Gerhard Tersteegen

TERSTEEGEN (Ter Steegen) Gerhard. b. Moers, North Rhine-Westphalia (then part of Prussia), 25 November 1697; d. Mühlheim-an-der-Ruhr, 3 April 1769. He was educated at school in Mörs. His father’s death in 1703, and the family’s poverty meant that he was unable to go to the university, and he was apprenticed to a merchant at Mühlheim-an-der-Ruhr. He subsequently became a weaver, specializing in silk ribbons. From 1729 to 1724 he went through a period of depression, refusing to attend church or take Holy Communion on the grounds of his unworthiness. In 1724, however, he entered into a ‘covenant with God’, which he wrote down and signed with his blood: he began to attend the meetings of a...

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