Biography
Nikolaus Ludwig, Count von Zinzendorf, was born on May 26, 1700, in Dresden, in Saxony, into a noble family. His father died six weeks after his birth, and his mother remarried, leaving the boy in the care of his grandmother, Henriette von Gersdorf, a devout Pietist who supervised his education. He was a serious and religious child. At the age of four, he is said to have written a note to Jesus, in which he gave his heart to the Lord. He went to the Pietist school at Halle, which was led by August Hermann Francke, where he formed a group of students, called the Order of the Mustard Seed, who pledged to serve Christ and to share the gospel.
His family wanted him to follow a career in the state. He studied law at Wittenberg, which was a center of strict Lutheranism, and he was drawn into controversy with the professors. After a tour of Europe, he took a post in the Saxon court in Dresden. He was not at ease in the court. In Düsseldorf, he saw a painting of the crucified Christ, with the words below, asking what he had done for Him. He was struck by it and resolved to give his life to Christ. In 1722, he bought an estate at Berthelsdorf, in Upper Lusatia, from his grandmother. It was there that he began his life's work.
In the same year, a group of persecuted Protestants from Moravia, the Unity of the Brethren, who were descendants of the followers of Jan Hus, arrived at his estate seeking refuge. The leader was Christian David, a carpenter, who had led a band of refugees from Moravia. Zinzendorf allowed them to settle on his land, and they founded the village of Herrnhut, which means the Lord's watch. More refugees came, as well as Pietists and other believers. The community grew to include several hundred people, with a mix of backgrounds and quarrels. In 1727, Zinzendorf took over the leadership. He was able to bring about a reconciliation. On August 13, 1727, in a communion service, the community experienced a deep spiritual awakening, a day of unity and of the outpouring of the Spirit. It is regarded as the birth of the renewed Moravian Church.
The community began a prayer watch, in which members took turns to pray around the clock. It was continued for more than a hundred years. It also began a program of missions. In 1732, the first Moravian missionaries went to the Caribbean, and by the time of Zinzendorf's death, the Moravians had sent hundreds of missionaries to the Caribbean, Greenland, North America, South Africa and other places. It was the first great Protestant missionary movement. Zinzendorf had a wide vision for the work. He insisted that the missionaries should go to the poor and the oppressed and should support themselves by their own labor.
He was a prolific writer and a hymn writer. He wrote more than two thousand hymns. His theology was centered on the wounds of Christ and the love of the Savior. It was a religion of the heart, which stressed the personal relationship to Christ. He taught that every believer should be a witness. He was also an ecumenical leader who tried to unite the different Protestant groups. He influenced John Wesley, who met the Moravians on his journey to Georgia, and who was converted under their influence.
His career was troubled. In 1736, he was banished from Saxony by the government, because of his unorthodox views and his involvement with the Moravians. He spent eleven years in exile, traveling to many places. In 1741, he visited America and founded the settlement of Bethlehem in Pennsylvania. He also took a role in the work among the Native Americans. He was a man of strong personality, who sometimes acted with a lack of caution. In the 1740s, the Moravian community passed through a period of excessive emotion, known as the Sifting Time, in which some of its devotions were marked by an overly sentimental and even offensive language about the wounds of Christ. He later corrected these excesses.
He was married to Erdmuth Dorothea, who was a faithful partner. After her death in 1756, he married Anna Nitschmann. He died on May 9, 1760, in Herrnhut, at the age of fifty-nine. His life shows the effect of a nobleman who gave his estate and his life to the service of Christ. He opened a door for the persecuted and began a great missionary movement.