Holding All Things in Common...Not So Common Anymore

I had returned to my childhood home between graduating college and getting married. About the time I was planning my wedding, the long-time neighbor on the driveway side of my mom's house put her home up for sale. Grandpa told me my future husband and I should buy it. He said it in a matter-of-fact manner, like it was the most natural and logical thing to do. I had to explain to Grandpa that my future husband, in graduate school some 250 odd miles away, was likely to remain there for some years into our marriage, and then go off to who knows where for more schooling or employment. No, we would not be buying the house next door...

I relate this story because it is the only tiny faint remnant I ever saw in my family of the distinctive Hutterite belief in community of goods, holding all things in common. Buying the house next door would be saying that, yes, I was still here, to share in whatever – meals, work projects, driving Grandpa to the lumberyard. In order to hold all things in common, close communal proximity to one another was necessary. I suppose I could make the case that we did live in somewhat of a communal house, an extended family made up of Mom, my brother and I, and Grandma and Grandpa. I know there was a pooling of financial resources to make ends meet and the free childcare that Grandma and Grandpa provided made it possible for my mom to be the full time breadwinner of the family. I always saw this as a practical necessity of our family circumstances, but perhaps it was made easier by some hereditary Hutterite predisposition to working together. Aside from that, we all seemed to be respecters of private property. We were attached to our personal stuff.

The Hutterites' communal life was difficult to maintain and it flickered in and out of existence depending on their stability of the moment. In towns where they had some peace and freedom from persecution, the communal lifestyle would flourish. When they were on the run from their persecutors, community of goods was impossible to maintain. There were four towns in what is now Slovakia that provided some degree of stability for the Hutterites, and later, for the Haban. Sobotište, Vel'ké Leváre, Moravský Svätý Ján, and Trenčín. Sobotište, Grandma's town, and Moravský Svätý Ján, Grandpa's town, both have areas dating from the 1500s containing the buildings where the Hutterites, and later, the Haban, lived first communally, and then more in an extended family-like way. The Hutterite settlements were called Bruderhofs and consisted of mills and other places of work, clustered together in a small area, as well as large houses where families shared living spaces. Writers of the time likened a Bruderhof to a beehive, a busy place, with everyone working together to create a productive, godly life.   

Grandpa's house, Moravsky Svaty Jan

Grandma's house, Sobotiste

Present day Sobotište and Moravský Svätý Ján both have areas that are called Habánský dvor, translated as “Haban Court”. Grandpa's childhood home was most likely one of the original Bruderhof homes. Grandma's childhood home was most likely not, but built in the style of the Bruderhof home close to the original Hutterite Bruderhof site.

Tomorrow I'll take you on a visual tour of both Grandma and Grandpa's home towns...

Draft Dodging...

Grandpa always had strong opinions about political issues and was never shy about expressing them. The Hutterites' desire to distance themselves from the concerns of civil government had faded out by the time it reached Grandpa, at least when it came to expressing political opinions. I remember, however, two subjects that Grandpa kept relatively quiet about. One was the 1972 presidential election. Grandpa was surprisingly silent when Richard Nixon won reelection. Two years later, when Richard Nixon resigned the presidency, Grandpa broke his silence, saying how he was so glad he had voted for George McGovern and had not voted for that crook Nixon. We were stunned - we had all assumed he had voted for Nixon - though we really shouldn't have been surprised. Grandpa always liked to be on the winning side of things and had probably been deeply disappointed with McGovern's poor showing at the voting booths and didn't want it to be known that he had voted for such a big loser. Nixon's resignation gave Grandpa the chance to justify his vote two years earlier. Better to be associated with a noble loser than a crooked winner...

