Gnadau. So much community spirit, so much commitment, so much history that still shapes the place today! Add to that houses and roads from the Baroque period, planned and built according to Christian ideals. Above all, it is faith that still unites and drives many people here. Gnadau, this comparatively small village with 500 inhabitants near Barby in the Salzlandkreis district, is special in every way. District Administrator Markus Bauer and Sparkasse CEO Hans-Michael Strube saw this for themselves a few days ago during a tour with Mayor Andreas Gutsche.
"You can really feel the togetherness here, there is so much here that describes the rural area so wonderfully, but which is unfortunately generally so little known," summarised the district administrator after a good two hours and several encounters with the residents. As a first step, Gnadau is therefore to receive a stamp centre for the Salzländer Kulturstempel. "There isn't just one special place here, the whole place is special," explains Hans-Michael Strube. Both are volunteers on the board of the Salzländer Kulturstempel association.
For centuries, members of the Moravian Brethren, a Protestant religious community that founded a congregation in Herrnhut in eastern Saxony in 1722 and whose members laid the first foundation stone in Gnadau in 1767, have been responsible - in a positive sense - for the special sense of community and the preservation of tradition. In the decades that followed, a religious planned town was built to meet the needs of the people, a "meadow of God's grace", as local mayor Andreas Gutsche explained during the tour. He is also on the board of the Moravian Church.
Outside the religious community, the Moravian Church is best known for the Herrnhut Advent Star, which is equipped with 25 rays and is hung up by many people around the world at the beginning of the pre-Christmas period. In addition, the Moravian Church also publishes "The Watchwords", words from the Old and New Testaments, on a daily basis. In general, the influence of this free church on Christian life has been great for centuries.
Today, there are still 1.2 million members, mainly in Europe, North and South America, Africa and Asia, as well as places that the Moravian Church built along the same lines as Gnadau in the Salzland district. Bethlehem in the USA, Christiansfeld in Denmark, Gracehill in Great Britain and Herrnhut in Saxony even belong to the transnational UNESCO World Heritage Sites due to their unique building culture. A feature that District Administrator Markus Bauer and Savings Bank Board Member Hans-Michael Strube can well imagine for Gnadau as well, in order to draw even more attention to the importance of the Salzland district.
All Herrnhut communities are not only united by a common architecture, but also by shared values that are not only practised on special occasions such as the brass band meetings, but also in everyday life. "Many people here invest a lot of time on a voluntary basis to make others in the village and beyond happy," explains local mayor Andreas Gutsche. District Administrator Markus Bauer expressed his thanks for this commitment.