the Spirit" or the "Congregation of God in the Spirit." In 1742 he advocated Saturday Sabbath keeping among the German speaking Christians in Philadelphia citing the use of that day by the Ephrata Cloister. He also used Sunday for preaching the Gospel.
Zinzendorf's theology was sometimes controversial to contemporaries. He encouraged followers to visualise Christ's wounds in great detail, and his sermons included exhortations to imaginitively ‘enter into’ these wounds and drink from them. This was tied to his wish to overcome the traditional shame which was attached to sexual organs and acts:
What in the Bible is mentioned an hundred, and more than an hundred Times, but on Account of the Fall, by Reason of Deprivation, is call'd by the hideous name Pudendum; this he (the Saviour) has changed into Verendum, in the proper and strictest sense of that Word: And what was chastised by Circumcision, in the Time of the Law, is restored again to its first Essence and flourishing State; 'tis made equal to the most respectable Parts of the Body, yea 'tis on account of its Dignity and Distinction, become superior to all the rest; especially as the Lamb would choose to endure in that Part his first Wound, his first Pain...[1]
Some modern writers have seen something pathological in Zinzendorf's intense psychoerotic meditation on the wounds and the body of Christ, while others have pointed out that such practice ‘allowed the members of the society to sublimate a variety of personal drives and fears to the mystical realm for the good of the Gemeinde [community] and its mission’.[2] At any rate it is clear that for Zinzendorf the fact of intercourse, properly entered into between husband and wife, was a transcendent act and an important religious symbol which prefigured the union of a sinner with the Saviour.
It was his son, Christian Renatus von Zinzendorf who took his father's teachings on the relationship between sexuality and spirituality to their logical extreme. Christian Renatus lived at a special community built by Ludwig east of Frankfurt/Main, Germany, called Herrnhaag, The Lord's Grove, where he led the Single Brethren's Choir comprised of the unmarried men in the Congregation. Ensuing scandal and near-financial ruin forced Ludwig to chastise his son, bringing him to England. Casimir Count of Isenburg-Buedingen demanded the submission of the Moravians of Herrnhaag to himself, and that they reject their allegiance to the elder Zinzendorf. The enitre community rejected this demand, leading to the closure of Herrnhaag beginning in 1750-53.
The community in Herrnhut, from which almost all these colonies had been sent out, had no money of its own, and Zinzendorf had almost exclusively furnished its expenses. His frequent journeys from home made it almost impossible for him to look after his private affairs; he was compelled from time to time to raise money by loans, and about 1750 was almost reduced to bankruptcy. This led to the establishment of a financial board among the Brethren, on a plan furnished by a lawyer, John Frederick Köber, which worked well. Christian Renatus, whom Nicholas had hoped to make his successor, died in 1752 and the loss devastated him. Four years later, on 17 June 1756 he lost his wife Erdmuth Dorothea, who had been his counsellor and confidante in all his work. Zinzendorf remained a widower for one year, and then (27 June 1757) contracted a second marriage with Anna Caritas Nitschmann (24 November 1715 – 21 May 1760), with whom he had been very close for many years, on the ground that a man in his official position ought to be married. Three years later, overcome with his labours, he fell ill and died (on 9 May 1760), leaving Bishop Johannes von Watteville, who had married his eldest daughter Benigna, to take his place at the head of the community.
He wrote a large number of hymns, of which the best-known are "Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness" and "Jesus, still lead on". A selection of his Sermons was published by Gottfried Clemens in 10 vols., his Diary (1716-1719) by Gerhard Reichel and Josef Theodor Müller (Herrnhut, 1907), and his Hymns, etc., by H. Bauer and G. Burkhardt (Leipzig, 1900).
"Zinzendorf, Nicholas Lewis". Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. 1889. |
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