Image - God's Acre

God’s Acre (German Gottesacker, lit. Field of God) is the traditional name given to the graveyards of Congregations of the Moravian Church.



God's Acre
Salem, North Carolina
Image Credit: Anonymous

The name, God’s Acre, comes from the biblical, understanding that the bodies of followers of Jesus are "sown as seed" - as in a field, so that they can rise again upon the Second Coming of Messiah Jesus. For that reason Moravian dead are buried facing east. They rest in hope.

Over the years I have watched as hundreds of bodies were lowered into their respective graves. The bodies of those that were believers will rise from their graves. (see: 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18) I will never cease to be amazed by that truth. Though they were sown a perishable body, they will be raised imperishable; they were sown in dishonor, they will be raised in glory; they were sown in weakness, they will be raised in power; they were sown a natural body, they will be raised a spiritual body (read: 1 Corinthians 15:42–44). Moravians historically take these Scriptural truths quite seriously. A renewed emphasis upon the bodily resurrection of the believing dead is always in season and is an impetus for missionary work.

Notice that the gravestones in God’s Acre are recumbent. They denote the Moravian belief in the democracy of death and make it impossible to distinguish between the graves of the well-to-do and the poor. All stones are uniform except for those marking the graves of children which are smaller than those for adults.

God's Acre is not literally one acre. Some are considerably larger and some even smaller.



God's Acre looking south
Salem, North Carolina
Photo Credit: Anonymous

Moravians bury their dead according to “choirs” or groups, rather than by families. “The “choirs” are: Married Men and Widowers, Married Women and Widows, Single Men, Single Women, Older Boys, Older Girls, Little Boys and Little Girls.” Burial in God’s Acre is limited to members of the Moravian Church.

The words of committal in the Moravian Book of Worship sum up well the things about which this post speaks.

“We now commit this body to the ground, in sure and certain hope of the resurrection of all believers to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ. He shall change our weak, mortal bodies and make them like his own glorious body, using that power by which he is able to bring all things under his rule.”

Image - Moravian Doors

The following words seemed to capture for me the foundation of the Christian religion and my hope for the Moravian tradition. 

“On him we’ll venture all we have, our lives, our all, to him we owe.

None else is able us to save, naught but the Savior will we know;

This we subscribe with heart and hand, resolved through grace whereby to stand.” 

The early American Moravians were uncommonly aware of their need to manage and conserve their environment. To their newly purchased 100,000 acres, in the 1750's, in North Carolina, they employed innovative land use policies and conservation practices. For example, to manage and steward wood a forester was appointed in 1759.

Moravian stewardship theory was combined with German ingenuity in the Moravian villages. The doors of older buildings are a case in point.

The construction of Salem Church, later known as Home Church, was begun in 1798 and its doors were and continue to be bivalve. That is to say, one panel was and is wider than the other. 

Excursus: The name "bivalve" is derived from the Latin bis, meaning "two", and valvae, meaning "leaves of a door". The larger definition of “bivalve” applies to a class of  mollusks with bodies enclosed by a hinged shell. Thus, a bivalve door is a door with two leaves.

Doors in early Moravian buildings were made as small as possible. They needed to be large enough to admit a person, but also let in the least cold in winter and heat in the summer.

Church doors were more complicated in former times, from the point of view of stewardship, because they were multifunctional. They had to be wide enough for a casket to enter. If the doors had two equally wide panels it would have necessitated opening both doors to admit the casket. The practical solution was to have two panels with one wider than the other. One being for people and the other for a coffin as the photographs illustrate.

Stewardship continues to the present to be a Moravian value. It is well to recall that humankind was given the mandate for stewardship of the environment. We read Genesis 1:26-30; and Genesis 2:15, in that regard.

As I close I cannot help but see a metaphor in the pictured church doors. It was Jesus that said the door and pathway to life are narrow and the door to death, alas, is wide Matthew 7:13-14. It is not curious that at Home Moravian Church the living entered by the narrow door and the dead, the wide. Though this symbol was not intended, I do not think I will ever see the church doors the same again. Food for thought.