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ANABAPTIST BEGINNINGS. 16 th Century Life:. A life dominated by the union of…. Church. and State. Tower from 12 th century. Cologne Cathedral. symbolized by Cathedrals and Castles. State. Church. Bacharach, Germany. St. James Cathedral. Innsbruck, Austria. ceiling. pipe organ.
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ANABAPTIST BEGINNINGS
16th Century Life: A life dominated by the union of… Church and State Tower from 12th century Cologne Cathedral
State Church
St. James Cathedral Innsbruck, Austria
ceiling pipe organ chancel
Strasbourg Cathedral Rosetta Window
Church and State St. Gallen’s Thun Castle
Cathedrals and Castles Steinsburg Castle Church tower at Ulm (786 steps)
Paid for by Taxe$ and Tithe$ Alcase region of France
“If I had been a peasant in the 16th century I think I too might have joined the “Peasant’s War” or become an Anabaptist.” Pallatinate in southern Germany
The Swiss Anabaptist Movement Swiss Alps
…started in the city of Zurich, Switzerland Limmat River, Zurich
The city of Reformer Ulrich Zwingli (Note that he is holding both Sword and Bible)
…Zwingli led a Bible study with a group of young radicals
January 21, 1525 Grebel baptizes George Blaurock in the upper room of this house… …and a movement is born
The consequences… Blaurock is driven out of town … Grebel and others are imprisoned
Felix Manz is drowned In the Limmat River
Despite and because of persecution the movement spread to the Alsace region of France, The Palatinate of Germany, Austria and Moravia, and eventually to North America. Palatinate Austria Alsace
The German / Austrian Anabaptist Movement Achenpas, view from Germany to Austria
The very same day that Conrad Grebel was baptizing in Zurich, another young man, Hans Denck, was being kicked out of the town of Nuremberg in southern Germany for similar radical ideas… “No one can truly know Christ unless they follow him in life.”
Conrad Grebel, Hans Denck and many other early Anabaptist leaders were dead before they reached the age of 30. “The more beautiful the countryside the harsher the persecution.” -John Sharp Austrian Alps
The home of a unique Anabaptist leader: Pilgram Marpeck, engineer and lay theologian
Marpeck was a prominent citizen when he became an Anabaptist. At one point about 2/3 of the people in the Inn Valley were Anabaptist, but in 1528 there was a crackdown and numerous executions. Pilgram Marpeck disappeared. Inn River
Marpeck later reappeared in Strasbourg and then Augsurg, continuing his Anabaptist leadership as well as civic leadership. Ruins above Rattenberg
60+ Anabaptists were martyred in Rattenberg
Helena of Freyburg was another prominent German Anabaptist who hosted a church in a Castle.
Jakob Hutter was executed in the castle of Emperor Maximilian I, now a trendy and thriving public market in Innsbruck, Austria
Inside the castle… The plaque in his memory The market square
The tower where… Jakob Hutter was imprisoned
The execution site (note plaque below) m
The “Golden Roof” of the emperor’s veranda where he and his attendants could watch festivities, including executions.
Although the Hutterites grew to 20,000+ by the end of the 16th century, persecution was so severe and effective in this area that virtually all Anabaptists were eliminated. Only about a dozen followers of Jakob Hutter remained at the end of the 17th century.
Anabaptism came to the Netherlands later than to Switzerland and Germany, but it found a fertile soil. Rural countryside in Friesland
At the time, Menno Simons was a priest in the town of Pingjum…
and later in nearby Witmarsum, his home town.
Some distance away in the City of Munster…
…the Anabaptist Movement was going horribly awry. Some leaders who thought themselves prophets and kings called on followers to take up arms (and wives) in preparation for the End Times. A sculpture in Munster: (Note: apocalyptic images, a walled Munster and tools of violence.
The same sculpture with the “Apocalypse” under his left arm… Perhaps contemplating the horrors of apocalyptic violence.
It was not long and the powers of church and state put down the revolution as violently as it arose. St. Paul’s Cathedral Hall of Westphalia