The other political issue I don't remember Grandpa expressing his opinion on was the number of young Americans during the Vietnam war era who left the country rather than serve in the military. This was a hot topic in the 1960s and early 1970s. The numbers vary wildly, but it is estimated that 30,000 – 100,000 Americans moved to Canada rather than face the possibility of combat in Southeast Asia. I don't remember Grandpa, very pro-American in most of his opinions, commenting on this, though he may have to Mom and Grandma. I think he may have felt a camaraderie with the draft dodgers. He was one himself. It was how he came to be an American.

According to Mom's memoir of Grandma and Grandpa, when Grandpa was twenty years old, he was required to report for four years of military training in the then Austria-Hungary army. “...instead, he jumped the border and ran away to America.” This was a decision with serious repercussions. It meant he could never return to his home country without facing the real possibility of being arrested. Mom doesn't state it in her book, but I remember being told as a child that Grandpa's mother felt very strongly that her son should have nothing to do with the army and facilitated her son's leaving. At the time I remember thinking, of course, no mother would want her son to have to go in the army and potentially fight in a war. * Now, however, knowing about the strong Hutterite prohibition against bearing arms, I think Grandpa's Haban mother was just living out her Hutterite pacifist heritage, encouraging her son to do so as well. Grandpa came to America, met Grandma, and became an American citizen in 1915. By the time of the first World War, Grandpa was thirty years old with two small children, so again was able to avoid military service. He spent the war happily building ships in the New York City shipyards. According to Mom, he was quite proud of these ships, taking his two daughters to see their launches. Most likely these ships were used in the first World War, so though Grandpa didn't technically “bear arms”, his work, in fact, did support the war effort, a very un-Hutterite thing to do.

Grandpa's Mother, Julianna Kubina Cederle

After World War I, Austria-Hungary ceased to exist, as did the military Grandpa had jumped the border to escape. Czechoslovakia was now the country Grandpa's town of Svätý Ján resided in. In 1921 Grandpa returned to his hometown with his wife and three daughters without fear of any repercussions from his draft dodging. He lived there for a year, spending part of that time under his parent's roof, with the Haban mother who had encouraged him to leave all those years before.

*I, personally, have always admitted to pacifist tendencies. I thought it was because I was a child of the 1960s, the “Give peace a chance” mentality seeping into my psyche, and later, that I was a woman and mother, and war and fighting just didn't make sense to me. I now wonder if maybe I am truly my great grandmother's great granddaughter, with full-blown Hutterite pacifism somewhere in my heart...

Laying Hold of the Word...Literally...

In the years I grew up under Grandma's watchful eye, I knew her to be a godly woman, kind but firm, with a sense of humor, someone not afraid to speak her mind, but able to do so somewhat gently. She wasn't perfect, but she was, for the most part, a good, law-abiding person. In all the years I knew her I only remember one set of actions on her part that bordered on the criminal.

She stole missalettes.

After the Second Vatican Council the Catholic Church changed the language of its liturgy from Latin to English. In the days of the old Latin mass, some congregants would buy their own missals, a hardcovered book with the prayers and readings of the liturgical year written in both Latin and English. As the mass was said in Latin, they would follow along with the English translation. After Vatican II, in an effort to make the English mass more accessible to all, churches started providing missalettes for those who attended mass. These were small paperback booklets, usually placed in a rack along the back of every pew, available to everyone to make the mass a more participatory experience. In the early days of their existence, missalettes were published and replaced monthly though now I believe they are larger and replaced yearly. Despite the fact each booklet had a vaguely threatening note on it that read “Do not remove from pew!”, somehow a copy of the current month's missalette found its way next to the chair in our living room where Grandma would sit down in the afternoon to have a much needed break from her busy day. We teased her about the missalettes, asking her why she felt the need to “steal” from the church. Her justification was that she really liked to be able to read the epistle and gospel readings for the week, and the print and language of the missalette was so much bigger and clearer than the outdated Latin missals we had in the house. Eventually we bought Grandma a large print Bible, which she liked even better, and her life of crime came to an end.

