Zionites (Germany)

Zioniten (also Zionsbrüder or enthusiast ) were faith groups who separated in the 18th century by the Protestant churches.

Zioniten by Elias Eller

The Zioniten, also Ellerianische sect, Elle Generic rotting, Ronsdorfer sect or Philadelphian firm, was a founded by Elias Eller in communion with his second wife Anna Catharina by Büchel and the Reformed preacher Daniel Schleyermacher in Elberfeld fanatical and radical pietistic Christian sect.

The residents of Elberfeld (now Wuppertal- Elberfeld ) were to the early 18th century almost all members of the Reformed Church. There were in 1658 only six Catholic families. The population was largely excluded from political, as the Catholic government of the Duchy of Jülich -Berg hired no Protestant officials. The learned booth was only represented by a preacher and teacher of the Latin school. The bourgeoisie pursued religiously essentially two different directions:

• Orthodox- Reformed congregation, which moved in the traditions of the 17th century,
• The zinzendorfisch - herrnhutische ( Philadelphian ) municipality except the ecclesiastical edification also sought an intimate religious community. This direction had been promoted by prominent revivalists such as Ernst Christoph high man of Hochenau.

A small Lutheran congregation was only a short time before by a group of immigrants.

Radical Pietism came at that time under the influence of the Inspired who lived an ecstatic - visionary religiosity. So Anna Catharina had from Büchel since about 1722 ecstasies and visions. Since 1726 she held regularly in Elberfeld pietistic edification from which were initially tolerated by the Reformed Church. In the Elberfeld firm withdrew from Büchel as soon prophetess regularly, and very quickly a solid group of followers gather around. She was employed as a maid in the house of Bolckhaus family where they presumably for the first time her future husband Elias Eller encountered.

Eller, foreman in the factory foil tape his first wife Catherine Bolckhaus, had by his imaginative interpretations of the Bible in edification a strong spiritual authority among his comrades. First decided his followers and supporters, within the carried along by Elias Eller Philadelphian Societät as Pietist society or conventicles, similar to previously Jane Leade in England, to fertilize the spiritual and religious life.

Eller is from Büchel in private edification who explains 21.1-2 LUT the scripture Revelation, which says that in the Apocalypse, the Last Judgment and the final battle between God and the devil, in the end God will emerge victorious from this battle. Then, the earth and the sky will be renewed and a city will come down from heaven, the New Jerusalem. Büchel showed therefrom particularly inspired.

In the first year of their prophecies fifty households were counted in the movement. The revelations were recorded by Anna Eller in a book, which bears the name Ronsdorfer shepherd's bag (see: Yalkut ). The trailers were included in a list and called Sealed. This directory was part of the shepherd's bag and remained so. Anna from Büchel was called by her followers Mother Zion, Zion Elias Eller father. In addition, they had more Ehrbezeichnungen as the tabernacle of God is with men, Mother Jerusalem, or the Ark of the Testament.

Outstanding trailer Ellers and from Büchels were reformed theologians like Pastor Daniel Schleyermacher, grandfather of later theologians Friedrich Schleiermacher, and Peter Wülffing (1701-1776) from Solingen.

Extract after Ronsdorf

Continuously demanded by Büchel to extract from Elberfeld, which they equated with Babylon on. Starting no later than 1726, they predicted, among other things, that she and Elias Eller would build the new Zion, and that she was called to testify by Elias Eller a son who would dominate as the new savior and messiah the world (see also Rev 12.5 LUT ). At the age of 36 years she married on January 26, 1734 Elias Eller, after it had separated in 1727 by his first wife Catherine Bolckhaus and divorced in 1733. Already in 1727 Eller had announced their intention to marry from Büchel. On July 4, 1734, the first son Benjamin was born which, however, on November 21, 1735 died suddenly. Then she gave birth in July 1736 daughter Anna, who died shortly after birth in August of the same year. 1738 was born on December 6, Rachel on January 1, Sarah († 1770) and a year.

