The Exiles of Herrnhut

In 1722, a ragged band of Moravian refugees stumbled onto the estate of Count Nikolaus von Zinzendorf in Saxony. They had been driven from their homeland in Moravia, their churches burned, their families scattered across borders. For generations, the spiritual descendants of Jan Hus had known little but persecution, displacement, and the ache of a faith practiced in hiding.

Zinzendorf gave them land on his estate, a place they named Herrnhut — "the Lord's Watch." But even in safety, the community fractured. Old theological disputes surfaced. Factions formed. By 1727, the settlement teetered on collapse. The refugees who had survived so much now seemed ready to destroy themselves from within.

Then something shifted. Zinzendorf led the community in sustained, desperate prayer. They gathered not with polished liturgy but with raw, tear-soaked pleading — confessing division, mourning what they had lost, begging God to turn His face toward them again. On August 13, 1727, during a communion service at Berthelsdorf, the Holy Spirit fell with such power that eyewitnesses said no one could tell who was weeping and who was singing.

That is the cry of Psalm 80. "Restore us, O God; let Your face shine upon us, that we may be saved." The psalmist knew what the Moravians learned at Herrnhut: that the deepest restorations begin not with strategy or strength, but with a broken people turning their faces upward toward the Shepherd of Israel, trusting that He still hears.