One of the earmarks of the Protestant Reformation was a heavy emphasis on the Bible and its accessibility to the common man and woman. This filtered down to the Anabaptists, the Hutterites and continued on in the Haban. I have three photographs of Grandma's mother, dressed in traditional Haban garb, and in each one she is holding a small book, possibly a Bible, possibly a missal. It would appear that she carried it with her most of the time, showing a desire to never be far from God's Word. Her daughter appeared to have inherited the same love of and attachment to scripture. An interesting note: In one photo, Great Grandma's rosary beads are intertwined in the hands holding the book, a very visual image of that Haban Hutterite/Catholic hybrid.

***

Grandpa, also, had a strong biblical heritage. My mother told me that growing up, Grandpa would frequently quote “wise sayings” his Haban 
mother had taught him. As an adult, Mom realized that the “wise sayings” of Grandpa's mother were, in fact, scripture verses. Grandpa was just quoting his mother quoting scripture. Of course, for Grandpa, sometimes these scriptures were the means for him to get his own way with something. He would quote his mother saying what comes out of the mouth is more important than what goes into the mouth when he wanted to play fast and loose with Lenten or communion fasting rules. His mother's saying was a pretty good distillation of a verse from Matthew 15:

Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. (17-19)

And so Grandpa, believing to be undefiled, would have that late bagel before church and still expect to receive communion when he got to mass...

Believin'

“We are what we believe” is the headline of an April 17, 2017, article by CNN in which over 600 readers shared their faith experiences. CNN came up with six similarities shared by those who told their faith stories:

- You are passionate from a young age

- You know everything can change in an instant

- You think actions speak louder than words

- You find strength in believing...or not (Yes, atheism is a spiritual belief system...)

- You seek beyond major religions

- You believe the search for meaning never ends

In the next several blog posts, I want to examine what the Hutterites believed and what parts of their belief system has filtered down to their Haban descendants. To some extent, the six similarities listed above are also true of the Hutterites and the Haban. They were what they believed. Today, I want to look at the specific beliefs that made the Hutterites who they were and made them different from other Protestants of the time as well as the one thing that made them distinct from other Anabaptists.*

Word!

Hutterites took the Bible seriously. Their spiritual leaders were not called priests or pastors but “Servants..." or "Ministers of the Word". This love of God's Word was not a uniquely Hutterite trait, but one shared by many after the Protestant Reformation. Martin Luther believed that the Bible was the Word of God, the sole source of spiritual truth, and it was to be studied and embraced by everyone for their spiritual growth. The Catholic Church of his day believed the Latin Bible should remain in the hands of educated priests, that the average believer would not be smart enough to interpret the Word of God accurately. Bibles in the common language were forbidden. Luther, however, said, “...a simple layman armed with Scripture is greater than the mightiest pope without it". The Hutterites ran with that, looking to the Bible for all wisdom and knowledge. The Haban continued to cling to the Word of God even after their conversion to Catholicism. (Spoiler alert: This love of the Word led Grandma to a brief life of crime...)

Baptism – Adults only, please...

Anabaptists, including the Hutterites, after reading their Bibles, found no biblical basis for baptizing babies. Baptism was for grownups...well, at least for those old enough to understand what they were getting themselves into. Salvation wasn't something that was poured over a baby, like water. When one was old enough to understand what Christ's death and resurrection meant for the individual, when one could freely choose to surrender one's life to Jesus, then one could be baptized as a sign of entering into that new life of faith. The Hutterites desperately held onto this belief, to the death in many instances. It was the issue of infant baptism that eventually led to some Hutterites giving up their identity as “true” believers and resigned themselves to the Catholic/Hutterite hybrid we know as Haban.

Separation of Church and State...a radical idea

As modern Americans, we take the idea of separation of church and state for granted. It seems like a good idea. But before, during and for hundreds of years after the Protestant Reformation, the church, whatever the denomination, and the government, whatever that may locally have looked like, were seriously intertwined. Hutterites, as well as most Anabaptists, tried to keep themselves separated from the civil authorities. Government was “of the world”. Hutterites were “of God.” This strict separation rarely went well for the Hutterites. Local government saw the Hutterites as uncooperative at best, and downright rebellious at worst.

