Zinzendorf, Nikolaus Ludwig, Graf (Count) von

Zinzendorf, Nikolaus Ludwig, Graf (Count) von

▪ German religious leader
Introduction
born 1700, Dresden, Saxony [Germany]
died May 9, 1760, Herrnhut

      religious and social reformer of the German Pietist (Pietism) movement who, as leader of the Moravian church (Unitas Fratrum), sought to create an ecumenical Protestant movement.

Life
      Zinzendorf was the son of a Saxon minister of state of Austrian noble descent. His early upbringing was closely supervised by his aristocratic maternal grandmother, Henriette von Gersdorf, a devout Pietist and intimate of a major Pietist theologian, Philipp Spener. This religious training was reinforced by his schooling at Francke's Paedagogium in Halle (1710–16), after which he deferred to his family's wishes and studied law, rather than theology, at Wittenberg. His period of formal education ended with the traditional Grand Tour, in the course of which he became acquainted with many prominent Calvinist and Roman Catholic church figures.

      Returning to Dresden in 1721, Nikolaus took up a minor post in the Saxon court, and a year later he married Erdmuthe Dorothea of Reuss, who shared her husband's Pietist convictions. His government service was short-lived; having inherited part of his grandmother's estate of Berthelsdorf, he became increasingly absorbed in the affairs of his tenants, especially a group of refugees from Bohemia and Moravia. With his assistance, these remnants of the persecuted Unitas Fratrum developed their own Moravian church settlement of Herrnhut in Saxony. Zinzendorf's initial purpose had been strictly ecumenical: following Spenerian precepts, he had sought to develop ecclesiolae in ecclesia—“little churches within the church”—to act as a leaven, revitalizing and ultimately unifying churches into a single Lutheran (Lutheranism) communion.

      But in the process of remolding the structure of the Moravian church, he found his own views recast along communal lines (utopia): “There can be no Christianity without community.” The statutes of the Brotherly Agreement of Herrnhut (1727) embodied the count's ideal of a Christian settlement in which all aspects of daily life were subordinated to the imperative of attaining a joyous fellowship with Christ.

      In Herrnhut and succeeding Moravian settlements, family loyalties gradually were superseded by allegiance to one's choir—communal groupings rigidly stratified by age, sex, and marital status. These choirs usually provided their members with communal living quarters, food, clothing, and employment; they also accepted full responsibility for child care and education, following Zinzendorf's innovative and effective pedagogical theories. The communitarian ideal, in some instances, led to a communal sharing in production as well as consumption: the community took care of a member's needs in return for his labour.

      The very success of Herrnhut in attracting new members intensified the antagonism of the establishment—the aristocracy, the town guilds, and the Lutheran church. Zinzendorf had sought to placate those who saw him as a sectarian and who doubted his allegiance to the Augsburg Confession by having himself ordained in 1734 as an orthodox Lutheran pastor. Nevertheless, two years later, he was banished from his estate by order of the Saxon government. In exile the count, in order to represent the missionary interests of the Moravians abroad more authoritatively, was consecrated a bishop of the Unitas Fratrum (1773). After establishing Moravian settlements at Herrnhaag and Marienborn in Wetteravia and forming new congregations in the Netherlands and the Baltics, he spent time in the West Indies and, subsequently, laid the groundwork for Moravian congregations in England. From 1741 to 1743 he traveled in America, setting up Moravian congregations in New York and Pennsylvania (including the major settlement of Bethlehem, Pa.).

      On his return to Europe, Zinzendorf's ecumenical (ecumenism) passion led him to develop the idea of Tropen (methods of training), according to which the different Protestant churches each represented valid concrete expressions of the one true church of Christ, differing only in their modes of apprehending and communicating a shared set of religious truths. In 1747 the Saxon authorities rescinded the count's banishment; two years later they formally recognized the Church of the Unity of the Brethren. The English Parliament bestowed a similar recognition in 1749. But the excesses of the Sifting Time (1740s), a period in which the antirational, emotional, and sensuous elements inherent in Zinzendorfian theology were greatly intensified and which led, particularly in Herrnhaag, to an erotically tinged preoccupation with Christ's wounds, provided new ammunition to his opponents. The last decade of his life was trouble-laden. Debts incurred in pursuit of his worldwide missionary program continued to mount; his son Christian Renatus, whom he hoped would succeed him as leader of the Moravian church, succumbed to a lung ailment at the age of 25; and his wife, Erdmuthe, died in 1756. In the following year he married his lifelong collaborator Anna Nitschmann, who had formerly headed the Single Sisters' Choir in Bethlehem. Three years later, in 1760, Zinzendorf died in Herrnhut and was buried there.

