The Moravian Church, known in Germany as the Brüdergemeine, Brüder-Unität, or Herrnhuter, claims its pre-reformation origins in the present-day Czech Republic. It was “renewed” in the early eighteenth century by Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf (1700-1760) when groups of peasants, artisans, and craftsmen, mostly Protestant, flocked to the nobleman’s estates in Berthelsdorf, Saxony, seeking a different kind of spiritual life. As the congregations grew, these men and women from all social classes found freedom to practice their religion in congregations like Herrnhut and Herrnhaag, which were designed to foster individual spirituality and communal faith. As these settlements grew, mission congregations were set up in the Caribbean, Greenland, South Africa, North America and elsewhere. One of the consequences of this world-wide Moravian mission was that men and women, from the 18th century to today, could find themselves transported from one side of the world to the other within the space of only a few months or years. The mobility of the Moravians is remarkable.

More about the Moravian Church

The map interface is a web-portal that allows the user to explore the movements of 20,000 Moravians from place of birth to place of final rest from 1750 to the present day. The map visualizes the metadata that contains information about place and date, of birth and death, information about gender and sometimes other information concerning the Lebensläufe. This data sits in digital form in the Moravian Archives in Herrnhut, Germany and in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Searches can be filtered by gender, time period, and name. Users may also drill down to individual records by clicking on the points on the map. Future build outs of the interface will allow users to access original records, contemporary images of people and places, and further contextual materials.

Open the map interface