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The Anabaptists

adult-baptismAnabaptism began on this day 488 years ago in Switzerland when Conrad Grebel, Felix Manz and George Blaurock gathered with 13 other men in Zurich. Four days earlier, the Zurich city council had ordered the group to cease their nonconformist religious activities and submit any unbaptised infants for baptism within 8 days. Believing that the Bible taught that baptism was for adult believers and not for infants, Grebel baptised Blaurock, who then baptised the others, thus becoming anabaptists (“people who rebaptise”).

After pledging to hold to the faith of the New Testament and live as fellow disciples separated from the world, the men left the meeting determined to encourage others to do likewise. Grebel was imprisoned later the same year, 1525, and died in 1526 at the age of about 28. Manz was arrested several times before being executed by drowning on 5 January 1527. Blaurock was beaten and banished on the day that Manz was executed, so he moved to Tyrol and had a fruitful ministry there until he was arrested in August 1529, tortured, and burned at the stake on 6 September 1529.

Anabaptism spread from Tyrol to the Low Countries and Moravia, which became a centre for the movement because of greater religious toleration there. Persecution of anabaptists, including torture and executions, by both Roman Catholics and Protestants, resulted in mass emigration to North America of anabaptist groups including the Amish, Hutterites and Mennonites.