Check.Church

Anabaptist

The Anabaptist family began with the first believers' baptisms at Zurich on January 21, 1525, inside Zwingli's own circle. Its surviving streams are the Mennonites, Hutterites and Amish, together with the Schwarzenau Brethren of 1708, who joined Anabaptist practice to Pietist roots.

On the tree

The Anabaptist family and the bodies it separated from or was organized out ofAD 33today10043145110541517151915251528153616931708The post-apostolic church (The spine)The post-apostolicchurchThe spineThe conciliar church (The spine)The conciliar churchThe spineThe Chalcedonian church (The spine)The Chalcedonian churchThe spineRoman Catholicism (Catholic)Roman CatholicismCatholicLutheran (Lutheran)LutheranLutheranReformed (Reformed and Presbyterian)ReformedReformed and PresbyterianAnabaptist (Anabaptist)AnabaptistAnabaptistHutterites (Anabaptist)HutteritesAnabaptistMennonites (Anabaptist)MennonitesAnabaptistAmish (Anabaptist)AmishAnabaptistSchwarzenau Brethren (Anabaptist)Schwarzenau BrethrenAnabaptist

Solid lines are separations and unions; dashed lines are renewals that began inside a body; dotted gray lines are national organizations of one communion; a diamond marks a fork event where neither side is drawn as the one that left. Every line runs back to the post-apostolic church; no body descends from the assembly of Acts 2.

Bodies in this family

  1. Anabaptist1525

    Zwingli's radical students broke with the pace and civic basis of the Zurich reformation, practicing believers' baptism from January 21, 1525; the Schleitheim Articles (1527) fixed the free-church ecclesiology. Persecuted by Catholic and Protestant authorities alike; Felix Manz drowned at Zurich, 1527.

  2. Hutterites1528–1533

    The Anabaptist branch practicing full community of goods after Acts 2 and 4, organized in Moravia under Jakob Hutter; kept its communal life through four centuries of migration and persists in colonies across the North American plains.

  3. Mennonitesc. 1536

    Menno Simons organized and defended the scattered nonviolent Anabaptists after the Münster catastrophe, fixing the movement's pacifist identity; centuries of persecution and migration (Vistula, Russia 1788, the Americas) shaped the family that bears his name.

  4. Amish1693–1697

    Ammann pressed strict shunning (Meidung) of the excommunicated, more frequent communion, and sharper separation from the world; when the Swiss elders under Hans Reist would not adopt his discipline, his followers separated — the plainest of the plain churches ever since.

  5. Schwarzenau Brethren1708

    Radical Pietists who concluded a gathered, disciplined church was necessary and received believer's baptism in 1708, fusing Pietist inwardness with Anabaptist practice — the origin of the Church of the Brethren family. NOT related to the Plymouth Brethren (see the name-collision note, companion §7).

Research compiled July 2026. Page data built 2026-10-10.