August Gottlieb Spangenberg (15 July 170418 September 1792) was a German theologian and minister, and a bishop of the Moravian Church. As successor of Count Nicolaus Zinzendorf, he helped develop international missions and stabilized the theology and organization of the German Moravian Church. Early life and education Spangenberg was born in Klettenberg, now a part of Hohenstein, Thuringia, where his father, Georg Spangenberg, was the pastor and ecclesiastical inspector. Left an orphan at the early age of thirteen, the young Spangenberg attended the gymnasium (secondary school) at Ilfeld. In 1722, he entered the University of Jena to study law. J. F. Buddeus, a professor, took him into his family and arranged a scholarship. Spangenberg soon abandoned law for theology, obtaining his degree in 1726 and began to giving free lectures on theology. Career Spangenberg took an active part in a religious union of students, supporting free schools for poor children established in the suburbs of Jena and in training teachers. In 1728, Count Zinzendorf visited Jena, and Spangenberg met him. In 1730, Spangenberg visited the Moravian colony at Herrnhut and founded a "collegium pastorale practicum" for the care of the sick and poor at Jena, which the authorities broke up as a "Zinzendorfian institution", seen as a challenge to the state. Spangenberg visited the Moravian colony, whose approach appealed to him. Meanwhile, his free lectures in Jena were widely accepted. Gotthilf Francke offered him the post of assistant professor of theology and superintendent of schools connected with his orphanage at Halle. He accepted the offer in September 1732. But differences between the pietists of Halle and Spangenberg emerged with Sangenberg finding their religious life too formal, external and worldly. The pietists could not sanction his comparative indifference to doctrine and his tendency to separatism in church life. Spangenberg's decision to take part in private observances of the Lord's Supper and his connection with Count Zinzendorf brought matters to a crisis. The Senate of the Theological Faculty gave him the alternative of doing penance, submitting to his superiors, and separating from Zinzendorf, or leaving the issue to be settled by the king unless he preferred to "leave Halle quietly." The case went to the king, who ordered the military to expel Spangenberg from Halle, which they did on April 8, 1733. At first Spangenberg went to Jena, but Zinzendorf sought to secure him as a fellow labourer, though the count wished