Moravian star
Encyclopedia
Advent
Advent is a season observed in many Western Christian churches, a time of expectant waiting and preparation for the celebration of the Nativity of Jesus at Christmas. It is the beginning of the Western liturgical year and commences on Advent Sunday, called Levavi...
or Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
decoration popular in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and in places in America and Europe where there are Moravian congregations. The stars take their English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
name from the Moravian Church; in Germany, they are known as Herrnhut
Herrnhut
Herrnhut is a municipality in the district of Görlitz, in the Free State of Saxony, Germany.It has access to Bundesstraße 178 between Löbau and Zittau...
stars, named for the Moravian Mother Community in Saxony
Saxony
The Free State of Saxony is a landlocked state of Germany, contingent with Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with of Germany's sixteen states....
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, where they were first commercially produced.
History
The first Moravian star is known to have originated in the 1830s at the Moravian Boy's School in NieskyNiesky
Niesky is a small town in Upper Lusatia in eastern the Free State of Saxony, Germany. It has a population of about 11,000 and is part of the district of Görlitz....
, Germany, most probably as a geometry lesson or project. The first mention is of a 110-point star for the 50th anniversary of the Paedagogium (classical school for boys) in Niesky. Around 1880, Peter Verbeek, an alumnus of the school, began making the stars and their instructions available for sale through his bookstore. His son Harry went on to found the Herrnhut
Herrnhut
Herrnhut is a municipality in the district of Görlitz, in the Free State of Saxony, Germany.It has access to Bundesstraße 178 between Löbau and Zittau...
Star Factory, which was the main source of stars until World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. Although damaged at the end of World War II during which Herrnhut
Herrnhut
Herrnhut is a municipality in the district of Görlitz, in the Free State of Saxony, Germany.It has access to Bundesstraße 178 between Löbau and Zittau...
was heavily damaged, the Star Factory resumed manufacturing them. Briefly taken over by the Communist DDR government in the 1950s, the factory was returned to the Moravian Church-owned Abraham Dürninger Company, which continues to make the stars in Herrnhut Other star-making companies and groups have sprung up since then. Some Moravian congregations have congregation members who build and sell the stars as fund raisers.
Cultural Importance
Although the star originated in the church's schools as a geometry lesson, it was soon adopted throughout the Moravian Church as an AdventAdvent
Advent is a season observed in many Western Christian churches, a time of expectant waiting and preparation for the celebration of the Nativity of Jesus at Christmas. It is the beginning of the Western liturgical year and commences on Advent Sunday, called Levavi...
symbol. At the time, Moravian Congregations were inhabited exclusively by Moravians and the church owned and controlled all property. Daily life was centered on their Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
faith and there was no distinction between the secular and the sacred, even in their daily activities. Everything was considered worship. It did not take long for the stars to go from a pastime for children to an occupation for the congregation.
Moravian stars continue to be a popular Christmas and Advent decoration throughout the world. The stars are often seen in Moravian nativity
Nativity scene
A nativity scene, manger scene, krippe, crèche, or crib, is a depiction of the birth of Jesus as described in the gospels of Matthew and Luke...
and putz
Christmas village
A Christmas village is a decorative, miniature-scale village often set up during the Christmas season. These villages are rooted in the elaborate Christmas traditions of the Pennsylvania Dutch...
displays as a representation of the Star of Bethlehem
Star of Bethlehem
In Christian tradition, the Star of Bethlehem, also called the Christmas Star, revealed the birth of Jesus to the magi, or "wise men", and later led them to Bethlehem. The star appears in the nativity story of the Gospel of Matthew, where magi "from the east" are inspired by the star to travel to...
. Large advent stars shine in the dome of the Frauenkirche
Dresden Frauenkirche
The Dresden Frauenkirche is a Lutheran church in Dresden, eastern Germany.Built in the 18th century, the church was destroyed in the firebombing of Dresden during World War II. It has been reconstructed as a landmark symbol of reconciliation between former warring enemies...
in Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
and over the altar of the Thomaskirche where Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
is buried in Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
. The city of Winston-Salem, North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
, founded by Moravians in 1766, uses the Moravian star as their official Christmas street decoration. In addition, a 31-foot Moravian star, one of the largest in the world, sits atop the North Tower of Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center
Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center
Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center is a teaching hospital located in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. It is the largest employer in Forsyth County with over 11,000 employees at its main location, and a total of 100 buildings on , including a 196-acre research farm and a research center downtown.The...
during the Advent and Christmas seasons.
The use of the stars during the Advent and Christmas season is also a tradition in the West Indies, Greenland, Suriname, Labrador, Central America, South and East Africa and Ladakh in India and parts of Scandinavia, wherever the Moravian Church has sent missionaries.
Types of Stars
There are many forms of Moravian stars, but the most commonly seen and most widely available is the 26-point form, composed of eighteen square and eight triangular cone shaped points. This shape is technically known as a Great Stellated RhombicuboctahedronRhombicuboctahedron
In geometry, the rhombicuboctahedron, or small rhombicuboctahedron, is an Archimedean solid with eight triangular and eighteen square faces. There are 24 identical vertices, with one triangle and three squares meeting at each. Note that six of the squares only share vertices with the triangles...
. Each face of the geometric solid in the middle, the Rhombicuboctahedron, serves as the base for the "stellations" or starburst points. No matter how many points a star has, a Moravian star has a regular shape, based on polyhedron
Polyhedron
In elementary geometry a polyhedron is a geometric solid in three dimensions with flat faces and straight edges...
s. There are Moravian stars with 20, 26, 32, 50, 64 and 110 points that are commonly hand-made in the Moravian schools. The variety comes from the division of the bases of the points---using an octagonal face instead of a square face, etc. For example, the common 26-point Moravian Star becomes a 50-point Star when the squares and triangles that normally make up the faces of the polyhedron become octagons and hexagons. This leaves a 4-sided trapezoidal-shaped hole in the corners of the faces. This is filled with an irregular four sided point. These 4-sided points form a "starburst" in the middle of what looks like a regular 26-point star.
Simple paper decorations made from four folded strips of paper are sometimes incorrectly called "Moravian" stars, but are known as German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
stars, Swedish
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
stars, Bethlehem
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
Bethlehem is a city in Lehigh and Northampton Counties in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 74,982, making it the seventh largest city in Pennsylvania, after Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown, Erie,...
stars, or more correctly as Froebel star
Froebel star
A Froebel star or German star is a decoration item made of paper. Its name derives from the German pedagogue Friedrich Fröbel. It is made of four paper stripes of equal length which are folded in a special manner without the use of scissors....
s, named after Friedrich Fröbel, the German educator who invented them.