The Refugees Who Became One

In 1722, a ragged band of Protestant refugees from Moravia arrived on the estate of Count Nikolaus von Zinzendorf in Saxony. They were exhausted, divided, and fractured — Lutherans, Reformed, Hussites, and Anabaptists all crammed into a tiny settlement called Herrnhut. For five years, they bickered over doctrine, worship styles, and church governance. The community nearly collapsed under the weight of its own disagreements.

Then Zinzendorf did something remarkable. Rather than choosing sides, he drew up a covenant that centered not on theological uniformity but on mutual love and devotion to Christ. He walked from house to house, listening, reconciling, weeping with those who wept.

On August 13, 1727, during a communion service at the Berthelsdorf church, something broke open. Witnesses described an overwhelming sense of the presence of God falling on the congregation. Former enemies embraced. Old grievances dissolved. The community was so transformed that they launched a continuous prayer meeting that lasted — unbroken — for over one hundred years. From that tiny village, they sent more missionaries across the globe than the entire Protestant church had sent in the previous two centuries.

This is what Jesus prayed for in John 17. Not that His followers would agree on every point of theology, but that they would be one as He and the Father are one — bound by a love so visible, so tangible, that the watching world would have no choice but to believe that God had truly sent His Son.