Page 46 - Pilgrims in Georgia

V
The Expulsion and Pilgrimage

On October 31, 1731, the 248th anniversary of Martin Luther's
baptism, and of his posting his 95 theses on the Wittenberg
door, Count Leopold von Firmian, the Catholic archbishop and
prince of independent Salzburg, published an Edict of Expulsion,
requiring these people either to renounce their Lutheran
Evangelical Faith and return to Roman Catholicism, or leave the
country. He gave propertied subjects three months to dispose of
their holdings and leave the country; non-propertied persons

had only eight days to leave. Sadly on the eighth day there was
an intense snowstorm.
Pastor Samuel Urlsperger of Augsburg Germany) and his
organization, the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge,
identified the plight of the Salzburgers and prevailed upon King
George II of England for help. George, a German duke and a
Lutheran, sympathized with the Salzburgers and offered them a
place in his Georgia colony. About 300 Salzburgers, under the
leadership of pastors Johann Martin Boltzius and Israel Gronau,
accepted the invitation. Boltzius called their journey "into
danger, but closer to God", which sheds light on the harsh

conditions that travelers often faced during the eighteenth
century. This religiously motivated journey was seen as a chance
for the Salzburgers to come closer to God by taking on these
hardships in order to follow Christ and therefore, this movement
was seen as a pilgrimage more than as emigration. Boltzius
envisioned this new community as one where God was the
ultimate authority. Although he was chosen and seen as a leader
for the Salzburgers, he stressed that the ministers were
governed by God and that they would make all of the

administrative and disciplinary decisions in His name.