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Anabaptists (Mennonites, Amish)
first adult baptisms, Zurich, January 1525· Church or tradition· Church, doctrine & the world
Historical recordConfirmed by archaeology, outside sources or contemporary records.
Radical reformers who rejected infant baptism and baptized believing adults, starting in Zurich in 1525; ancestors of the Mennonites and Amish.
See it on the Bible & Christianity map →What it is
On January 21, 1525, Conrad Grebel baptized George Blaurock in a Zurich home, breaking with the reformer Zwingli. Critics called them 'Anabaptists' (re-baptizers). They held that only believing adults should be baptized and that church and state should be separate; most refused oaths and military service. The Schleitheim Confession (1527) set out their views. Catholics and Protestants alike persecuted them. Menno Simons, a former Dutch priest, led a peaceful branch that became the Mennonites.
Why it matters
They pioneered voluntary church membership and the separation of church and state. Their heirs, Mennonites, Amish (split 1693) and Hutterites, number roughly 2 million today.
Sources and history
Court records, the Schleitheim Confession and martyr accounts in the Martyrs Mirror (1660) survive. Executions are estimated at about 2,000 to 5,000 by 1600; estimates vary.
Questions and debates
Whether the movement had one origin in Zurich or several, and how the violent Münster takeover of 1534–1535 relates to the peaceful mainstream, is debated.
Connections (2)
▸Anabaptists (Mennonites, Amish) pioneered the church-state separation behind Religious freedom: the First AmendmentDebated by scholars
The connection
Anabaptists, persecuted by Catholics and Protestants alike, taught that the church is a voluntary community of believers and that the state must not compel faith (Schleitheim Confession, 1527). English Baptists, shaped by Mennonite contacts in Amsterdam, took up the idea; Thomas Helwys pleaded for freedom even for 'heretics, Turks, Jews' (1612). American Baptists later lobbied for the First Amendment.
When and where
Switzerland 1527; Amsterdam and London 1609–1612; Rhode Island, founded by Roger Williams in 1636; Virginia, where Baptists such as John Leland pressed Madison in 1788–1789.
How do we know?
The chain is documented in pieces: Schleitheim's text, Helwys's book, Baptist petitions to Virginia's assembly. A direct Anabaptist influence on the American founders is unproven, hence 'debated'.
Questions and debates
Historians disagree whether English Baptists really descend from Anabaptists, and how much the First Amendment owes to dissenters' faith versus Enlightenment reasoning like Jefferson's.
▸Anabaptists (Mennonites, Amish) formed the radical wing of The Protestant ReformationHistorical record
The connection
The Anabaptists grew out of Zwingli's own circle in Zurich. They argued the mainstream reformers had stopped halfway: scripture shows no infant baptism and no state church. Lutherans, Reformed and Catholics all rejected them, and Zurich made re-baptism punishable by drowning in 1526.
When and where
Zurich, January 21, 1525; spread to south Germany, Austria and Moravia (Hutterites) and the Netherlands (Menno Simons, from 1536).
Historical evidence
Court records, Zwingli's writings against them and the Schleitheim Confession (1527) document the split; Felix Manz was drowned in Zurich in 1527.
Questions and debates
Historians debate whether to treat them as part of the Reformation or a separate 'Radical Reformation', a term George Williams popularized in 1962.