Significance
      Zinzendorf's influence on church history was felt far beyond the boundaries of the Pietistic “heart religion” he had preached so fervently. Opposed equally to the atheistic rationalism of the Enlightenment and the lifeless Protestant dogma of his own day, Zinzendorf emphasized the manifestation of religious feelings and emotions in a communalistic context. His ecumenicism, search for a Christian communitarian brotherhood, and founding of a worldwide missionary network were imperatives repeatedly stressed in his sermons, hymns, litanies, and religious tracts. For all their baroque extravagance, Zinzendorf's religious doctrines and expressive style are more attuned to the contemporary scene than they were to the climate of his own day.

Gillian Lindt

Additional Reading
Works in English include John R. Weinlick, Count Zinzendorf (1956, reprinted 1989), a popular sketch; and A.J. Lewis, Zinzendorf, the Ecumenical Pioneer (1962).

* * *


Universalium. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем сделать НИР

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Christianity — /kris chee an i tee/, n., pl. Christianities. 1. the Christian religion, including the Catholic, Protestant, and Eastern Orthodox churches. 2. Christian beliefs or practices; Christian quality or character: Christianity mixed with pagan elements; …   Universalium

  • Protestantism — /prot euh steuhn tiz euhm/, n. 1. the religion of Protestants. 2. the Protestant churches collectively. 3. adherence to Protestant principles. [1640 50; PROTESTANT + ISM] * * * One of the three major branches of Christianity, originating in the… …   Universalium

  • Moravian Church — Protestant denomination founded in the 18th century. It traces its origins to the Unity of Brethren, a 15th century Hussite movement in Bohemia and Moravia. The original Brethren movement was eroded by persecution, but it was renewed in 1722 at… …   Universalium

  • Hussite — Hussitism, n. /hus uyt/, n. 1. a member of the religious reformist and nationalistic movement initiated by John Huss in Bohemia in the late 14th century. adj. 2. of or pertaining to John Huss or the Hussites. [1525 35; HUSS + ITE1] * * * Member… …   Universalium

  • Pietism — Pietist, n. pietistic, pietistical, adj. pietistically, adv. /puy i tiz euhm/, n. 1. a movement, originating in the Lutheran Church in Germany in the 17th century, that stressed personal piety over religious formality and orthodoxy. 2. the… …   Universalium

  • Spangenberg, August Gottlieb — ▪ German bishop born July 15, 1704, Klettenberg Hohenstein, Saxony died Sept. 18, 1792, Berthelsdorf       German bishop of the Unitas Fratrum, successor to its leader, Nikolaus Ludwig, graf von Zinzendorf (Zinzendorf, Nikolaus Ludwig, Graf… …   Universalium

  • Bethlehem — /beth li hem , lee euhm/, n. 1. a town in NW Jordan, near Jerusalem; occupied by Israel since 1967: birthplace of Jesus and David. 15,000. 2. a city in E Pennsylvania. 70,419. * * * I City (pop., 2000: metro area, 71,329), eastern Pennsylvania, U …   Universalium

  • Christology — Christological /kris tl oj i keuhl/, adj. Christologist, n. /kri stol euh jee/, n., pl. Christologies for 2. 1. the branch of theology dealing with the nature, person, and deeds of Jesus Christ. 2. an interpretation of the nature, person, and… …   Universalium

  • Nicolaus Ludwig Zinzendorf — Zinzendorf redirects here. For other uses, see Zinzendorf (disambiguation). Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf und Pottendorf Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf Born May 26, 1700 Dresden Died May 9, 1760( …   Wikipedia

  • Karl von Zinzendorf — (1739–1813) Karl Johann Christian Graf von Zinzendorf (* 5. Januar 1739 in Dresden; † 5. Januar 1813 in Wien) war ein österreichischer Staatsmann …   Deutsch Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”