English portfolio
The Estonian peasantry appears to have welcomed the movement of the Moravian Brethren
which had started in Herrnhut in Saxony. In contrast to the Pietism, emphasizing penitence in
the spirit of the Old Testament, the christocratic theological approach of the Moravians made
them an optimistic and popular movement. This began to spread widely among Estonian
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peasants in the 1730s, when the founder of the movement, Count Nikolaus Ludwig
Zinzendorf, visited Estonia.
As in its ministries elsewhere, the Estonian Moravian organization was based on Zinzendorf's
congregational administration which divided each congregation into so-called choirs. The
Moravian movement offered Estonian peasants new areas of activity and possibilities for self-
development. The social standing and consciousness of the elite of congregation heads
annaabi.ee 
