The Recovery of the Initial Stage of the Church Life
The merging of these flows resulted in a move to recover the initial stage of the church life in the oneness of the Holy Spirit, which was evident among the Moravian Brethren in the 1700s. The origins of the Moravian Brethren, however, can be traced back to John Huss’s time. After the persecutions of the Catholic Church, the number of Protestants in what is the present-day Czech Republic declined, but a remnant remained and was dispersed across northern and central Europe. A small group of believers in Moravia, led by a brother called Christian David, boldly proclaimed the truth and caused a revival, but, as a result, they were persecuted by the Catholic Habsburg Empire and fled their homeland.
Portrait of Christian David (Kristián David) | Source
In 1722 they came as refugees to Count von Zinzendorf in Saxony, in the eastern part of Germany. Zinzendorf received them, and they began to build a community in a new village called Herrnhut. Various Christians escaping from persecution found their way there.
Portrait of Count von Zinzendorf | Source
After a period of discord because of their different backgrounds, Zinzendorf urged the believers to be one. They signed an agreement and met in oneness. When they partook of the Lord’s table together in an atmosphere of oneness, the Holy Spirit was poured out upon them, and they experienced a great revival. They set up continuous prayer for twenty-four hours a day, and they were the first Protestant group to begin overseas missionary work.
Brother Lee says the following about Zinzendorf and his group:
Two centuries after Luther, seeking Christians in northern Europe were under persecution and forced to leave their countries. Many went to Germany, where a brother named Zinzendorf, who genuinely loved the Lord, allowed them to settle on his large estate. These persecuted ones came to Zinzendorf’s estate with many differing opinions, and their dissension and fighting increased after their arrival. One day in 1727 Zinzendorf called them together and convinced them to drop their disputations and to hold only to the items of the common faith. That Lord’s Day, at the Lord’s table, they experienced an outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and there was a great revival. This began the first practice of the church life in the Lord’s recovery, but the light that these Moravian Brethren saw was not very clear. (The Recovery of Christ in the Present Evil Age, p. 37)
History shows us that there was a desire within many seeking ones for the proper church life. They could not express this inward desire, but actually there was something in them seeking or hunting the proper church life. In the eighteenth century the Lord moved among the Moravian brethren under the leadership of Count [von] Zinzendorf to recover something of the practice of the church life.
To our knowledge, since the time of the early apostles, the Moravian brothers might be considered as the first group of Christians to realize the church life in a somewhat proper way. Therefore, God’s blessing was poured out upon them. Although they enjoyed the practice of the church life to a certain degree, they were still not clear about many aspects of the truth concerning the church. (The History of the Church and the Local Churches, pp. 32-33)