Anabaptist
- Grew from
- Reformed / Presbyterian
- From
- 1525 AD
- Origin
- Zurich
- Confession
- Schleitheim Confession 1527 AD
The radical wing of the Reformation: believers' baptism, a church separate from the state, and usually pacifism. Persecuted by Catholics and Protestants alike; survives as the Mennonites, Amish and Hutterites.
What marks it out
Baptism on confession of faith, which in 1525 meant re-baptising adults already baptised as infants — a capital offence under Roman law that both Catholic and Protestant authorities were willing to use. A church of the committed rather than of everyone born in the parish, and therefore separate from the state rather than established by it. Refusal of the sword and usually of the oath. Discipline by the congregation, up to the ban.
Bodies that grew from it
Figures
- Conrad Grebel
c. 1498–1526
The first believers' baptism, in January 1525
Alongside it
Also from Reformed / Presbyterian.
In the record
-
1525 AD Reform
The Radical Reformation
Anabaptists rejected infant baptism and state churches, and were persecuted by every established party.
This body appears in the history but does not carry recorded doctrinal positions here, so it is absent from the comparison panels.