...No swearing (of oaths, that is...)

Simply put, an oath is calling upon God to witness the fact that what one is saying is true - “I swear to God that.....” When the Hutterites read their Bibles, they saw Jesus' take on the swearing of oaths:

Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.’ But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil. - Matthew 5:33-37 (ESV)

Most Anabaptists had some prohibition against oaths, but Hutterites took the prohibition very seriously. In a time when loyalty oaths of all kinds were required, this provided one more cause for persecution. Even when asked to swear an oath that they would never return to a certain town or region again, the Hutterites would refuse. How could they swear such a thing when they didn't know where the Holy Spirit might lead them in the future? Asking God to witness a statement that might not be true in the future would make God a party to one's sin. No, no swearing of oaths...

Put down that sword...

Hutterites, as well as most Anabaptists, were pacifists. They were adamantly opposed to war and any violence. They would not defend themselves when attacked by their enemies, making them easy targets to plunder. They were also very careful not to provide nonviolent support for war efforts. Before agreeing to do certain projects for their neighbors or protective lord, they would seriously examine the use of the object they had been contracted to construct. The lord of the region wished to purchase wagons for his estate. For what purpose were they to be used? To carry war implements to go out into battle against the Turks? Or to cart food for the animals of the estate and be used for the crops during harvest time? The answer to questions such as these would determine whether or not the Hutterites would agree to build what was asked of them.

When the Hutterites came to the United States, their pacifist beliefs got them into trouble during the first world war. As conscientious objectors, the young Hutterite men were required to do alternate service. Since almost all alternate service at that time in some way supported the war effort, they would politely refuse. Several were beaten, starved and eventually died in military prison for refusal to support the war effort. The Hutterites, living in the Great Plains at the time, struggled with whether the United States was a country which would tolerate their strict pacifism. Many left their farms in the Dakotas and migrated to Canada, a country with a more lenient view of those who would not support war efforts of any kind.

Let's keep communion...

The Lord's supper was seen as a remembrance of the suffering and death of Jesus. Unlike the Catholic Church which viewed its Holy Communion as the literal body and blood of Christ, the Lord's supper of the Hutterites was a symbolic remembrance. The Hutterites took the celebration of the Lord's Supper very seriously and with great reverence, so much so that they only celebrated it once a year, the day after Easter. It was the high point of their church year.

Ban 'em...

Following God day in and day out and striving to live holy, godly lives is not easy. What do you do with those among you who just can't cut it and fall into sin? You speak to them, encourage them to get back on the straight and narrow, and then, if they refuse, you ban them from the community. This ban was reserved for baptized members of the fellowship. If you were old enough (Adult baptism, remember?) to commit to following God, you knew what you were getting into. If you abandoned the committed, holy life, then you needed to leave before you dragged others down with you.

Leading the way...

Leaders of some sort were required. Different Anabaptist groups had different titles for their spiritual leaders. Each Hutterite community had a teacher/preacher called a “minister of the Word”. His duties were spelled out in the Schleitheim Confession* as follows: “His office shall be to read, to admonish and to teach, to warn, to discipline, to ban in the church, to lead out in prayer for the advancement of all the brethren and sisters, to lift up the bread when it is broken, and in all things to see to the care of the body of Christ that it may be built up and developed.” They also had a head leader over all the Hutterite communities known as a Vorsteher, a sort of moderator. He oversaw missionaries, comforted those in prison (and there were many) and generally dealt with any problems that came up and clarified any issues that needed clarifying.

We are all in this together...

