Swiss Mennonite Conference

The Swiss Mennonite Conference (also Konferenz der Mennoniten der Schweiz or Conférence Mennonite Suisse) is an Anabaptist Christian body in Switzerland.

The Swiss Mennonites are the oldest and possibly the most influential body of Anabaptists. The earliest recorded Anabaptist movement during Reformation times originated in the village of Zollikon near Zürich in 1525. Conrad Grebel (ca. 1496–1526) and Felix Manz (ca. 1496–1527), followers of Huldrych Zwingli, divided from Zwingli on the issue of infant baptism versus believers baptism. They organized in the home of Manz on January 21, 1525. Though Grebel and Manz were dead within two years—Grebel of the plague and Manz drowned by the Council of Zürich—the believers' baptism movement quickly spread through German-speaking Switzerland. On the day of Manz' execution another leader, George Blaurock, was beaten and expelled from the city. From there, he travelled to Bern and eventually left Switzerland, never to return. Bern became the center for Anabaptism in Switzerland.

The movement spread, both by evangelistic zeal and persecution, from Switzerland into Germany, Moravia, Poland, Russia, the Netherlands, and eventually to North and South America. Around 1671, because of persecution by the government and the state church, a large group of Anabaptists (Mennonites) left Switzerland for the Palatinate in Germany. For many Mennonites, persecution helped institutionalize separation, non-conformity and farming as a way of life. The Amish schism of the Mennonites originated with Jacob Amman in Switzerland. Many Amish Mennonites in America can be traced to the areas of Thun and Schwarzenburg in Canton Bern.

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