Lord's New Church Which Is Nova Hierosolyma

The Lord's New Church Which Is Nova Hierosolyma was founded in 1937 by former members of the General Church of the New Jerusalem under the leadership of Rev. Theodore Pitcairn. The ideas leading to its formation can be traced to writings of a Dutch layman, H. D. G. Groeneveld, who began the periodical De Hemelsche Leer (The Celestial Doctrine) in 1929. Emanuel Swedenborg, whose writings form the distinctive body of material used by the General Church of the New Jerusalem, proposed the idea that the Bible had, in addition to its planned material meaning, a spiritual meaning that had been revealed through the communications between Swedenborg and the angelic realm. The General Church placed great authority on the writings of Swedenborg, but Groeneveld went further and proposed that Swedenborg's writings, like the Bible, also had an inner spiritual meaning. The Lord's New Church was founded after the General Church rejected Groeneveld's perspective.

In the United States, former General Church minister Theodore Pitcairn emerged as an early champion of the new perspective, about which he wrote The Book Sealed with Seven Seals in 1927 to present the idea to the American church. In 1937 he led in the formation of two congregations, one in Bryn Athyn, adjacent to the General Church headquarters, and one in Yonkers, New York. As of 1997, there were three North American congregations, one in Charleston, South Carolina, Asheville, North Carolina, and and Byrn Athyn, Pennsylvania. Eventually, support was found among Swedenborgians in Holland, Sweden, South Africa, Japan, and the United Kingdom. The Lord's New Church can be reached at 1725 Huntingdon Rd., P.O. Box 465, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009-0465. Website: http://www.novahierosolyma.org/.