MENNO, SIMONS. — Founder of the Mennonites, b. at Witmarsum (Holland) c. 1496, d. at Aldesloe (Holstein) in 1559. Ordained priest in 1515 (or 1516), he was vicar of Pingjum, and c. 1531 parish priest of his native village. In 1531, after the Dutch Anabaptist Seicke Snijder had been condemned to death for denying the validity of infant baptism, MENNO decided to examine the question for himself and became convinced that such baptism was invalid; he also wrote to Luther, Bucer, and Bullinger, all defenders of infant baptism (paedobaptism), and, unconvinced by their arguments, he adhered to Anabaptist doctrines and was rebaptized in 1536 by Obbe Philips, organizer of the first Anabaptist church in Holland, of which MENNO became one of the principal leaders.
Meanwhile, the Swiss-German Anabaptism had taken on a revolutionary character in Germany, culminating in the massacre of Leiden (1535). After the city was occupied, many Anabaptists fled to Frisia, and MENNO worked among the refugees to moderate their fanaticism, and succeeded. But the reputation of their earlier excesses had alienated civil authorities against them, and thus they were persecuted even in Holland. MENNO, who from 1537 to 1541 had been at the head of the Anabaptist or “Obbenite” community of Groningen, went to Emden where he had a disputation with the Polish heretic Jan van Lasco; in 1545 he fled, with his wife
and children, to Cologne, then to Holstein; later, traveling throughout northern Germany, he propagated his doctrine by founding Mennonite centers. During this time he wrote various pamphlets and treatises. He died near the count of Fresemberg, who had given him hospitality. MENNO managed to curb the excesses of the early Anabaptists and is considered the second founder of the sect, which was renamed Mennonite in his honor.
THE MENNONITES. — From the writings of MENNO, two disciples, Hans Rys and Lubbert Gerrits, in 1580 drew up the “Waterland Confession of Faith,” which contains 40 articles. In these, the transmission of original sin is denied, conditional election is affirmed, the death of the Lord for all is asserted, oaths, war, and any form of violence, as well as lawsuits, are condemned; obedience to civil authorities is recommended, provided they do not command anything contrary to the word of God, and only adult baptism is recognized.
Other accepted Confessions of Faith are those of Dort (1632) and Leiden (1664). During his travels in northern Germany, MENNO had spread his doctrines as far as Livonia and Denmark, but the very extent of his missionary activity and the difficulty of communications between the various groups led to divisions and schisms. The excesses of the early Anabaptists, the Mennonites’ refusal to enlist in the military, and their refusal ever to take oaths, even in cases prescribed by law, caused them to be persecuted wherever they settled. Despite persecutions, in 1927 there were 22,000 in Switzerland, 5,500 in Germany, 70,000 in Holland, 4,000 in France, 2,000 in Poland, and about 100,000 in Russia. Mennonites today are generally peaceful people, obedient to civil authorities, living almost apart from others, mainly engaged in agriculture, and wherever they settle they form flourishing colonies. Notable are the Mennonites of the United States: they number barely 100,000 and are divided into many sects, some of which have only 200 or 300 members. The first Mennonites, called to his colony in Pennsylvania by William Penn (1644–1718), were later joined, especially in the 19th century, by others from Switzerland, Germany, and Russia: all brought their own customs and traditions. Upon contact with the first group established there, some merged with it, and from this fusion arose the “Mennonite Church,” the largest of all American Mennonite bodies, with 34,039 members, while others remained separate. Sometimes some of these groups attempted to unite in a kind of conference, such as the “General Conference of the Mennonite Church” and the “Conference of the Defenseless Mennonites,” but since not all adhered to the union, a new sect resulted. Some small groups, such as the “Krimmer Bruder Gemeinde,” almost entirely from Crimea, remained compact and united even after emigrating to the United States. The same was true of the Huntarian Mennonite brethren. In the United States, moreover, new