History of the Mennonites

OUR NAME. Like Lutherans who were named after Martin Luther, Mennonites were nicknamed after an early Dutch leader, Menno Simons. But just as Menno Simons was a follower of Christ, so Mennonites today are followers of Christ, not Menno.

ORIGIN. This movement began in the 16th century within the Protestant Reformation in Europe. A small group of earnest young believers said that the Protestant reformers had not gone far enough. The group attempted to recover New Testament Christianity when they baptized one another and verbalized their faith in Jesus Christ at Zurich, Switzerland, in January 1525.

PERSECUTION, MARTYRDOM. Fired by their new faith, the believers began to evangelize. The movement rapidly spread to South Germany and the Netherlands. (By the end of 1525 there were 35 missioners actively baptizing new disciples and commissioning new missioners. By 1529, about 257 such missioners had appeared, with probably another 250 working out of public view. By that same year government officials discovered 3,616 Anabaptists in 509 cities and towns. No one knows how many went undiscovered.)

The official churches immediately opposed the movement and scoffed at them as "Anabaptizers," which literally means re-baptizers. As the first Protestant church to be a free church (not government-run), the group was not tolerated, either by the state or other churches. In a short time many Anabaptist leaders were martyred. Thousands more died gruesome deaths at the hands of their persecutors over the next two generations.

Persecution rapidly spread the Anabaptist movement. It scattered believers, and everywhere they went, they told others their faith. It advertised their faith--"what faith would make a person willing to die for it?" But it also took a terrible toll. The small groups lived without the right to own property or to meet publicly for worship. Anabaptists became "quiet in the land" and moved to many places, including Russia and North America, seeking freedom to live their faith according to their consciences. From 1575 to 1850 the movement grew mainly by winning its own children to faith.

AMISH. Some groups within the Mennonite family, most notably the Amish, have chosen to continue separated from society. They avoid owning automobiles, radios, etc. because such things open a wide door to society's influences.

REACHING OUT. North American Mennonites began organizing home and foreign missions in the late 1800s. They sent a first wave of missionaries abroad during the years 1899-1915, and another round of mission expansion followed World War II.

Especially since the 1940s Mennonites have developed a substantial ministry of emergency relief and development services which stand alongside church extension.

The Anabaptist-Mennonite family numbers 1.3 million baptized members in 65 countries. The most rapid growth is occurring in Africa, Asia, Central and South America, which are home to 793,000 members. The number of members in North America and Europe is 504,000.