Doors

The early American Moravians were uncommonly aware of their need to manage and conserve their environment. 

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

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

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 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. The more narrow door for people and the other for a coffin as the photographs illustrate.

I cannot help but see a metaphor in the pictured church doors. It was Jesus that said the door and pathway to life is narrow; and the door to death, alas, is wide Matthew 7:13-14. 

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 of this sacred space the same again.