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The European Background of

Ohio Mennonites and Amish

Beginnings of the Anabaptists of Swiss Brethren, Later Called Mennonites

The Anabaptist movement was one of the several types of religious renewal that made up the Protestant Reformation. The Lutheran, Zwinglian, and Calvinistic movements of the sixteenth century in Central Europe are usually the better known phases. However, there was another one, sometimes called "the radical Reformation." This movement at the time of origin drew its followers chiefly from that wide spectrum of persons in city and country who desired a more thoroughgoing Reformation-one which was patterned more closely after primitive Christianity. In its ranks were clergy and other intellectuals such as teachers and men of letters; a few of the nobility; a larger number of city craftsmen; and a still larger number of villagers and peasants. '

Historians of the Anabaptist movement trace its origins to the followers of Ulrich Zwingli in Zurich, Switzerland.' Among Zwingli's followers was a small group of men who felt that Zwingli's reform efforts were not as thorough as they should be. A leader of this group was Conrad Grebel (c. 1498-1526), a young man who came from a leading family of Zurich and who had been a student at the universities of Basel, Vienna, and Paris. As a zealous follower of Zwingli's new reform movement, young Grebel hoped for a far-reaching change. In his mind this meant the establishment of a church on the pattern of the early church in the New Testament. Zwingli did not move in this direction with the speed that Grebel and a few others desired. Zwingli, while at first opposed to the state's dictation, preferred to wait to abolish the mass and other practices until assured of the support of the Council of Zurich.

Unable to continue with Zwingli in what they considered a compromising position, Conrad Grebel and others took public issue on

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