...Literally. The thing that distinguished the Hutterites from most other Anabaptist groups was their commitment to the community of goods a.k.a. holding all things in common. In the book of Acts it says:

Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common. (4:32)

The Hutterites took hold of this scripture and throughout their history strived to adhere to a communal lifestyle. Sometimes they succeeded and sometimes they didn't. Hutterites have looked back on their history and point to the times they succeeded as the times they were walking most closely with God. Many Hutterite colonies today still practice a community of goods, living a communal lifestyle and having almost no personal possessions.

Hutterite communities were called Bruderhofs and consisted of large, rambling houses, grouped together to shelter multiple families in close proximity to one another. Both Grandma and Grandpa's villages had Hutterite Bruderhofs, and both Grandma and Grandpa grew up in Bruderhof-now-Haban homesteads. In both Sobotište and Moravský Svätý Ján today there are historic sections of town called Habánsky Dvor or Haban Court, the old Hutterite homes of the Bruderhofs, grouped together with other buildings, such as mills, and a chapel for gathering to worship.

Present day photo of the Habansky Dvor in Grandma's hometown of Sobotiste

*In 1527, a group of Swiss Anabaptists in Schleitheim, Switzerland, met and agreed unanimously on the middle seven of these Anabaptist beliefs. It was referred to as the Schleitheim Confession. The first belief listed, the Bible as God's true word and ultimate authority was already a given in Anabaptist circles by this time in the Protestant Reformation. The last belief listed, the community of goods, also described as holding all things in common, was primarily Hutterite.

I'm Not Making This Stuff Up

I have a love-hate relationship with footnotes...

Whenever I read well-researched historical material, I internally shudder as I see a superscript number coming up. I know I cannot resist the impulse to look down to the bottom of the page and read the footnote. I have found that about one in thirty footnotes have something interesting and definitely worth reading in them (the “love” part). The other twenty-nine footnotes just serve to interrupt my train of thought and slow down my reading fluency (the “hate” part). In deciding upon the format for this blog, I decided to write it how I would want to read it myself – without footnotes to distract me from the information my brain is trying to absorb. I have always appreciated the writer who puts all the footnotes in the back of the book so I won't be tempted to look down. This being a blog, however, and one of undetermined and open-ended length, there is no “back of the book” to put footnotes in. In places where I have quoted material from a specific source, I will attribute the source within the paragraph where it is quoted. But for general information, much of which I've gotten from reading multiple sources, I will not attribute it specifically to each source. I do, however, want to spend some time now sharing my sources with you. You may want to do some of your own Haban exploration, or you may just want to be assured I am not making this stuff up...

Here are my major sources:

GAMEO – No, not an online gaming site. GAMEO stands for Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Looking a little like Wikipedia in format, GAMEO is a well documented online encyclopedia with a wealth of information on all things Anabaptist. It has entries for Habáner, Sobotiste, Sankt Johann (Svätý Ján), many Hutterite family names and all the historical information you could possible want to read relating to anything Anabaptist. You can check it out here (the Habáner page): http://gameo.org/index.php?title=Hab%C3%A1ner

Hutterite Society by John A. Hostetler (1997)

This is the book containing the photo of Grandpa's sister. Hostetler writes a readable, thorough history of all things Hutterite, including the Haban transition to Catholicism as well as an interesting study of present day Hutterite culture. Available through interlibrary loan in most library systems. (I bought my own copy on Amazon...)

The books: We know as much about the Hutterites as we do because they were such meticulous chroniclers of the events of their lives. Their two major "chronicles" have survived through the ages. Originally written by hand, in German, then published, in German, and fortunately for me,

