Francke Foundations

The Francke Foundations were founded by August Hermann Francke (1663–1727). In the spring of 1695, he used four thalers and sixteen groschen from his parish alms box to open a school for the poor; on 18 September 1698, the orphanage building's foundation stone was laid, with an electoral charter to back it. The crest on the main building's gable was his own choice: two eagles rising toward the sun on outstretched wings, with a banner inscribed with Isaiah 40:31 — “But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength… they shall mount up with wings as eagles.”

The complex kept growing. The Lange Haus, completed in 1713–1716, is about 115 meters long and six stories tall, Europe's largest timber-framed building, built as a student dormitory. The pharmacy manufactured medicines at scale, shipping as far as the courts of Vienna and Russia, each shipment accompanied by instructions for self-medication — making it Germany's first international mail-order pharmacy. Francke also founded Germany's first teacher-training seminary, whose model helped bring about Prussia's compulsory-schooling edict of 1717. By the time he died in 1727, more than 2,200 students were enrolled, with 175 teachers and 8 inspectors — about 3,000 people in the whole “school city.”

In 1946, the foundation was dissolved in the Soviet occupation zone; it was revived as a public-law foundation in 1991/92, and the historic orphanage building was restored in 1995. Today, about 4,000 people learn, work, and live across these grounds: three kindergartens, four schools, the Canstein Bible Center, a historical library holding 50,000 antiquarian volumes, and Germany's oldest surviving Baroque museum room — a Kunst- und Naturalienkammer holding about 3,000 objects of art and natural history. The foundation once applied for UNESCO World Heritage status, withdrew the application in January 2016, and remains on Germany's tentative list, seeking to apply again.

An orphanage built on prayer went on to shape a mission map stretching from India to North America: the first organized Protestant overseas mission drew both its people and its theology from Halle, and the Hallesche Berichte, history's first Protestant mission periodical, was edited and printed right here in the orphanage. Walk into the Foundations today, and the two eagles still stand on the gable. Our Chinese fellowship shares this city with them, and the promise carved over the lintel has not changed in three hundred years — it still holds for those who wait on the Lord.