With its special interpretation of the Reformed doctrine of election ( predestination ) Eller came with the Elberfeld Reformed congregations in conflict. To avoid the pressure, he bought in 1737 a portion of his former family court Ronsdorf (1494 first mentioned ) back across the border from Elberfeld, and in the same year attracted the first Zioniten from Elberfeld in the new emerging settlement called Ronsdorf which the followers of the Philadelphian looked firm as the Heavenly Jerusalem. From Büchel had foreseen that the leadership of the extract from Elberfeld to Ronsdorf should happen under her and Ellers instructions, both are of the tribe of Judah, the tribe of David, sprung, and both would now bring about the millennium.

All the houses of the settlement were modeled after the biblical camp of the Israelites to the " tabernacle ," that is, the community center and houses of Eller and Schleyermacher aligned. Elias Eller was elected mayor of Ronsdorf. At the same time he was master in his parish church. In fact, Eller was next to the pastor Schleyermacher the seminal figure in the new community. Through good contacts to Berlin for the Prussian court succeeded the ecclesiastical independence of Elberfeld and to obtain the municipal independence of Lennep with its own city charter.

Decline

Ellers opponents accused him of promiscuity within his sect with the ancestress Anna before, an increasing trend toward sensuality " with coarse debauchery " ( special interpretations of love feasts ) within the leadership of the sect.

In the following years, split with Schleyermacher a doubting the authenticity of the revelations larger group of community from, and Schleyermacher was subsequently excluded from the community. 1745 Rev. Peter Wülffing from Solingen, a trailer Ellers, chosen as a preacher. After Ellers death in 1750 his stepson John Bolckhaus came alone to the top of Zioniten, and the sooner that occurred as a prophetess daughter Ellers, Sarah, trying to divine their pronunciations Bolckhaus and Wülffing in the fight against Schleyermacher and the doubters to strengthen. An investigation of blasphemy, witchcraft and treason was arranged through slander and bribery in the course of a command of 160 soldiers to arrest Schleyer -maker was sent to Elberfeld on 24 April in 1750. However, this could flee to his married in Arnhem / Holland sister.

After Ronsdorf was in 1754 resigned from the Synod, the decline of the faith community took on more and more. Wülffing verstritt with Bolckhaus and was suspended at whose request from Düsseldorf's government. On May 31, 1768 community was created with the election of a new preacher named Herminghaus again in the Reformed Church.

Zioniten in Norway

Also in Norway, which was then still part of the Danish-Norwegian state as a whole, established under the influence of the Danish theologian Søren Jensen Bølle in the 18th century a radical pietistic faith community with the name Zioniten ( Norwegian / Danish: Zioniter or Zionitter ). Bølle was already in 1737 came with the Anabaptist- Pietist Tunkern in Krefeld in touch. In Drammen, Norway he then turned to the local Moravians. In the 1740s he finally broke completely with the Evangelical Lutheran Church. The aim of the new radical pietistic faith group was to set up a kingdom of the King of Zion, to establish a " common kingdom of Christ ." They rejected infant baptism and practiced instead the believer's baptism exclusively with members of their community. The Last Supper was not kept. Men wore long beards and usually leather belt around the waist or white bands around the arm, on which the word " Zion " and a " mysterious figure" was sewn. The prophet of the group was called Jürgen Kleinow, her apostle was Søren Bølle. Your meetings they held sometimes on a hill and prayer daily " under a lot of shouting " outdoors.

In 1743, the community was expelled from Norway, but received by King Christian IV permission to settle in the then Danish Altona. Because of their rejection of any lawful order, they were ordered to leave in 1744 by the Government of Denmark. Some emigrated and sought a union with the Mennonites, of which they were denied. Other submitted to the state law, after they had passed the outward signs of the sect. In 1747 there were in Altona nor the foreign company in which the Zioniten practiced still, however, the sect soon lost its importance and broke up.

Demarcation

In the mid-18th century there was an extensive international network of radical Pietism. It corresponded to the self- understanding of the Radical Pietists, with like-minded people to maintain contact across all borders, as they understood themselves as " true church of Christ." However, whether the Rondorfer sect with the Norwegian Zioniten was in contact and to what extent he covered his beliefs, is not clear.