both finally translated into English in the past several decades. The first, the Great Chronicle a.k.a. Geschichts-Buch a.k.a. The Chronicle of the Hutterian Brethren, Volume I was written by Kaspar Braitmichel until his death in 1573. It was then continued by seven more chroniclers, eventually covering the history of the Hutterites from 1517 to 1665. (Translated and edited by the Hutterian Brethren, Plough Pulishing House, Rifton, New York, 1987) The Small Chronicle a.k.a Kleine-Geschichtsbuch a.k.a The Chronicle of the Hutterian Brethren, Volume II was written by Johannes Waldner, who included a recap of the Great Chronicle, continuing the story into the 1800s. (Translated and edited by the Hutterian Brethren Crystal Spring Colony, Ste. Agathe, Manitoba, Canada, 1998) “Great” and “Small”, by the way, don't refer to size as much as “honor”. The Great Chronicle is given, in humility, the higher honor by the writer of the Small Chronicle because it came first and contains the stories of the Golden Era of the Hutterites. The second chronicle, however, is the one that contains the details of the forced conversion to Catholicism in both Grandpa and Grandpa's towns. Both books are available through interlibrary loan, usually from some university library. I've gone through both books, and own my own copy of Volume II. How I obtained that copy is a story in itself, one that I might share in a later post.

Hutterite Studies by Robert Freidmann (1961)

A series of essays by a noted Hutterite researcher. Hard to buy now, but available through interlibrary loan.

The Hutterian Brethren, 1528-1931: A Story Of Martyrdom And Loyalty by John Horsh (1931)

Another Hutterite researcher, Horsh provided English excerpts from the Great and Small Chronicles in the years before there was a complete English translation of these books. Available on Amazon and interlibrary loan.

Remembering Mama and Papa – The memoir my mother, Lillian Cederle Zima, wrote about her mother and father (Grandma and Grandpa). I think most of the cousins have access to a copy of this book. I believe my mom gave at least one copy to each family of cousins.

Mom's letters from Europe – For years, my mother, fluent in Slovak, had a written correspondence with several of her cousins in Slovakia. When I sent my mother the picture of what would later be identified as Grandpa's sister, she started sending me English translations of the letters she received back from her cousins. These letters, covering a ten plus year span from the early 1990s through the early 2000s, were fascinating glimpses into the spiritual mindset of the Haban remnant in Grandpa and Grandma's families. I will be sharing some of these in a later post.

Various online encyclopedias and websites: Encyclopaedia Britannica (britannica.com), Foundation for East European Family History Studies (feefhs.org), Hutterites.org, Family Search (familysearch.org). This last one, a Morman-based website, contains copies of church documents. I was able to view the baptismal records of Grandpa and all his sisters. Since the baptism issue was such a big deal for the Habans, I'll eventually do a blog post and include snips of the actual baptismal records.

Since this blog is ongoing, there may be other resources that come up that I haven't stumbled onto yet. I'll include them when I do. The Mennonite Quarterly Review looks like a promising resource, and I have a librarian at our local public library who has worked her magic and provided me with articles from that periodical's distant past. I'm also stalking some possible Slovakian relatives on facebook who I hope may provide some information about what the Haban sections of Grandma and Grandpa's town are like now. Even Google street view has given me glimpses of what Sobotište and Svätý Ján look like now. Writing this blog is proving to be a fun historical, genealogical, geographical on-going adventure...

To Baptize Or Not To Baptize (Or When To Do It...Or Not To Do It)

(Church History Part II)

Despite Martin Luther and Henry VIII's falling out with Rome, many similarities between the Lutheran Church, the Church of England and the Catholic Church remained. One thing they all saw as a good idea was infant baptism. Pouring water on the head of a baby and baptizing that baby in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost secured the next generation for the Church, but more importantly, guaranteed the baby's entry into heaven. During centuries of high infant mortality rates, infant baptism seemed to be a spiritual no-brainer. Parents wanted their children to be assured of heaven...

...But wait, say some of the scripture-reading Protestants, the Bible doesn't mention anything about babies being baptized. Jesus is “presented” in the temple shortly after his birth, but the reason for the family being there is Mary's purification, as required by Jewish law, not any kind of infant baptism. Jesus is just along for the ride. John the Baptist preaches a baptism of repentance and baptizes adults. Jesus comes to John at the Jordan River and is also baptized...as an adult.

