Anabaptists were reformers who baptised adults and refused to fight, and were persecuted for both.
In Zurich in January 1525, students of Zwingli who thought him too slow baptised one another as believing adults, for which many were drowned or burned. The Schleitheim Confession (1527) set out their marks: believers' baptism, nonresistance, separation from the world. The radical Reformation.
The tree's references for this branch: Britannica: Anabaptists · GAMEO: Anabaptism · Wikipedia: Anabaptism.
Lineage: Israel and Judah: the First Temple›Second Temple Judaism›The early, undivided Church›Catholic Church›Reformed (Zwingli, Calvin)›Anabaptist
Branches that grew from it: Mennonite (1536), Church of the Brethren (1708).
Anabaptists held that baptism belongs to people who can choose it, that the church is a gathered company separate from the state, and that a Christian may not use the sword. The movement began in Zurich in 1525, and both Catholic and Protestant authorities executed its members.
It started among Zwingli's own students, who concluded that his reform was stopping short and that the city council had no business deciding the pace of it. On 21 January 1525, in a house in Zurich, Conrad Grebel baptised George Blaurock at his own request, and Blaurock baptised the others; every one of them had been baptised as an infant, which is why their enemies called them Anabaptists, rebaptisers 7,5,4. The name was a legal charge as much as an insult: an imperial law of 1529 made rebaptism a capital offence 5,12.
Two years later a gathering at Schleitheim agreed seven articles that have shaped the movement ever since: baptism for those who have learned repentance and amendment of life, the ban for members who fall away, the breaking of bread among the baptised, separation from the world, shepherds chosen by the congregation, no use of the sword, and no swearing of oaths 6,5. Michael Sattler, who wrote them, was tortured and burned within months, and his wife was drowned 9,6. Felix Manz had already been drowned in the Limmat at Zurich, by the council of the city where the movement began 8,5. What followed was a decade in which thousands were executed across German-speaking Europe, and the accounts they left were gathered in 1660 into the Martyrs Mirror, a book still found in Amish and Mennonite homes 3,12,5.
Two episodes shaped how the movement was seen and how it settled. In 1534 a group of apocalyptic radicals took the city of Münster, declared it the New Jerusalem and held out until the siege broke the next year; they were a minority the rest of the movement rejected, and Menno Simons gathered the survivors of that disaster precisely by insisting on nonviolence, but the reputation took centuries to shed 11,10,5. Then in 1693 Jakob Ammann broke with the Swiss Brethren over how the ban should be applied and whether the shunned should be avoided socially, and the Amish come from that division 5,12.
See it on the family treeAnabaptists teach that a person is baptised on their own confession of faith, that the church is a voluntary community distinct from the state, and that following Jesus means refusing violence, refusing oaths, and living simply enough for the difference to show.
Discipleship is the organising word. Faith is not only believed but obeyed, so the Sermon on the Mount is read as instructions rather than as an ideal, and resist not evil is taken to mean what it says 15,5,4. Baptism follows repentance and a changed life, which is why it cannot be given to an infant, and it also functions as the door into a community that can hold its members to account 6,5.
Church and state are separated absolutely, which in the sixteenth century was the most dangerous of these convictions. Anabaptists would not swear oaths, would not serve as magistrates in most readings of Schleitheim, and would not fight, and the ban, exclusion from communion and community, was their only discipline because they would not use force 6,5,2. The community itself carries weight: Hutterites hold all goods in common, following the account of the first church in Acts, and have done so since 1528 13,5. All of it rests on the conviction that the church is made of those who have chosen it, which is what made a state church impossible for them 4,6.
Anabaptist worship is plain: singing, prayer, Scripture and preaching, with no altar and usually no instruments in the older groups. Communion is a memorial shared among the baptised, and footwashing is kept in many congregations.
The oldest hymnbook still in use in any Christian body is the Ausbund, whose earliest songs were written by imprisoned Anabaptists in the 1530s and 1540s and which the Amish still sing from 5,12. Baptism is by pouring or immersion depending on the group, and always on confession 6,5. Congregations choose their own leaders, often by lot in the plainer groups, and ministers are usually unpaid and untrained in the formal sense 5,2. The Lord's Supper is preceded by a members' meeting in which the congregation seeks to be at peace with itself, and footwashing follows the pattern of John's Gospel 2,5.
Anabaptists read the New Testament as the authority for Christian life, and read the Sermon on the Mount as binding instruction. In the sixteenth century they read the Zurich Bible printed by Froschauer, and later Luther's German.
The characteristic move is to read the Old Testament through Christ rather than beside him: where a text sanctions war or swearing, Anabaptists have held that Jesus supersedes it, which is why Schleitheim can set the sword outside the perfection of Christ 6,5. That reading also made them early and thorough Bible readers among laypeople, since a church without trained clergy relies on members who know the text 5,4. Read here: the King James Version, the Lutherbibel of 1912 in German, the language the movement began in, and the Berean Standard Bible. The versions guide sets out what these churches read today.
Free to read here: Lutherbibel 1912, King James Version, Berean Standard Bible. The full note on which Bible Anabaptist use, with sources ›
These passages illustrate themes discussed in this profile; they are not a survey of members' favorite verses. Each is quoted from the King James (Authorized) Version and links to its chapter. You can explore the text for study or personal reflection; memorization is optional.
But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.
Resist not evil. Anabaptists read this as instruction rather than counsel, and it is the reason they have not fought for five centuries.
But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God’s throne:
Swear not at all. Refusing oaths marked Anabaptists out to every court in Europe, and it was often the charge that convicted them.
¶ Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men.
We ought to obey God rather than men. The answer given to magistrates who ordered them to stop, and the reason so many were executed.
And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
Be not conformed to this world. The verse behind separation, plain dress and the refusal to take part in what the state asks of citizens.
For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps:
Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example. Read in prison by people about to be drowned or burned, and meant literally.
The Anabaptist family includes Mennonites, Amish, Hutterites and Brethren in Christ, each with its own page or place on the tree. Mennonite World Conference reports about 1.44 million baptized believers in its member churches as of November 2025; this is not a count of the whole Anabaptist family 16.
Its November 2025 membership comprises 110 national churches in 61 countries, plus an international association, with close to 10,400 congregations 16,1,14. The centre of gravity has moved: the largest national bodies are now in Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and India rather than in Europe or North America 1,14,5. The peace conviction has outlived the isolation that once went with it, and Anabaptist agencies work in relief, mediation and conflict resolution well beyond their own churches 1,2. In North America the plainer groups, Amish and Old Order Mennonites, are growing quickly through large families, while the more assimilated bodies are not 5,13.
They came out of the same Reformation and are usually counted within it, as the radical wing, but they rejected the state churches that Luther and Zwingli built as thoroughly as they rejected Rome. Both Protestant and Catholic governments executed them, which is a fair measure of how they were seen 5,4,8.
In 1534 apocalyptic radicals seized the city, proclaimed it the New Jerusalem, installed a king and imposed polygamy, and were destroyed when the siege broke in 1535. It was the act of a minority the wider movement repudiated, and Menno Simons rebuilt around nonviolence afterwards, but it defined the outside view of Anabaptists for centuries 11,10,5.
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BibleVerse. “Anabaptist: where they came from, what they hold, and the Bible they read.” bibleverse.site, version 2026-09-09, https://bibleverse.site/denominations/anabaptist/
Awaiting review by a member of the tradition. First published 2026-09-07; last changed 2026-09-09. Years before the common era are written BC, and later years plainly, as the site's Christian pages do.
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Resist not evil. Five words that a movement has kept for five centuries, and paid for in every one of them.
But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.