Nicolaus Zinzendorf - New Protestant Family Order

New Protestant Family Order

In this renewed community, Zinzendorf was able to organize his refugees into something like a militia Christi, based not on monastic but on family life. However his ideas of family were centered not on a traditional nuclear family of parents and children. Indeed, he wanted to break traditional family bonds by organizing communal families based on age, marital status and gender. The banden, or small groups, continued but were organized into "choirs" based on age, marital status, and gender. Zinzendorf's theology recognized that at each stage of life, we had different spiritual needs and a different relationship with the Savior. Moravian communities based on this model, such as Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and Salem, North Carolina, were designed for the sole purpose of serving Christ, who also was considered to be the community leader. In these communities, a radical equality of spiritual life was practiced. In Bethlehem, nobility and converted native Americans shared common quarters; in Salem, slaves were full members of the Church and could be elected to offices of leadership.

Zinzendorf was consecrated a bishop at Berlin on 20 May 1737 by Bishops David Nitschmann der Bischof and Daniel Ernst Jablonski.