When the Haban split off from their Hutterite brethren, the issue of infant baptism was very much in the forefront of the conflict. I will eventually write in detail about that conflict between the Hutterites and the Jesuits, but for now I want to continue with another hopefully brief, very condensed timeline of church history, from the Protestant Reformation to the origins of the Hutterites.*

1520s - Huldrych Zwingli, a Swiss contemporary of Martin Luther, is reforming the church in Switzerland at the time Martin Luther is reforming the church in Germany. He is debating what to do about the Mass and infant baptism. He works with the local governing body on deciding if these formerly Catholic practices should go or stay. (There is no such thing as separation of church and state at this point in history. The relationship between the two has been intertwined for hundreds of years – the Catholic Church and the Holy Roman Empire, and now the Protestant churches and the local magistrates.)

1525 – Conrad Grebel, a follower of Zwingli, decides Zwingli is moving too slowly on the reforms. Running with the “...But wait, the Bible doesn't mention anything about babies being baptized”, he does two radical things – he baptizes another follower, George Blaurock, an adult (!!) and then refuses to baptize his infant daughter Issabella (!!!). George Blaurock, in turn, starts baptizing other adults. Zwingli is not happy. The governing powers are not happy. Anabaptism – a derogatory name meaning rebaptism - is born and is promptly persecuted.

1525 – 1700s – Grebel's and Blaurock's Anabaptist followers are now referred to as the Swiss Brethren. Their views on baptism and their refusal to cultivate relationships with the civil government infuriates both Roman Catholics and Lutheran reformers alike. The Swiss Brethren, and any related Anabaptist splinter groups – and there are many - are persecuted and scattered throughout Europe, mostly in the lands that will become Germany, the Netherlands, Austria and Czechoslovakia.

1532-1535 – Münster, Westphalia (Germany), becomes the “New Jerusalem” of radical (read “fanatic”) Anabaptism. Chased and persecuted Anabaptists from the Netherlands and other northern European areas gather in Münster to catch their collective breaths and are lead by some wild and crazy guys. They blend some of the New Testament beliefs (such as community of goods) with some Old Testament customs (polygamy) and decide that an Anabaptist nonviolent commitment to peace at all costs is too costly. They lead a violent revolt, one that is promptly and brutally suppressed. Because the Münsterites shared some of the same beliefs as other Anabaptists, “Münsterites” and “Anabaptism” are now words firmly linked in the minds of Lutherans and Catholics alike. The hot persecution against any and all Anabaptists gets hotter.

1536 – Menno Simons, a Dutch priest, leaves the Catholic Church and joins the Anabaptist movement. Eventually the Swiss Brethren take his name and become known as Mennonites (Later, in 1693, Jakob Ammann attempts to reform the Swiss Brethren-now-Mennonite church. It does not go well. His splinter group of followers become known as the Amish...)

1533-1536 – Jakob Hutter, a Tyrolian (Austrian) convert to Anabaptism, works with Tyrolean (Austrian) Anabaptist groups, moving them to Moravia when things get too hot for them in Tyrol. He settles their disputes, wisely ministers to their physical and spiritual needs, and encourages true godly community. He proves himself to be such a great all-round leader that these former Swiss Brethren Anabaptists take their name from him and are now known as...yep...Hutterites. And here is where our Haban story really begins...

* Again, PLEASE, mercy from my seminary-educated readers...

The Curse of Martin Luther

(Church History Part I)

There was a pretty church building a few miles from where I lived as a child. It was small, built of red brick and had a white steeple with a plain cross on the top. The Catholic church we attended was large and darkly cathedral-like and for some reason this small simple church attracted my curiosity. Maybe could we go there some Sunday, I asked my mother. She told me no, that we were Catholic and the small church was not a Catholic church. I was young enough to only have a Catholic worldview at that point, and thinking that all churches were, of course, Catholic, asked my mother how come that church was not a Catholic church. She told me that a person had a disagreement with the pope and decided to start a new church of their own, but it wasn't really God's church, just that person's idea of what a church should be. I tried to wrap my five- or six-year-old brain around this monumental theological revelation and spent the next year or two with the somber knowledge that somewhere in the world, living in opposition to both God and the pope, was a wicked woman named Grace Lutheran...

