A rite is an established, ceremonial, usually religious, act. Rites in this sense fall into three major categories:
Moravian College is a private liberal-arts college in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The college is associated with Moravian Theological Seminary and traces its founding to 1742 by Moravians, descendants of followers of the Bohemian Reformation though it did not receive a charter to grant baccalaureate degrees until 1863. The most popular majors are health sciences, business, sociology, psychology, and biological sciences.
Herrnhut is an Upper Lusatian town in the Görlitz district in Saxony, Germany, known for the community of the Moravian Church established by Nicolas Ludwig, Count von Zinzendorf in 1722.
Old Salem is a historic district of Winston-Salem, North Carolina that was originally settled by the Moravian community in 1753. This small city features a living history museum that interprets the restored Moravian community. The non-profit organization began its work in 1950, although some private residents had restored buildings earlier. As the Old Salem Historic District, it was declared a National Historic Landmark (NHL) in 1966. The district showcases the culture of the Moravian settlement in North Carolina during the 18th and 19th centuries, communal buildings, churches, houses, and shops.
Whitechurch, on the south side of Dublin, situated south of Ballyboden in Rathfarnham at the foot of the Dublin mountains, derives its name from a small white church in Kilmashogue, built near an ancient cairn. Little remains of the church. The Church of Ireland parish of Whitechurch includes most of Rathfarnham including Tibradden, Larch Hill and Kilmashogue. There is a Moravian cemetery in the area which was the burial ground for the Moravian community, a Protestant sect from what is now the Czech republic who arrived in Ireland in the 18th century. This community had a church in Kevin St but have now died out. The Catholic order Augustinian Fathers have been in the area for many years.
Gracehill is a village in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It lies about 3 km from Ballymena and is in the townland of Ballykennedy. It is part of the Borough of Mid & East Antrim.
Sunrise service is a worship service on Easter practiced by some Protestant churches, replacing the traditional, ancient Easter Vigil preserved by the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, and Lutheran churches.
Moravian Academy, located in historic Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in the United States, is a prekindergarten through 12th grade coeducational college preparatory school. It predominantly serves students from the Lehigh Valley region of Pennsylvania.
Genadendal[χəˈnɑːdəndal] is a town in the Western Cape province of South Africa, built on the site of the oldest mission station in the country. It was originally known as Baviaanskloof.
A Moravian star is an illuminated Advent, Christmas, or Epiphany decoration popular in Germany and in places in America and Europe where there are Moravian congregations. The stars take their English name from the Moravian Church, originating in Moravia. In Germany, they are known as Herrnhut stars, named after the Moravian Mother Community in Saxony, Germany, where they were first commercially produced.
The Moravian musical tradition in United States began with the earliest Moravian settlers in the first half of the 18th century.
These Moravians were members of a well-established church – officially called Unitas Fratrum or Unity of Brethren – that by [the mid-18th century] had already seen almost three centuries of rich experience of religious life. They were spiritual descendants of the Czech priest Jan Hus, who for his attempts at reform was martyred in 1415. Forty-two years later in 1457, some of his followers founded a church body consecrated to following Christ in simplicity and dedicated living.
This newly constituted church developed a rich and orderly ecclesiastical life in the 15th and 16th centuries, but in the Thirty Years War of 1618-48 it was virtually wiped out. In the 1720s a few exiles of this religious heritage, along with various other seekers after truth, found refuge on an estate of a Saxon nobleman named Nicholaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf. There in their village of Herrnhut the ancient church experienced a rebirth culminating in a spiritual blessing on August 13, 1727, in which their former diversity of purpose was welded into one.
In a brief five years, by 1732, that first little village of the Renewed Moravian Church began sending missionaries to all corners of the world. After establishing work in England, the Moravians sent colonists to America in 1735. The initial settlement in Georgia proved unsuccessful, partly because of war between Protestant England and Catholic Spain to the south in Florida. More permanent work was established in Pennsylvania in 1741, with the town of Bethlehem as their chief center. Other settlements in Pennsylvania followed. The Moravians purchased 100,000 acres in North Carolina and settled at Bethabara in 1753 with the central town of Salem being founded in 1766.” [Villages of the Lord]
The Moravian Church in North America is part of the worldwide Moravian Church Unity. It dates from the arrival of the first Moravian missionaries to the United States in 1735, from their Herrnhut settlement in present-day Saxony, Germany. They came to minister to the scattered German immigrants, to the Native Americans and to enslaved Africans. They founded communities to serve as home bases for these missions. The missionary "messengers" were financially supported by the work of the "laborers" in these settlements. Currently, there are more than 60,000 members.
This article covers the period from the Moravian Church's origin in the early fourteenth century to the beginning of mission work in 1732. Further expanding the article, attention will also be paid to the early Moravian settlement at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, following their first arrival in Nazareth, Pennsylvania in 1740. For further information on the Moravian church's history, including that which is more modern, please refer to the article entitled Moravian Church.
The British Province of the Moravian Church is part of the worldwide Moravian Church Unity.
The Moravian Church Foundation is a non profit foundation connected with the Moravian Church. Its head office is in Amsterdam.
Fairfield Moravian Church and its surrounding settlement was founded in 1785 in Fairfield, Droylsden, Lancashire, England. It was founded by Benjamin La Trobe as a centre for evangelistic work for the Moravian Church in the Manchester area. Numbers 15, 28 and 30 Fairfield Square are Grade II* listed buildings.
Old Nuuk is a neighborhood of Nuuk, the capital of Greenland.
The Moravian Slaves, a popular story about Christian Missions concerning Johann Leonhard Dober and David Nitschmann, describes how these two young Moravian Brethren from Herrnhut, Germany, were called in 1732 to minister to the African slaves on the islands of St. Thomas and St. Croix in the Danish West Indies. Allegedly, when they were told that they would not be allowed to do such a thing, Dober and Nitschmann sold themselves to a slave owner and boarded a ship bound for the West Indies. As the ship pulled away from the docks, it is said that they called out to their loved ones on shore, "May the Lamb that was slain receive the reward of His suffering!"
