Philippians (Baptist)

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The Philippians were a group named after Philipp Plener within the radical Reformation Anabaptist movement in Moravia and Upper Austria .

history

The Philippians essentially go back to the activities of the preacher Philipp Plener in southwest Germany . The town of Bruchsal in Baden was a center of his work around 1526/27 . In 1527 emigrated Plener over Augsburg to Moravia and settled with a part of his community along with that of Gabriel Ascherham supervised Silesian Gabrielern in Rossitz on. A short time later, Plener and other Southwest German Anabaptists founded a Bruderhof near Auspitz (Czech: Hustopeče ). Two years later, more emigrants came from the Bruchsal Anabaptist community. The Auspitz community finally had around 400 members in 1535. Many of their names were later recorded in the Hutterite history book . In addition to the farm at Auspitz, there was also a smaller Bruderhof at Pulgram (Czech: Bulhary ). In Auspitz, the Philippians settled near an Anabaptist community that had moved from Austerlitz to Auspitz and later named itself after Jakob Hutter Hutterer . The latter consisted mainly of Tyrolean Anabaptists. Friendly contacts also continued to exist with the Gabriel people in Rossitz. In 1531 these three Anabaptist groups living in communion formed a loose union with a total of around 4000 parishioners. At a meeting between the leaders of the three Anabaptist groups in October 1533, however, a falling out occurred, which led to the Hutterites, Gabriels and Philippians developing as independent Anabaptist denominations in the following years.

After the persecution of the Anabaptists in Moravia increased in 1535, most of the Philippians finally returned to Germany. Here they gave up the community of property and formed a new community in the Bruchsal area. A smaller part joined the Hutterites who remained in Moravia. The community near Bruchsal was mentioned several times in letters from Peter Riedemann , but in the following years it merged with the surrounding southwest German Anabaptist communities. This possibly happened against the background of the Anabaptist unification efforts by Pilgram Marpeck in the greater Strasbourg / Worms area . Other Philippian communities existed between 1534 and 1541 in the Upper Austrian cities of Steyr , Linz and Gmunden . Despite the efforts of Peter Riedemann, these communities could not last. Some of the Upper Austrian Philippians later also joined the Hutterites in Moravia.

An example of the theology of the Philippian Anabaptists is the book Was ein echter Soldat Christi , published by Hans Haffner , in which Haffner emphasizes calmness and inner devotion to God. The core of the Anabaptist hymn book Ausbund (song numbers 81 - 129) can be traced back to a group of Philippians arrested in Passau in the late summer of 1535 .

The Philippians, together with the Gabriels , the Sabbathers , the Nikolsburg Anabaptists , who were influenced by Balthasar Hubmaier , and the Austerlitz Brothers who belong to the Marpeck circle provide an example of the plurality of the early Moravian Anabaptist movement. They show how, in addition to the Hutterites, other Anabaptist community movements were able to develop in Moravia in the first half of the 16th century.

literature

  • Werner O. Packull : Die Philippians , in: ders .: Die Hutterer in Tirol; Early Anabaptism in Switzerland, Tyrol and Moravia , Universitätsverlag Wagner, Innsbruck, 2000, ISBN 3-7030-0351-0 , Chapter 4, pp. 95–120, Chapter 12, pp. 320–327, and pp. 352f (Places and community leaders)

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