Materialien und Dokumente

Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf (1700–1760) was one of the most important protestant theologians of the 18th century and the inventor of what are known as the Watchwords. Today these are the most widely-circulated protestant devotional texts in the world, comprising an Old Testament Bible verse selected for each day of the year, a related excerpt from the New Testament, and a hymn or prayer. They appear annually in book form, currently in some 50 languages from Afrikaans to Turkish, in an edition of over 1.7 million copies. A new language is added on average every five years. The Watchwords have been printed without interruption from 1731 to today. The form of the Watchwords has undergone constant change over the centuries. Especially in the Watchwords from Zinzendorf’s own time, we can recognise a great joy in experimentation and variety of forms. Until 1761 the Count prepared all the Watchwords himself. Therefore it was not a foregone conclusion that the Moravian Church would make the Watchwords its own after Zinzendorf’s death. This reprint edition of the years from 1761 to 1800 shows how the Watchwords developed into the central devotional and service book of the worldwide Moravian Church in the post-Zinzendorf era.