Christian Renatus von Zinzendorf

Birth and formative years

Zinzendorf was born just a month after the spiritual awakening experience on August 13, 1727, that signaled the renewal of the Ancient Unity of Brethren, in which Moravian exiles on the lands of his father committed themselves to a life in Christ. Both his parents were deeply committed to this ideal. His father and his mother, Erdmuth Dorothea m.n. Countess von Reuss-Ebersdorf, came from Pietist families that stressed the indwelling of the spirit. His parents considered their relationship to be a marriage of champions in which the goal was serving Christ. The young Zinzendorf was left in the care of his mother for most of his youth while his father pursued church activities elsewhere. His effeminacy was noted by nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century historians who typically blamed it on his being raised in the company of women: "Christian Renatus . . . had all the ardor without the virility characteristic of his father."

The strong mother/weak or distant father parenting style typically associated with early psychoanalytic attempts to explain homosexuality was also used to further discredit Zinzendorf. As a student, Zinzendorf was known for being frivolous, even bringing a cat to class. At the age of sixteen, he was named vice-elder of the Single Brothers Choir. Moravian communities were dedicated to serving Christ. The traditional family unit was abandoned in order to direct all residents' energies to that goal. Much like the Shakers, Moravian residents lived in groups or choirs according to gender, marital status and age.

Christel as Christ's representative

Many of Zinzendorf's beliefs and acts were based upon his father's words: “I live no more; he lives in me. I speak no more; he speaks in me. When you speak with me, you speak with him. When you have love for me, so too you have love for him, and when you hate me, so too you hate him, and when you have a word from me, so too you have it from him.” Seeing Christ in Christian's eyes is a theme from the period in poetry, painting and engraving. An engraving complete with his portrait states that one can see the departed Christ by looking at Christel's forehead, meaning his eyes. A portrait of him now in the Moravian Archives in Herrnhut, Germany, includes the words Gebrochne Augen(broken eyes), again referring to seeing Christ at the moment of death in Christian's eyes, or at the moment of his completed sacrifice.

The idea of Christ living in another was not uncommon in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It is a fundamental belief shared with the Quakers and Shakers, who also had roots in Pietism and the indwelling of Christ.

Leadership and loss of leadership

Herrnhaag was a community designed by the elder Zinzendorf, whose inhabitants were to live under the direct rule of Christ with Christian Renatus as his representative. At Herrnhaag, Christel was the link between the spiritual and the earthly as the spirit took human form. During the 1748 Single Brothers Festival at Herrnhaag, Christel and his assistants entered wearing white robes, implying it was Christ who was actually entering. Later that day, Christel and twelve assistants led Communion, further representing Christ and the apostles. During the service, those in attendance believed that the Sidehole of Christ was literally standing before them in the bodily forms of Christel and Rubusch, his co-leader of the brothers. Christel sang a welcoming hymn for Christ entering the hall, and while kissing, the brothers believed they were literally kissing the Sidehole.

The combination of sexuality and spirituality shown at Herrnhaag was not unknown in Christian history, but it caused increasing scandal both within and without the church, particularly embarrassing for Nicholas, "who was trying to be recognized as a rightful theologian after joining the confession of Augsburg" in 1748. Even Christel’s mother was concerned, realizing the events taking place at Herrnhaag and its nearby sister community of Marienborn were at the edge where metaphor and reality meet. Referring to a plowshare that can be raised and lowered, she later wrote to her son that "I sometimes said we have already put the peg in the last hole. If we wanted to remain in the world, the Savior would have to make three or four holes further back and lower down."

In addition to increasingly embarrassing scandal and rumor, the cost of sustaining Herrnhaag and its numerous festivals put a severe financial strain on the church at a time when its missionary efforts were expanding around the world. Events reached such a point that Christel’s father denounced what was happening at Herrnhaag and ordered Christel to attend him in England. "When the twenty-two-year-old returned to Herrnhaag, he was physically and mentally broken. In August 1750 he founded a Bund auf die Marter Gottes (Covenant on the ordeal of God). During this 'phase of consolation' ordered by his father, he also composed several 'purified' poems."

Death and apotheosis

Zinzendorf died in a house in Dean's Yard of Westminster Abbey, London, on May 28, 1752, from a hemorrhage due to tuberculosis, with John Nitschmann, his former tutor, beside him. He was buried on the grounds of Lindsey House, "Sharon," the Moravian Graveyard located in Chelsea outside London, where his father lived at that time and directed the worldwide missionary effort of the church.

An apotheosis written after his death links Christel to Christ by quoting 1 Corinthians 15:4: “And that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures” and declaring that Christel is sitting directly beside Christ. The apotheosis also states that "The face Moses saw at Thabor is the same face Christel brought to you."

When the Moravian Brethren and Sisters refused to forswear their allegiance to the elder Zinzendorf and sever their connection to the Moravian Church in the 1750s at the insistence of the Casimir Prince von Isenburg-Buedingen, Herrnhaag was closed and a great number of Moravians came to Pennsylvania in Bethlehem and Nazareth. A farming community had already been established near Nazareth for the Single Brethren named Christiansbrunn, Christian's Spring. One of the brothers wrote a poem stating that Christel lived again in the Congregation at the spring and that the flowing waters restored him “more and more.”

Historical perspective

For more than 200 years after his death, Christel was looked upon as a failure by Moravian historians and scholars, who saw him as weak, effeminate, ineffectual and a grave disappointment to his father whose trust he had betrayed. The only way most Moravians of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries knew him was by the inclusion of several of his hymns in various Moravian hymnals, the most famous being “My Redeemer, overwhelmed with anguish, went to Olivet for me.”

Indeed, the entire period (approximately 1747-1749) became known as the Sifting Time from Luke 22:31: “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has desired to have you that he may sift you as wheat.” Nicholas Zinzendorf called the ensuing scandal an “unbridled freedom of the flesh.” His representative told the residents at Herrnhaag and its nearby sister community of Marienborn that it was impossible to be "truly unified with our Husband" while living on earth. He further added that the residents had mistaken metaphor for reality and wrongly believed that the brothers were actually sisters.

Historians for the next two hundred years accepted this view of events and wrote off what happened as a time of embarrassing excess from which the church was saved only by the timely intervention of Nicholas.

Determining exactly what happened was made exceedingly difficult due to extensive destruction of documents amounting to official censorship that began in the eighteenth century by church officials and even archivists. There was a general shunning of the period that lasted well into the twentieth century, and almost no pertinent documents remain in either in the major Moravian archives in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania or Herrnhut, Germany.

A new generation of scholars and historians interested in determining exactly what happened have been able to locate documents in private collections and other sources. An indication of renewed interest in Christian Renatus and what he meant to his time was shown in September, 2008 when a birthday festival was held in his honor in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, based on eighteenth-century sources and sponsored by the Historic Bethlehem Partnership, the Moravian Music Foundation and the Moravian Archives.