2023-09-25 12:41:00
In the German state of Saxony, a new site with the status of a UNESCO World Heritage Site may appear in 2024. The application has been included in the official list of candidates for consideration at the next meeting of the program committee, the exact time and location of which has not yet been determined. This was reported by the German Commission of UNESCO at the end of the current session, ending in Riyadh on September 25. In 2023, 42 objects from around the world were added to the list – including Medieval Jewish monuments in the capital of Thuringia, Erfurt.
Next year, a UNESCO committee will consider an international application for World Heritage status for three historic sites of the Herrnhuter religious brotherhood (German: Siedlungen der Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine): Bethlehem in the US state of Pennsylvania, Gracehill in Northern Ireland and Herrnhut in Germany, where this evangelical brotherhood was founded in 1727.
In 2015, one of these former colonies in Denmark, the settlement of Christiansfeld, founded in the south of the Jutland Peninsula in 1773, became a World Heritage Site. In total, following the example of Gerngut, more than thirty settlements were founded in different countries of the world.
From Moravia to Saxony
Settlement in Christiansfeld in a painting from the first half of the 20th century. Photo: Wikipedia/bruun-rasmussen.dk/public domain
This Christian organization is more widely known as the Moravian Church. It arose in the Kingdom of Bohemia and the Moravian Margraviate as a result of the Hussite reform movement, founded by supporters of the Prague preacher John Hus, who was burned in 1415 by the verdict of the Ecumenical Council of the Catholic Church. This execution led to the Hussite Wars of 1419-1434.
By the time the Church Reformation began in the first half of the 16th century, the Fraternal Unity, as this religious denomination was then called, already numbered several hundred parishes in Bohemia, Moravia and Poland, with a total of more than two hundred thousand believers. After the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648), the persecution of these communities intensified, as a result of which they were completely expelled from Bohemia, but continued to exist in other places, subject to oppression by Catholics.
Nikolai Ludwig von ZinzendorfPhoto: Unitätsarchiv/epd/picture-alliance
In 1722, the Saxon count Nikolai Ludwig von Zinzendorf (1700-1760) learned about this difficult situation of the adherents of Fraternal Unity, after which he invited the Moravian brothers to move to Protestant Saxony on their lands, transferring one of their own estates in Upper Lusatia.
In this place, not far from the city of Zittau, the settlement of Gerngut was founded, which became a new center of brotherhood, a place of spiritual renewal and reform, and also gave the name to a missionary movement that carried out its activities in various parts of the world – from Northern Europe to various regions of America and Africa, as well as on the territory of the Russian Empire. The family ties of the Saxon count with the Danish royal house played an important role in the beginning of missionary activity. The missionaries’ main efforts were aimed at converting indigenous peoples to Christianity.
The coat of arms of the brotherhood on display at the museum in HerrngutPhoto: Oliver Killig/picture alliance The star of the Herrnhuters is a traditional Christmas star of a special shape, produced in the workshops of this brotherhood Photo: Monika Skolimowska//picture alliance/dpa “Description and reliable news about Gerngut, 1735″Photo: Matthias Rietschel/picture alliance/dpa
The founding date of the Herrnhuter brotherhood, or rather the day of the revival of Fraternal Unity, is considered to be August 13, 1727. On this day, the new charter of this religious community, written by Count Zinzendorf, came into force. The charter was supposed to put an end to the disputes and disagreements that arose between the Moravian brothers in the first years after the resettlement in Saxony.
Ten years later, Zinzendorf, who also personally participated in numerous missionary trips around the world, would become a bishop. The ideas and principles of the Herrnhutters later influenced the Methodist movement, a Protestant denomination that spread in the USA and Great Britain.
Settlement in Saxon Herngut in a photograph from 1880 Photo: akg-images/picture alliance
Herrnhuters in America and the Russian Empire
In America, the Herrnhuters carried out missionary activities, in particular, among the Indian tribes of the Mohicans, Iroquois and Cherokees. The first missionaries arrived in these places in 1735. In addition to the Bethlehem colony, an important monument of this period is the settlement of Old Salem in North Carolina, founded in the mid-18th century.
The colonies of the Herrnhuter brotherhood were based on the principle of common farming. In addition to preaching activities, special importance was given to education, medicine and the development of crafts, which was reflected in the structure of settlements. The purpose of the missions was to improve the living conditions of their local parishioners.
Colony of Neu-Gerngut in Greenland, 1765Photo: United Archives/TopFoto/picture alliance Old plan of the Herrnhuter settlement in Suriname, South America Photo: Georg Ismar/picture alliance/dpa Plan of the Gerrnhutter settlement of Gernhag (Hernhag) near the Hessian city of Büdingen, Germany. 1835Photo: gemeinfrei
On the territory of the then Russian Empire, the first places in which the Herrnhuters began missionary work already at the end of the 1720s were the island of Saaremaa, as well as the cities of Riga and Revel (Tallinn). Later, under Catherine II in the mid-18th century, the settlement of Sarepta was founded near Tsaritsyn (Volgograd).
The largest wave of resettlement to Russia occurred during the reign of Alexander I, but in the middle of the 19th century, Herrnhuter communities on the territory of the Russian Empire were forced to join the common evangelical church.
Gerngut in Saxony on a postcard from the 1930s Photo: Arkivi/akpool GmbH/picture alliance
Moravian Church today
Currently, the total number of Moravian Church parishioners in the world exceeds one million people. About 75 percent are from African countries, and more than 15 percent from Central American countries. The rest goes to North America, Europe and other regions.
In continental Europe, Herrnhuter communities exist in Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia and Albania. German communities are found in Berlin, Cottbus, Dresden, Hamburg, Frankfurt am Main, Neuwied and Zwickau, among others.
The Herrnhut Ethnographic Museum – Völkerkundemuseum Herrnhut (voelkerkunde-herrnhut.skd.museum).
See also:
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