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Christiansbrunn Hermitage is named for an eighteenth- century Moravian community of single brothers located outside Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. It means the spring of Christian, Christian Renatus von Zinzendorf, son of Moravian leader Count Nicholas von Zinzendorf. Christel, as he was affectionately known, was born in 1727, at the time known in Moravian history as the Great Awakening, a period of renewed and intensified spirituality after a period of conflict and turmoil among the varied groups living on Zinzendorf’s land. It is our contention that Christel’s birth acted as a unifying element, physical evidence of a spiritual grace, a literal rebirth as a result of his being perceived to contain the spirit of Christ, much as Shaker founder Ann Lee and Quaker founder George Fox were thought to contain the spirit of Christ as well. In Christel’s case, the Moravians believed themselves to be supremely blessed by God, which translated into a vastly successful missionary effort. A special community was built for Christel, Herrnhaag (God’s Grove), outside Frankfort, the scene of huge (and hugely expensive) celebrations. It was at Herrnhaag where Christel’s connection to water was first noted, as there was (and remains) a sacred well in front of the building in which he lived.
Christel was known to be one of the Schwarmerei (swarmers), a German word for men whose primary physical and emotional affections were towards men. The Single Brothers whom he led in turn literally worshipped him as he was the manifestation of the Bridegroom whom they called for in their hymns to fill them and make them whole. For his followers, male and female, adults and children, Christel was both real and metaphor. In his being, Christel combined the godlike (Christ) and the human; the spiritual and the sexual; the earthly and the heavenly. His parents, the Count and his wife, the Countess Erdmuth, were themselves seen by some at least as earthly representatives of God the father and the Holy Spirit as a mother. Indeed, they formed a holy family, with Christel as Christ the son and his sister Benigna representing Sophia, the Pietist incarnation of wisdom.
However, not everyone was a Christel lover. Even within the Moravian Church there remained skeptics who noted that whoever and whatever Christel was, he was costing the Moravian Church money and goodwill among those who considered he and his followers to be scandalous and heretical. The pragmatists won, convincing Nicholas to demote his son and take him to London where he died repentant and contrite at the age of twenty-four.
With his death came the end of the most sensationalistic period of Moravian history, and the end of its most vibrant period of evangelical success and zeal. The victors wrote the history books, at least at first, and condemned most of Christel’s writings to destruction. His story became one of overreaching abandon and depravity that nearly destroyed the church until reasonable men could win it back.
Still, for his brothers who reached Christiansbrunn in exile from Herrnhaag, Christel never died. His spirit inhabited the sacred spring from whence, as one brother wrote, his spirit renewed itself with every drop of water that poured from the earth. In death, Christel became part of the earth. By drinking the water in which he lived, Christel could still enter and fill a brother in death just as he had literally entered and filled his brothers in life. Christel is our role model by returning to life through the earth.
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