(1700-1760)
An ardent and emotional man who believed that the mark of true Christianity is a simple, childlike faith in the blood of Jesus. In vivid, almost erotic, images he sang of the soul’s relation to Christ.
Zinzendorf was the grandson of a nobleman who had left Austria for his religious convictions. When young Nikolaus’s father died and his mother remarried, his training fell into the hands of his devout grandmother who was an admirer of the Halle Pietists. Nikolaus studied law for three years at the University of Wittenberg but the ministry remained his soul’s concern. When the Bohemian Brethren (Unitas Fratrum) were casting about for a place to avoid persecution they found it on Zinzendorf’s estates. In 1722 Christian David founded a community called "Herrnhut." Zinzendorf entered the community and soon devout people of all backgrounds were flocking to Herrnhut.
From 1727 Zinzendorf was the guiding spirit of Herrnhut and ten years later he received formal ordination in the reorganized Moravian Church, or "United Brethren." Zinzendorf’s impulses were always strongly missionary. As a result the Moravians became the first large-scale Protestant missionary force in history.
[tags]BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, Herrnhut, history, Jesus, Moravians, Nikolaus-von-Zinzendorf, Pietists, Zinsendorf[/tags]
