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Levin Theodor Reichel, Bishop of the Moravian Church, came from an old and respected Saxon family of preachers who had joined the Moravian community.

Reichel was born on March 4, 1812, in the Moravian colony of Bethlehem in Pennsylvania.  He moved in 1818to the Moravian colony of Niesky in Silesia.

After completing his studies, he received a call in 1834 to serve the Moravian congregations in North America. Initially, he worked for 3 years as a teacher in Nazareth, Pennsylvania, then from 1837 as a preacher in Schoeneck, and from 1839 in Emmaus, later from 1844 as a married choir director again in Nazareth, from 1853 as a community helper in Lititz, and from 1854 as president of the Provincial Helpers' Conference in Salem, Wachau, North Carolina.

In 1857, he participated as a delegate in the General Synod in Herrnhut. 

In the fall of 1858, he was assigned to inspect the West Indian Moravian missions. He first visited the Danish islands of St. Thomas, St. John, and St. Croix, then the English possessions of St. Kitts and Antigua.

During his time in the Caribbean, he inspected the churches and schools, held conferences with the missionaries and native helpers, visited the black plantation workers, preached and baptized, resolved disputes, cared for the elimination of abuses, and left various suggestions.

In the summer of 1859, he returned to Germany, where he created maps of all the countries where the Moravian Church conducts its conversion work, indicating all existing churches, schools, and preaching places. From these maps, he created his his "Mission Atlas of the Moravian Unity", which was published in 1860 by the Mission Department in Herrnhut as a replacement for the outdated and out-of-print atlas by Linder.