Visiting Herrnhut

A couple of people have asked for information about visiting Herrnhut - so here is the (very brief and totally non-definitive) guide.

Getting there: The nearest large city is Dresden. Dresden airport has some direct flights, but if not then you are probably looking at coach or train from Berlin or Leipzig. For a location map, click here.

Accommodation: The Moravian church operate a public guest hostel called the TEH. This is recently refurbished, clean, friendly, and centrally located. They are well set up for receiving groups or families (this is where the 24-7 Roundtable met). Click 'Kontakt' for phone details. There is one other commercial guest house in town (the 'Alt Herrnhuter Haus'), and a number of smaller B&B / self catering type places.

What to visit: This is only a small village! The Heimatmuseum covers the history of the place, the Völkerkundemuseum has artifacts from the many cultures that the missionaries went out to, and the Archives are for more serious research. The cemetery or Gottes Acker on the Hutberg contains the grave of Zinzendorf and many others, and also has the prayer tower ('Altarn'). The main Moravian church hall is right in the centre of town. In nearby Berthelsdorf you will find Zinzendorf's manor house (visits by arrangement, occasional prayer events) and the Lutheran church where the holy spirit visitation of 1727 took place. For this and other local info, visit www.herrnhut.de.

Unfortunately, most of these web resources are in German. If you are a non-German speaker, your best bet is to look for the word 'Kontakt', click it, and try and find a phone number. There are enough international visitors that many of these places will speak a bit of English.

Ecce Homo

This image is said to be the painting 'ecce homo' which challenged the 18-year-old Zinzendorf to commit his life to the service of Christ. However, in a twist worthy of Dan Brown, that ecce homo picture is decidedly elusive when you try and get beyond the stuff that everyone knows!

Accepted wisdom in Moravian circles is that it was painted by Domenico Feti – but I’ve really struggled to confirm that via artistic sources. I can find an ecce homo by Feti, but it is very different in style and has no inscription. Of course he may have painted more than one. It is also known that the same picture (supposedly!) inspired English hymn writer Frances Ridley Havergal to write ‘I gave my life for thee’ in the 19th century. One account of that event gives the latin inscription as Hoe feci pro te; quid facis pro me? My almost nonexistent Latin would seem to confirm that these words could be those which inspired Zinzendorf – but they almost certainly don’t match those beneath the painting shown at Zinzendorf.com. To further confuse matters, many versions of the Havergal story place the picture in Dusseldorf but cite the artist as Sternberg. Weinlick also suggests that the picture later hung in Munich!

Can anyone out there cast any light on the history of this enigmatic image, or confirm the exact text of the Latin inscription beneath it?