1723–1801

Introduction

Born: Jan­ua­ry 1, 1723, Dirs­dorf, Si­le­sia (now Przerzeczyn-Zdrój, Pol­and).

Died: No­vem­ber 6, 1801, Ber­thels­dorf, Ger­ma­ny.

Biography

Christian was the son of Ge­org Greg­or, a pea­sant in Dirs­dorf.

In 1742 Chris­tian went to Herrn­hut, where he at first worked for his tu­i­tion. He be­came lead­er of the mu­sic in the Mo­ra­vi­an Breth­ren’s con­gre­ga­tion at Herrn­haag in 1748, and at Zeist in 1749.

In 1753 he re­turned to Herrn­hut as ca­shier of the Breth­ren’s Board of Di­rect­ion. He was or­dained di­a­co­nus in 1756, pres­by­ter in 1767, and bi­shop of the Breth­ren’s Church in 1789.

On No­vem­ber 6, 1801, he at­tend­ed a meet­ing, held at Herrn­hut, of the Board of Di­rect­ion of which he had been a mem­ber since 1764. Just as he en­tered his house at Ber­thel­sdorf, near Herrn­hut, he was struck with pa­ral­y­sis (prob­ab­ly a stroke), and died that same day. (Koch, vi. 436; All­ge­meine Deutsche Bi­o­graph­ie, ix. 630.)

He was a man great­ly be­loved and re­spect­ed, sim­ple of heart, lov­ing, ear­nest and hard­work­ing; and was en­trust­ed with ma­ny im­port­ant mis­sions and vi­si­ta­tions.

His hymns are char­ac­te­rised by child­like fer­vour of de­vo­tion to his cru­ci­fied Lord. A num­ber ap­peared in Des klein­en Brü­der-Ge­sang­buchs drit­ter Theil, Bar­by, 1767; but they were most­ly con­tri­but­ed to the Ge­sang-buch zum Ge­brauch der evan­gel­isch­en Brü­der Ge­mein­en, Bar­by, 1778, of which he was the prin­ci­pal ed­it­or.

He was al­so an ex­cel­lent or­gan­ist, and ed­it­ed, in 1784, a col­lect­ion of ac­com­pa­ny­ing tunes for the hymn­book of 1778, con­tri­but­ing there­to va­ri­ous me­lo­dies by him­self.

A lit­tle vol­ume en­ti­tled His­tor­ische Nach­rteht vom Brü­der-Ge­sang­buche des Jahr­es 1778, und von des­sen Lied­er-Ver­fass­ern, Gna­dau, 1835 (2nd ed., 1851), oc­ca­sion­al­ly re­ferred to in these pag­es, is based on ma­ter­i­als col­lect­ed by Gre­gor.

Sources

Lyrics

Music

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