Moravian star

AMoravian star(German:Herrnhuter Stern) is an illuminated decoration used during the Christian liturgical seasons ofAdvent,Christmas, andEpiphanyrepresenting theStar of Bethlehempointing towards the infant Jesus.TheMoravian Churchteaches:
The Moravian star is popular in places  where there are Moravian Christian congregations world wide The stars take theirEnglishname from theMoravian Church, originating inMoravia. In Germany, they are known asHerrnhutstars, named after the Moravian Mother Community inSaxony,Germany, where they were first commercially produced. With the rise ofecumenism, the use the Moravian star has spread beyond the Moravian Church to other Christian denominations, such as the Lutheran Church and Catholic Church, as well as the Methodist Church.
The first Moravian star is known to have originated in the 1830s at the Moravian Boys' School inNiesky, Germany, as a geometry lesson or project. The first mention is of a 110-point star for the 50th anniversary of thePaedagogium(classical school for boys) in Niesky. Around 1880, Peter Verbeek, an alumnus of the school, began making the stars and their instructions available for sale through his bookstore.His son Harry went on to found theHerrnhutStar Factory, which was the main source of stars untilWorld War I. Although heavily damaged at the end ofWorld War II, the Star Factory resumed manufacturing them. Briefly taken over by the government ofEast Germanyin the 1950s, the factory was returned to the Moravian Church-owned Abraham Dürninger Company, which continues to make the stars in Herrnhut.Other star-making companies and groups have sprung up since then. Some Moravian congregations have congregation members who build and sell the stars as fund raisers.
The star was soon adopted throughout the Moravian Church as anAdventsymbol.
Moravian stars continue to be displayed  during Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany throughout the world, even in areas without a significant Moravian Church presence. Many Moravian households display their stars year-round. The stars are often seen in MoraviannativityandChristmas villagedisplays as a representation of theStar of Bethlehempointing towards the infant Jesus. They are properly displayed from the first Sunday in Advent (the fourth Sunday before Christmas) until the Festival of Epiphany (January 6). Large advent stars shine in the dome of theFrauenkircheinDresdenand over the altar of theThomaskircheinLeipzig. A 9.5-meter or 31-foot Moravian star, one of the largest in the world, sits atop the North Tower ofAtrium Health Wake Forest Baptistduring the Advent and Christmas seasons. The city ofWinston-Salem,North Carolina, which traces its origins toSalemhas Moravian origins dating to 1766, uses the Moravian star as their official Christmas street decoration.Another star sits underWake Forest University's Wait Chapel during the Advent and Christmas seasons as well.
The use of the stars during the Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany seasons is also a tradition in theWest Indies,Greenland,Suriname,Labrador,Central America,SouthandEast Africa,LadakhinIndia, and in parts of Scandinavia: wherever the Moravian Church has sent missionaries.
in 2020, as the world descended in to the Covid19 pandemic, Moravians began to ring, rehang their stars as a sign of love, hope and peace during dark times. On March 27, 2020Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptistreinstalled their 31 foot star, a top the North Tower.
The original Moravian star as manufactured in Herrnhut since 1897 exists only in a 26-point form, composed of eighteen square and eight triangular cone-shaped points.The 26th point is missing and used for mounting. This shape is technically known as aKleetopeof arhombicuboctahedron. Each face of the geometric solid in the middle, the rhombicuboctahedron, serves as the base for one of the pyramid augmentations or starburst points. This is the most commonly seen and most widely available form of Christmas star.
Other forms of Christmas star exist, which differ from the original Herrnhut Moravian star. No matter how many points a star has, it has a symmetrical shape based onpolyhedra. There are other stars with 20, 32, 50, 62 and 110 points that are commonly hand-made. The variety comes from various ways of forming the polyhedron that provides a base for the points—using an octagonal face instead of a square face, for example. The common original Herrnhut Moravian star becomes a 50-point star when the squares and triangles that normally make up the faces of the polyhedron become octagons and hexagons. This leaves a 4-sidedtrapezoidalhole in the corners of the faces which is then filled with an irregular four sided point. These 4-sided points form a "starburst" in the midst of an otherwise regular 26-point star.
Froebel stars, which are paper decorations made from four folded strips of paper, are sometimes inaccurately also called Moravian stars, among many other names.