Marbeck district

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The Marbeck Circle (also called Marpeck Circle ) was an association named after Pilgram Marbeck ( Marpeck ) within the Upper German Anabaptist movement . Self-names of this movement, which dominated Anabaptist theology in southern Germany around the middle of the 16th century, were bilgramites (after Marbeck's first name), allies or Christian allies .

background

The starting point for the creation of the Marbeck Circle was Pilgram Marbeck's efforts to unite the divided Upper German Anabaptist movement .

Among the Anabaptists in southern Germany, there were considerable disputes between the supporters of Hans Denck and Hans Huts , which were initially settled at the so-called Augsburg Synod of Martyrs (1527), but reignited when many supporters of Hut came to Strasbourg as refugees and thus to the central workplace of Hans Denck. In addition, the Chiliast Melchior Hofmann, who fled from Emden to Strasbourg , caused considerable unrest in the Anabaptist circles based in Alsace .

In 1529 Hans Bünderlin came to Strasbourg from Linz in Upper Austria and wrote a pamphlet against the external worship service, which he also saw practiced in the Anabaptist movement. True worshipers - so Bünderlin with reference to the 4th chapter of the Gospel of John - would serve God "in spirit and in truth". In early Christianity , outward acts were still performed with baptism and the Lord's Supper , but this was done exclusively with consideration for Christians of Judaism who were still attached to the letter of the law. His writings were not without consequences - especially with the Denckian Anabaptists.

Around 1530 two groups split off within Upper German Anabaptism: the Melchiorites (named after Melchior Hofmann) and the Bünderlinschen . The other Anabaptists appointed Marbeck to be their chief. After its departure at the beginning of 1532, Marbeck's friend Leopold Scharnschlager succeeded him.

Another fault line within the Anabaptist movement was created by the Hutterites, who imitated the community of property of the early Jerusalem community and made it a constitutive part of Christian community life in their teaching. They sent out messengers and advertised - especially in Anabaptist circles - for their model of the community as a community of property.

While Marbeck's efforts to reach an agreement met insurmountable resistance from the Hutterites, around 600 representatives of the Anabaptist movement from Marbeck, who lived relatively undisturbed as a hydraulic engineer in Augsburg, were invited to Strasbourg in 1554 . Marbeck could no longer take part in the two following Anabaptist conferences; he died at the end of 1556. In terms of their effectiveness, these Anabaptist meetings are considered the historical highlights of the Marbeck district.

Municipalities of the Marbeck district

Pilgram Marbeck built a network of Anabaptist convents and communities that stretched from Graubünden to Württemberg and from Alsace to Moravia and Vienna. The individual parishes kept in touch with each other through letters and trips. These contacts were coordinated, among other things, by a joint group of elders. On the one hand, the communities in the Marbeck district were structured as a relatively open conventicle, but on the other hand they also had an ecclesial claim. They performed baptism and the Lord's Supper and saw themselves as the visible church of Christ.

In this context, the Marbeck Circle can be seen as one of several supra-regional gathering movements of the Anabaptist movement of the late Reformation period. Further collecting movements were the Mennonites , the Hutterites and, to a lesser extent, the Swiss brothers , who collected part of the Anabaptist movement with a conceptual approach and thus initiated a process of confessionalization. In contrast to the communitarian Hutterites or the Swiss brothers who were characterized by internal migration to the countryside, the Marbeck district consisted primarily of urban communities. The Marbeck-Kreis designed a community model that enabled its members to maintain an urban-bourgeois way of life in addition to taking part in Anabaptist meetings. In this respect, the Marbeck Circle competed and partially overlapped with the spiritualistic Schwenkfeldians , who had also formed conventicles in several southern German cities. In order to be able to acquire city citizenship, many Anabaptists in the Marbeck district were also prepared to take an oath, which, for example, set them apart from the much more uncompromising Swiss brothers.