Grace Lutheran Church, Bellmore, NY, as it looks today

Needless to say, my grasp of the Protestant Reformation has expanded somewhat since that day. And living my church life on the Protestant side of the fence for the past 27 years has made me appreciate Martin Luther as more of a hero of the faith than the villain of my childhood (who I was surprised to find out, eventually, was a man...). Still, I do feel the tension between my Catholic upbringing and the evangelical protestant faith I presently dwell within. I now live functionally popeless, but I do admit to being a little sad at the plethora of denominations that have sprung up since Luther first nailed a copy of his 95 theses to the door of a Wittenberg church. In traveling around the country in the past several decades, I would often pass the time in the hotel counting the number of non-Catholic churches listed in the yellow pages of the phone book. A medium-sized town would have one, maybe two Catholic Churches, but dozens of Protestant churches of various denominations with additional subsets within denominations. Since Martin Luther and the Protestant reformation, the freedom of the individual and local church to read and study the Bible naturally led to different interpretations and/or emphases which led to divisions and different denominations within the Protestant church. The doctrine of salvation by faith alone and the belief in the sole authority of scripture are the blessings of Martin Luther. The tendency to divide into denominations and subdenominations over doctrinal disagreements is his curse...

To understand the Haban's Hutterite roots, we first need to understand the Protestant Reformation's role in creating the atmosphere that emboldened groups such as the Anabaptists to appear and spawn communities such as the Hutterites. But I promised this blog would be both interesting and readable, so I will now attempt only a very brief, very condensed version of church history from Jesus to the Protestant Reformation.*

First Century – Jesus lived, died, was resurrected, ascended into heaven, sent the Holy Spirit, and presto - the Church is born!

First Century – 1054 . - The Church was persecuted, grew wildly in numbers, had some political alignments, was generally ruled by the spiritual descendants of the apostle Peter known as popes.

1054 - The Church splits geographically and culturally into East and West in a Great Schism. The pope in Rome and the patriarch of Constantinople mutually excommunicate one another. East goes on to become the Eastern, Greek, and Russian Orthodox churches, the West goes on as the Roman Catholic Church.

1054 – 1500s – The Roman Catholic Church is the Church in Europe, chugging along largely intact and in alliance with the Holy Roman Empire.

1517 – 1521 – Martin Luther, a German Catholic priest, writes his Ninety-five Theses (1517), takes issue with some Catholic practices, indulgences being one of them, refuses to renounce his writings, and is excommunicated by the pope (1521).

1534 – 1538 - Henry VIII of England, in disagreement with the pope over the validity of his first marriage, declares himself “the only Supreme Head on Earth of the Church of England” (1534). The Church of England (Anglican Church, eventually the Episcopal Church in America) is born. The pope not so promptly excommunicates him (1538).

1500s – The Protestant Reformation takes hold. Martin Luther spells out what he feels the Catholic Church has gotten away from, that salvation and eternal life are not obtained by being good (or being bought, as in the case of indulgences) but are the free gift of God's grace when one believes in the death and resurrection of Jesus as the only means to salvation. He also declares that the Bible is the one and only source of God's revelation. Martin, and to some extent, Henry, wrest spiritual authority from the priests and pope and put it in the hands of the Bible-reading, believing common men and women. For Protestants, everyone gets to be his or her own pope, his or her own priest now.

And so the proliferation of denominations begins...

*To any of my seminary-educated readers out there, I beg – BEG! - for your mercy...

Next:

To Baptize Or Not To Baptize (And When To Do It...Or Not To Do It)

(Church History Part II)