Brethren (religious group)

Brethren is a name adopted by a wide range of mainly Christian religious groups throughout history which do not necessarily share historical roots, including some of the earliest primitive churches, like the Brethren of the Free Spirit. The Paulicians, the Bogomils, the Schwarzenau Brethren and Anabaptist groups, the Moravian Brethren, and the Plymouth Brethren, among many others as part of the historical Brethren Movement. See The Pilgrim Church by Edmund Hamer Broadbent.

These groups grew out of the Anabaptist movement at the time of the Protestant Reformation (16th century).

The Schwarzenau Brethren originated in 1708 in Schwarzenau, Bad Berleburg, Germany, with Alexander Mack. Their roots are in the Radical Pietism movement but they were strongly influenced by Anabaptist theology. They have also been called "Dunkers" or "German Baptist Brethren". The group split into three wings in 1881–1883:

The various Plymouth Brethren bodies originated in the 1820s work of John Nelson Darby and others in Ireland and the United Kingdom as well as India:

The River Brethren owe their origins to the combined labors of Reformed pastor Philip William Otterbein and Mennonite Martin Boehm, beginning in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania in the latter half of the 18th century. They were also influenced by the Schwarzenau Brethren and include (amongst others):

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