Orthodox Mennonites

The Orthodox Mennonites, also called Gorrie Mennonites or Gorries and Elam M. Martin Mennonites, are two groups of Old Order Mennonites in Canada and the USA with about 650 baptized members. Even though plain to a very high degree and primitivist concerning technology, they are rather intentionalist minded than ultra traditional. Since 1999 they were joined by several other Old Order Mennonite communities.

The Orthodox Mennonites have a complicated history because they did not just separate from one other Old Order Mennonite group but have a complicated history of splits and mergers of different Old Order groups.

In 1953 there was unrest among the David Martin Mennonites in the Waterloo Region in Canada, which resulted in the excommunication of numerous people. In 1954, a group of about 25 people, who attended the Rainham Old Order Mennonite Church, started to separate from the David Martin Mennonites. They joined a subgroup of the Stauffer Mennonites around the ministers Titus and Noah Hoover and Enoch Habegger of the merged Titus Hoover and Reformed Amish Christian Church. Parts of this group around Noah Hoover later became the Noah Hoover Mennonites. The merger with the group around Titus Hoover and others was only partly successful and a majority left the group after some time, while the ones that stayed in the Titus Hoover group moved to Pennsylvania, where the Titus Hoovers were located.

Those that did not merge with the Titus Hoover group sought unity with the Reidenbach Mennonites of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania under the leadership of Anson Hoover, but this merger was also not successful. During that time Plautdietsch-speaking Mennonites from Mexico, who were in Ontario to find a better economic situation there, joined the group.

In 1956 Minister Elam S. Martin was excommunicated from the David Martin Mennonites and joined the group. When Elam S. Martin became their bishop the group became known as "Elam Martins". In 1957 Peter O. Nolt and those with him in Pennsylvania joined the group. A third group, consisting of 50 people, who had left the David Martin Church under the leadership of deacon Samuel Horst, also entered this union in early 1958. On April 6, 1958, the merged groups held their first united communion meeting and chose to call themselves the Orthodox Mennonite Church.

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