The Reformed Christians drowned Felix Manz, the first of thousands of Anabaptist martyrs over the next two centuries. The Catholics burned at the stake Michael Sattler, author of the first Anabaptist confession of faith. Even Martin Luther, who is credited with ushering in the Reformation, urged the execution of all Anabaptists as heretics.
Such persecution helped drive the early Anabaptists - the spiritual ancestors of today's Mennonites, Amish, and Hutterites - into isolation, suspicious of the rest of the world. But now nearly 500 years later, the Catholic, Lutheran, and Reformed churches are seeking to make amends. "We all have black sheep in the family. We all have ancestors that we aren't proud of," said Joseph Martino, head of the Vatican- appointed delegation that last fall concluded five years of meetings with a group from Mennonite World Conference, the global Mennonite fellowship.
In addition to the Catholics, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and Mennonite Church USA this spring finished a two-year series of meetings, and last week the Reformed Church in Zurich, Switzerland, held a reconciliation ceremony with participation by Anabaptist descendants from around the world.
As Catholics, Lutherans, and Reformed reexamine their history, Mennonites are prompted to introspection. "It's always healthy if we should engage another tradition," said Mennonite historian John Sharp. "That strengthens our own faith."
The Protestant Reformation was born in 1517 when Catholic monk Martin Luther challenged the church by posting his 95 theses in Wittenberg in what is now Germany. He went on to found the Lutheran church. Another pivotal development came in the early 1520s, when priest Ulrich Zwingli renounced Catholicism but remained in the pulpit of Zurich's main church, leading to the start of the Reformed movement.
But some Christians thought Luther, Zwingli, and other reformers did not go far enough. Particularly at issue was infant baptism. For generations, newborns had been baptized, but some argued that only adults could make a decision to join the church. Anabaptists insisted on believers' baptism - first conducted in Zurich in 1525 - and refused to have their children baptized as babies.
But the Anabaptist position, while religious, was also political. Baptism was not only into the church but also into citizenship in the state, since state and church were one, be they Catholic, Lutheran, or Reformed. So rejecting infant baptism was seen as threatening the civic order.
As a result, Anabaptists were severely persecuted, forcing them frequently to flee across Europe and eventually to the Americas in search of security to practice their faith.
But that was then and this is now, according to church leaders. In fact, said Paul Schreck, ELCA associate for bilateral dialogue, many church members are unaware of that chapter of their church's history. "I think most Lutherans around the world would be horrified that their forebears put to the sword people who disagreed with them," he said.
Both the Catholic and Lutheran dialogues covered many topics, but they also included repentance. In the final report of the Catholic- Mennonite meetings, released this spring, the Vatican delegation said Catholics "can express a penitential spirit, asking forgiveness for any sins which were committed against Mennonites, asking God's mercy for that, and God's blessing for a new relationship with Mennonites today."
Following their meetings with Mennonite Church USA, the ELCA participants released a statement repudiating state-sanctioned Lutheran persecution of Anabaptists.
Starting next year, the conversation will go global, as MWC and Lutheran World Federation will start meeting together. One of the items on the agenda is the Augsburg Confession, a 1530 document including condemnations of Anabaptists that is still used by Lutherans.
The study of history was an important element to both the Catholic and Lutheran dialogues. Martino said it is important for all sides in a conversation to have a common understanding of the past. "A lot of time people have strong feelings based on certain things they regard as gospel truth," said Martino, bishop in Scranton, Pa. "Once the playing field is leveled, then you get into a position where you can talk on a secure foundation. The perceptions and the judgments are adjusted."
That applies to Anabaptist history as well as Catholic and Lutheran history. Their martyr heritage has been crucial to Mennonite, Amish, and Hutterite identity. Important to those groups is "Martyrs Mirror," a 17th-century book of 1,290 pages with hundreds of accounts of persecuted Anabaptists. "We like to say we were just being obedient," Miller said. "But if you take a look at it from another angle, you can say we were socially provocative."
