Mennonites in Belize
 Mennonite children selling peanuts to tourists near Lamanai in Belize. |
|
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 10,865 Ethnic Mennonites are white and 793 Mennonites are of other races (2010) | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Orange Walk District, Cayo District, Corozal District | |
| Religions | |
| Anabaptist Protestant Christianity | |
| Scriptures | |
| The Bible, The Complete Writings of Menno Simons | |
| Languages | |
| Plautdietsch, Standard German, English, Belizean Spanish, Pennsylvania German |
Mennonites in Belize form different religious bodies and come from different ethnic backgrounds. There are groups of Mennonites living in Belize, who are quite traditional and conservative (e. g. in Shipyard and Upper Barton Creek), while others have modernized to various degrees (e. g. in Spanish Lookout and Blue Creek).
There were 4961 members as of 2014, but the total number including children and young unbaptized adults was around 12,000. Of these some 10,000 were ethnic Mennonites, most of them "Russian" Mennonites, who speak Plautdietsch, a Low German dialect. In addition to this, there were another 2,000 mostly Kriol and Mestizo Belizeans who had converted to Mennonitism.
The ancestors of the vast majority of Belizean Mennonites settled in the Russian Empire in the 18th and 19th centuries, coming from the Vistula delta in West Prussia. In the years after 1873 some 7,000 left the Russian Empire and settled in Manitoba, Canada. The more conservative ones left Canada between 1922 and 1925 and settled in Mexico. In the years after 1958 some 1,700 Mennonites from the Mexican settlements moved to what was then British Honduras. Mennonites from El Salvador moved to Belize during civil war. The so-called "Russian Mennonites" speak Plautdietsch in everyday life among themselves. There are also some hundred Pennsylvania German speaking Old Order Mennonites who came from the USA and Canada in the late 1960s and settle now in Upper Barton Creek and daughter settlements.
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