Christmas Post: The Moravian Christmas Pyramid

The early Moravians brought rich Christmas traditions to the English colony of Pennsylvania and the Wachovia of North Carolina. One of their traditions was the Christmas pyramid. These four-sided, pyramid-shaped frame structures had a long history in northern and eastern Germany.

The pyramids were placed on tables and hung with cookies, candies and fruit - and featured a nativity scene or Putz. At least as early as 1748, the Christmas pyramid was in use in Bethlehem. On Dec. 25 of that year, the Bethlehem Diary recorded the following:

"Quite early, the little children enjoyed a delightful festal occasion. Their brethren had decorated various pyramids with candles, apples and hymn stanzas and, also, drawn a picture in which the children were represented as presenting their Ave to the Christ-Child …"

The Christmas pyramid is a combination of whimsy and piety. The middle shelf is traditionally where the Nativity Scene or Putz was placed. The image above is my 2017 Christmas Pyramid. 

Christmas Post: The key to a Moravian Christmas & Moravian Christmas cakes

“The Moravians know how to keep Christmas,” but “the simple secret” of such a Christmas is “that the Lord Jesus Christ must have first place in it.” —The Wachovia Moravian, December 1895

Moravian Christmas Cakes

Sharing baked goods at Christmas was a popular Moravian tradition. Consider this diary entry dated December 21, 1834:

“On this day a great many people bake their Christmas cakes. There being but a few patterns in town, they are borrowed in every house and consequently only a few can bake at a time.”

The next year he wrote on December 21: “A disagreeable day. But Christmas cakes were to be baked tomorrow and so I started off to get some molasses…”

An unknown diarist wrote: “Of all Christmas odors — lingering whiff of cedar, spice of burning pine — there is none as redolent as the smell of baking Christmas cakes…”

The thin, spicy, ginger cookies sold today have evolved out of this centuries old Christmas tradition of Germans in North Carolina (Wachovia), Pennsylvania (Bethlehem) and Europe.

Travel for the early Moravians

Travel from Bethlehem, PA to North Carolina was done by the “Great Philadelphia Wagon Road”. That said, in the year 1753, the year the Moravians arrived in the Wachovia of North Carolina it was not yet a road. The “road” at the time was a path. The fifteen Moravian brothers often had to cut down trees and widen the path in order to pass. In places it was only three feet wide.

Eventually, the road was wide enough for the famed German Conestoga or Pennsylvania wagons. Wagons could carry up to ten tons and were pulled by five or six horse teams. The fastest of wagons could average about five miles a day. Designed like boats, with ends that were higher than the middle, once the wheels were removed the heavily-caulked wagon body could be floated across Western streams. 

By 1765 the Great Wagon Road was cleared sufficiently for such horse drawn vehicles. By 1775 the trail had grown into a decent road stretching about 700 miles. The distance for the Moravians traveling from North Carolina’s Wachovia to Philadelphia was 455 miles

Who are the Moravians?

A Moravian sister at Old Salem

The Moravian Church is a Protestant denomination. Early Moravians settled in the Piedmont of North Carolina, 250 some years ago and have contributed significantly to the area’s rich culture. 

The Pulpit of Jan Has

This denomination originated in the Czech Republic around 1415. They were, early on, followers of the martyr, Jan Hus.  

Moravian missionaries made their way from Germany to Pennsylvania, and then settled in Salem, NC, on 100,000 purchased acres known as the Wachovia Tract.  The living history experience, Old Salem, in Winston-Salem, seeks to preserve the history and way of life of these settlers and to educate visitors about their origins, worth and impact.

The Holy Spirit enabled the growth

In the year 1743 the Moravians recorded the following numbers with reference to converts to Jesus Christ as a result of missionary effort.

Greenland: 20

Cape of Good Hope: 30

Ceylon: 5

Bernice and Surinam: 27

St. Thomas: 300

St. Croix and St. John: 3

North American natives: 45

1 Corinthians 3:6

Gathering wood at the woodshed

A Moravian sister gathers firewood in her apron for the tavern kitchen at Old Salem, NC - a living history experience. 

Moravians standing with the Eastern Orthodox Church

In 1740 the patriarch of Constantinople, Neophytus , send a letter that affirmed the orthodoxy of the Moravian Church to all of the metropolitans of the Eastern Orthodox Church. 

Moravian Slaw

Ingredients

1 large head cabbage, rinsed and shredded

1 large onion, peeled and chopped

1 green bell pepper, seeded and chopped

1 small can diced pimento, undrained

1/2 cup pickled relish (sweet pepper relish)

Salt

1/2 cup very warm water

3/4 cup white vinegar

1 cup sugar

Directions

Trim cabbage and rinse with cold water. Place in mixing bowl. Add onion, bell pepper. Add pimento and pickled relish, and season with salt.

Mix together water and vinegar. Add sugar and stir to dissolve. Add to cabbage and mix well. Pat down and marinate overnight in refrigerator.

Recipe courtesy of Home Moravian Church, via, the Food Network

Moravian Music

Count Nicholas von Zinzendorf—an early leader of the Moravian Church—believed that worshippers were communicating with God not only through prayer, but through singing. One tradition that began with Count Zinzendorf was Singstunde or a song service, where the minister would begin singing hymns, and the sermon was presented through the texts of them.

Among the most famous Moravian musicians

of all time is Andy Griffith, who, as a kid, sang and played slide trombone in the band at Grace Moravian Church in Mount Airy. — Monthly Winston Salem

Quote: Count Zinzendorf on mission theory

Count Zinzendorf, an early leader of the Moravians, held this view. ”Missions, after all, is simply this: Every heart with Christ is a missionary, every heart without Christ is a mission field.”

What if anything, does the contemporary Christian church have to learn? 

Self-denial, Sacrifice and Prompt Obedience

The great 18th century leader of the Moravians, Zinzendorf, displayed a passion for Jesus. So also did his ardor for the lost. Parenthetically, does the contemporary Christian church in the West use the word "lost"? 

Count Zinzendorf became determined to evangelize the world with a handful of saints, equipped only with a burning love for Jesus and the power of prayer. The Moravian Brotherhood readily received and perpetuated the passion of their leader. 

A seal was designed to express their new found missionary zeal. (see the seal above) The seal was composed of a lamb on a crimson ground, with the cross of resurrection and a banner of triumph with the motto; “Our Lamb has conquered, let us follow Him.” It is not uncommon to see this emblem on automobiles in the Winston-Salem area.

The Moravians recognized themselves in debt to the world as the trustees of the gospel. They were taught to embrace a lifestyle of self-denial, sacrifice and prompt obedience. I suggest the contemporary church desperately needs to reclaim the concepts of "self-denial", "sacrifice" and "obedience" Agree?

These early Moravians followed the call of the Lamb to go anywhere and with an emphasis upon the worst and hardest places as having the first claim. No soldiers of the cross have ever been bolder as pioneers, more patient or persistent in difficulties, more heroic in suffering, or more entirely devoted to Christ and the souls of men than the Moravian Brotherhood. What a magnificent thing to be able to say about the church of Jesus Christ.