Count Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf
Herrnhaag
During Zinzendorf’s banishment from Herrnhut, Herrnhaag was founded in 1738. By 1750, seventeen buildings had been erected around a square which became a pattern for other settlements. (Herrnhut was not the pattern.) Its church life attracted widespread attention. John Wesley, while visiting the Moravians, said,
I am with a Church whose conversation is in heaven....As they have all one Lord and one faith, so they are all partakers of one Spirit, the spirit of meekness and love, which uniformly and continually animates all their conversation (Lewis, 17).
It was a time of spiritual vitality where brothers and sisters rejoiced in their salvation in Jesus Christ. Herrnhaag came to an end when the government insisted that the brothers and sisters renounce Count Zinzendorf. Refusing, the Moravians left. By 1945 only Zinzendorf’s house—the Lichtendorf (castle of light)—and the Brothers’ and Sisters’ Houses were still standing.