Parishes of the Marbeck district existed in Strasbourg, Augsburg , Vienna , Znaim and Austerlitz , among others . The community of the Austerlitz brothers, which was founded in 1528 and goes back to the Stäbler , was still communitarian in the first years of its existence, but soon abandoned the principle of community of property. Some of the Austerlitz brothers also owned subsidiary communities such as in nearby Butschowitz . By converting to the Hutterites in 1537, a small Hutterite community was formed in Austerlitz. In 1541, when the Hutterites visited their headquarters in Schakwitz , Marbeck and the eldest of the Austerlitz brothers, Cornelius Veh, tried to convince them to merge the two groups, but this did not succeed. In 1559 there were also theological talks with the Brotherhood in Znaim and Eibenschitz .

Writings of the Marbeck Circle

Title page of the art book , a collection of writings from the Marbeck district

The church historians JF Gerhard Goeters and Heinold Fast discovered by chance in 1955 a collection of letters and writings by the Upper German Anabaptists in the Burgerbibliothek Bern ( Switzerland ). The collection, which was put together by Jörg Probst Rotenfelder , called Jörg, the painter from Augsburg , around 1560, is entitled The Art Book . It has since been published in the series Sources for the History of the Anabaptists with extensive commentaries and a text-critical apparatus. The vast majority of the writings compiled here can be assigned to the Marbeck district. The authors include Pilgram Marbeck , Leonhard Schiemer , Christian Entfelder , Leupold Scharnschlager and Jörg Probst Rotenfelder (Jörg Maler).

literature

  • Jan J. Kiwiet: Pilgram Marbeck. A leader of the Anabaptist movement in southern Germany , Kassel 1958.
  • Hans Guderian: The Anabaptists in Augsburg. Their history and their legacy. A contribution to the 2000 year celebration of the city of Augsburg , Pfaffenhofen 1984, ISBN 3-7787-2063-5 (see especially pp. 101–106)
  • Diether Götz Lichdi: The Mennonites in the past and present. From the Anabaptist Movement to the Worldwide Free Church , Weisenheim am Berg 2004 (2nd significantly changed and expanded edition), ISBN 3-88744-402-7 (see especially pp. 47–50)
  • Heinold Fast / Martin Rothkegel (arrangement): Letters and writings of Upper German Anabaptists 1527 - 1555. The art book of Jörg Propst Rotenfelder called painter (Burgerbibliothek Bern, Cod. 464) , Volume XVII in the series Sources on the History of Anabaptists (publisher: Heinold Fast / Gottfried Seebaß), Gütersloh 2007, ISBN 978-3-579-01646-7

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Actually: The pundts who believe in Christ and who have shared the tribulation that is in Christ ; see Jan J. Kiwiet: Pilgram Marbeck , Kassel 1958, p. 58.
  2. ^ Martin Rothkegel: Marpeck Pilgram. In: Mennonite Lexicon . Volume 5 (MennLex 5).
  3. ↑ Jan J. Kiwiet: Pilgram Marpeck. A leader of the Anabaptist movement in southern Germany , Kassel 1958, p. 49.
  4. ^ Hans Guderian: Die Anabaptist in Augsburg , p. 106.
  5. ^ Martin Rothkegel: Marpeck Pilgram. In: Mennonite Lexicon . Volume 5 (MennLex 5).
  6. ↑ Martin Rothkegel: The Austerlitz Brothers or Allies - Pilgram Marpecks parish in Moravia . In: Writings of the Association for Reformation History . tape 209 , 2009, pp. 237 .
  7. ↑ Heinold Fast / Martin Rothkegel (arrangement): Letters and writings of Upper German Anabaptists 1527 - 1555. The art book of Jörg Propst Rothenfelder called painter (Burgerbibliothek Bern, Cod. 464) , Volume XVII in the series Sources for the history of the Anabaptists , Gütersloh 2007
  8. ↑ Heinold Fast / Martin Rothkegel (arrangement): Letters and writings of Upper German Anabaptists 1527 - 1555. The art book of Jörg Propst Rothenfelder called painter (Burgerbibliothek Bern, Cod. 464) , Volume XVII in the series Sources for the history of the Anabaptists , Gütersloh 2007, p. 14ff.