
This silhouette, the only known image of Conrad Beissel, reflects his lack of regard for earthly vanities.
Conrad Beissel began his spiritual journey in Germany, when he converted to Pietism in Heidelberg. Pietism, a product of the European religious renewal, stressed "experiential faith" and ethical improvement, two qualities Beissel would later employ at Ephrata. Beissel soon had to flee Heidelberg when he faced legal troubles for his religious activities. After arriving in the colonies in 1720, Beissel settled in Conestoga, where he was baptized and later named the leader of a congregation. During this period, Beissel began certain religious practices that would come to typify the beliefs at Ephrata, such as observation of Saturday as the Sabbath and the promotion of celibacy over marriage. In 1732, Beissel gave up his leadership role and sought solitude at Cocalico Creek. Beissel's popularity kept him from being alone for long; members of his congregation followed him, beginning the settlement that would one day be known as Ephrata.

The meeting barn at the Ephrata Cloister is typical of the commune’s architectural style. The low doors on Ephrata buildings reminded members that “the door to heaven is small.”
In another show of self-denial, the comfort of a bed was exchanged for a bench and a wooden pillow in sex-segregated communal houses. Sleep was limited to six hours each night, from 9 p.m. to midnight, and again from 2 a.m. to 5 a.m. From midnight until 2 a.m., members of the cloister attended a mystical midnight matins that featured Beissel's preaching, where worshippers were once again divided by gender in separate meetinghouses. Beissel chose this time because he believed that, if Christ should return, it would be in the middle of the night.
Ephrata is also renowned for its architecture, another form of Beissel's devotion to austere living. The buildings at Ephrata traditionally had low doorways and narrow cells and halls. Beissel purposely planned the tiny doors to teach members that "the door to heaven is small," and the narrow corridors to show "the narrow way to paradise through ascetic living."
An adherence to celibacy was another form of self-restraint at the cloister. Members of the cloister were divided into three main orders: the Householder group, formed of married couples with families, the Sisterhood, which was comprised of female unmarried celibates, and the Brotherhood, formed of male unmarried celibates. Only the Brotherhood and Sisterhood were allowed to become full members of the cloister, revealing Beissel's promotion of celibacy over marriage. A final distinctive mark of Beissel's followers was the observation of a strict dress code. Male and female members alike wore white hooded robes that extended to their feet. These habits included a "pointed monk's hood" for the males, and a rounded hood for females.

Printed at Ephrata, this is the title page of The Martyr’s Mirror.
Ephrata's communal style of living peaked between 1745 and 1755. During this decade, approximately 300 people were members of the settlement or Householder families; however, this prime period was not to last. Attacks from both inside and outside the commune contributed to critically weaken the foundations upon which Ephrata was built. According to Jeff Bach in Voices of the Turtledoves, Beissel's conflicts with Israel Eckerlin were the first sign of trouble for Ephrata. Eckerlin, an administrative head within Ephrata, "steered members in a direction that was at odds with Beissel's vision of a separatist, severely ascetic lifestyle." Although Eckerlin was banished from Ephrata in 1745, his disputes with Beissel had planted doubts that weakened Ephrata at its core. After Beissel's death in 1768, the community began to crumble. The waning community then suffered an attack of typhoid in 1777 that killed a third of the commune, a disaster from which Ephrata never recovered. Ironically, it was the followers' strict adherence to celibacy that kept the commune from re-populating after the outbreak of typhoid, thus leading to the eventual abandonment of Ephrata. In 1814, the last four followers incorporated themselves into the German Seventh Day Baptist Church, closing the book on Ephrata's period as a commune.

Visitors to the Ephrata Cloister can see tour guides dressed in the white monastic robes required of Beissel’s followers.

The Ephrata Cloister, founded in 1732, is colonial America’s most famous commune as well as a national historic landmark.
Conrad Beissel could not have imagined the new direction Ephrata would take after his death. Ephrata, the isolated commune, now welcomes in visitors from all over the nation. What Beissel had pursued in the name of spiritual solitude has turned into a tourist attraction that attempts to share the values of Beissel's followers with future generations through the music, artwork, and books produced at the commune. These efforts, no matter how honest their intent, have reduced the complex aims and ascetic lifestyle of Ephrata to a set of strange customs visitors can sample for a day. The monastic robes and strict diet religiously observed at Ephrata have become quaint idiosyncrasies tourists can try on for size. In what is perhaps the greatest irony in view of Beissel's beliefs, the cloister that renounced worldly possessions now has a gift shop.
Sources:
- Bach, Jeff. Voices of the Turtledoves: the Sacred World of Ephrata. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State UP, 2003.
- Doll, Eugene. The Ephrata Cloister: an Introduction, 1958-1987. Ephrata, PA: Ephrata Cloister Associates, 1987.
- "Ephrata Cloister History." The Ephrata Cloister. 1 Mar. 2009. <http://www.ephratacloister.org/index.htm>.
- Gordon, Ronald. "The Ephrata Cloister." Church of the Brethren Network. Feb. 1996. 15 Mar. 2009. <http://www.cob-net.org/cloister.htm>.
- Guss, Jon. "Amish History: A Timeline." The Pennsylvania Center for the Book. 2007. 16 Sept. 2009.<http://pabook2.libraries.psu.edu/palitmap/AmishHistoryTimeline.html>.
- Kirschner, Ann. "From Hebron to Saron: The Religious Transformation of an Ephrata Convent." Winterthur Portfolio 32.1 (1997): 39-63.
- Komancheck, Wendy. "The Ephrata Cloister." German Life. June-July 2008: 36-38.
- Rew, Kay Jenkins. "The Mystical Legacy of the Ephrata Cloister". Pennsylvania Turnpike Newsletter. 1998. 15 Mar. 2009. <http://www.paturnpike.com/tools/newsletters/summer98/page-7.htm>.
- White, Janet R. "The Ephrata Cloister: Intersections of Architecture and Culture in an Eighteenth-Century Utopia." Utopian Studies. 22 Mar. 2000: 57-76.