Ward 2 Development Forum

Moravian Church

Properties3
descriptionThe church that founded Genadendal. From Georg Schmidt's school of 1738 to the teachers' college, the printing press, the land held in trust, and the congregations of Genadendal, Bereaville, Voorstekraal, and Greyton today.
tagstheme/heritage, theme/trancraa, lang/en
aliasesMoravian Church in South Africa, Morawiese Kerk, Unitas Fratrum, Unity of the Brethren, Broederkerk

8 min read

For the Moravian Church in South Africa to review

This page is waiting for the Moravian Church in South Africa to check it. It is published now so that they can see how it fits with the rest of the site. Until they have approved the text, it may change. Questions for them:

  1. Does the page describe the church and its history in the valley correctly? What would you like to change?
  2. Are the figures of about 80,000 members and 84 congregations current?
  3. Which church records or histories should the page cite?
  4. Who in the church should the moderators contact about this page?

Because this page touches the mission settlement or its land, the Genadendal Transformasie Komitee will also be asked to check it.

The Moravian Church founded Genadendal, the first mission in southern Africa, and ran it for almost two centuries [IC]. It built the valley’s first school, its teachers’ college, its printing press, and the church on Church Square, and it held the mission land in trust for residents [IC]. Its congregations in Genadendal, Bereaville, Voorstekraal, and Greyton are listed in the Register. This page tells the church’s history in the valley.

What the letters in square brackets mean

Facts on this page are followed by a tag that shows where they come from.

  • [IC] Independently Corroborated. Confirmed by at least two sources that do not depend on each other, or by an official record.
  • [MS] Mission-Sourced. Comes from the institution’s own records, histories, or statements, or from one community’s own sources. It has not been checked against sources that do not depend on them.
  • [TBV] To Be Verified. Seems likely, but nobody has confirmed it yet.

At a glance

Founded1457, in Bohemia, as the Unitas Fratrum (Unity of the Brethren); renewed at Herrnhut in 1727 [IC]
In the valleyFrom 1737, with a break from 1744 to 1792 [IC]
What it isA Protestant church with an international structure, organised in provinces [IC]
TodayOne South African province, with about 80,000 members and 84 congregations [MS]

From Bohemia to the Cape

The church began in 1457 among followers of the Czech reformer Jan Hus [IC]. It was banned in 1620, and its last bishop, Jan Amos Comenius, led its members into exile [IC]. Families kept the faith in secret until refugees renewed the church at Herrnhut in Saxony, in 1727 [IC]. From 1732 Herrnhut sent craftsmen overseas as missionaries [IC].

The mission at Genadendal

  • 1737 to 1744. Georg Schmidt taught Khoekhoe people near the Sonderend River and at Baviaanskloof, and baptised five people in 1742 [IC]. The Dutch Reformed ministers and the Dutch East India Company stopped his work, and he left in 1744 [IC].
  • 1744 to 1792. With no missionary, Magdalena kept the congregation together [IC].
  • 1792. Three missionaries reopened the mission [IC]. The church counts Genadendal as its first congregation in South Africa [MS].
  • 1796 to 1806. A chapel, a forge, and a mill were built, and the mission was renamed Genadendal [IC]. Balie’s history dates the first chapel, the Middle House, to 1798, and records the first service in a larger church on 8 January 1800 [MS].
  • 1817 to 1840. Hans Peter Hallbeck led the church’s missions in South Africa from Genadendal, and in 1838 founded the teachers’ training college [IC].
  • 1837 to 1859. The mission’s printing press arrived, and Benno Marx founded De Bode van Genadendal [IC].
  • 1858. The mission land, now Farm 39, was granted to the church “for the use of and in trust for such persons as may from time to time be lawfully resident at the institution of Genadendal” [MS].
  • 1865. Missionaries started a school at Bereaville [MS].
  • 1891 to 1893. The congregation built the large church that stands on Church Square today, and it was consecrated on 15 March 1893 [MS]. Residents made the bricks, and women and children carried them to the site [MS].
  • 1899. The church bought the mountain farm Langgezocht to protect Genadendal’s water [MS].

The church also grew beyond the valley. From 1828 it worked among Xhosa-speaking people in the Eastern Cape, and in 1867 or 1868 its synod divided the church into two provinces: an Afrikaans-speaking western province and a Xhosa-speaking eastern one [IC].

Losing the running of Genadendal

In 1909 the Mission Stations and Communal Reserves Act placed mission land under management boards [IC]. Residents could live on the land but not own it, and Forum research describes this as the start of a deep rift between the missionaries and residents [MS]. Balie’s history says many residents left the Moravian Church over the Act [MS]. In 1924 a secular board took over the running of Genadendal from the missionaries [IC]. In the same year a group of residents known as the Magermans took the church to the Supreme Court over property rights [MS], and other churches came to the village, among them the Volkskerk and the Apostolic churches [MS]. In 1926 the government closed the teachers’ college [IC]. In 1927 about 70 hectares at the heart of Genadendal and Bereaville, the Glebe Lands, were granted to the church, and these sit outside the TRANCRAA process today [IC]. See TRANCRAA and Farm 39.

Restoring Church Square

In 1980 the church’s buildings on Church Square were declared national monuments [MS]. In 1986 the church started the Mission Trust Fund to restore them, and in 1987 the Mission Museum opened in the college building of 1838 [MS]. In 2000 the South African Heritage Resources Agency changed the status of the monuments and the museum collection from national to provincial [MS]. Around 2001 the Dutch government gave R11 million towards restoration [MS]. The church’s printing works closed in 2003, and its building became the Printing History Museum [MS].

One church again

Under apartheid, the division of the church into two provinces along lines of language and race became hard to defend [MS]. In 1991 the two synods resolved to form “one Moravian Church in South Africa”, and the united province was established in 1998 [IC]. The church’s offices, once at Genadendal, moved to Cape Town [MS].

Two views of the mission

The mission’s record is judged in more than one way. In the documentary series The Khoekhoe Saga (2023), critics of the missionaries say they came believing Khoisan faith was heathen and uncivilised, and that they may have helped destroy Khoekhoe culture without meaning to [MS]. One speaker says a person could not be baptised and keep a Khoi identity, so that baptism was a political act that stripped people of who they were [MS]. Others in the same series say the missions gave hope and a new way of life to people who had lost their land, and taught them to read and write [MS]. The church’s own response to these views has not yet been added to this page.

What is still open

  • When the church’s South African headquarters moved from Genadendal to Cape Town.
  • When the Moravian congregations of Bereaville, Voorstekraal, and Greyton were founded.
  • How the church and residents see the history of the 1909 Act and the rift it caused, in their own words.
  • How the church responds to the view that baptism at the missions stripped Khoekhoe people of their identity.

References

Graph View

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