Baptist in the Harz Mountains
The Anabaptists in the Harz are attested from around 1527 to the middle of the 16th century.
history
During the Reformation, the radical Reformation Anabaptist movement spread in the Harz too . The first impulses came mainly from the Upper Franconian area. The first groups of Anabaptists already existed in the southern Harz around 1527. The teacher Alexander from Stolberg played a special role in the early phase . Jakob Schmiedeknecht also worked alongside him. The first collection points were Emseloh , Lengefeld and Sangerhausen . However, extensive religious persecution began early on in the Harz Mountains too, forcing the Anabaptist movement into illegality . The first religiously motivated Murders took place in 1530 when two Anabaptists were drowned in the so-called Anabaptist Hole (also Anabaptist pond ) near Liebenrode .
One of the first centers in the southern Harz was the cutting mill at Zorge . Heinz Kraut, among others, preached here, who succeeded Alexander and was able to collect many new Anabaptists in the Harz and Thuringian regions. After the first meeting place had been revealed, they came together on the screw stone, a desert between Riestedt and Emseloh . In September 1535, the Anabaptists Georg Kähler and Georg Möller were arrested in Riestedt and beheaded a short time later in Sangerhausen .
In the northern Harz region, the community initially met in the Pfaffenhäuslein behind the cathedral near Halberstadt . Georg Knobloch was particularly active here. In the Pfaffenhäuslein there are said to have been extensive parish activities with communion and baptismal services. The congregation later met at the Grauen Hof in Halberstadt, which is part of the Michaelstein monastery . Many of the Anabaptists in Halberstadt were arrested in September 1535. Despite repeated torture ( embarrassing interrogation ), Hans Höhne, Adrian Richter and Petronella refused to let go of their Anabaptist beliefs and were drowned in the Bode on October 8, 1535 . Two years later, Hans Linsenbusch was executed with the sword at Brücken an der Helme . Little is known about the further fate of the Harz Anabaptists. More than ten years later, the Lutheran theologian Tileman Plathner , who worked under Count Wolfgang zu Stolberg , tried to obtain amnesty for Anabaptists who were still imprisoned and who were ready to return to the Lutheran Church, which many claimed. Those who were unwilling to convert had to leave the country.
Theology and practice
Due to the many interrogation protocols , an approximate picture of the Harz Anabaptists and their theology can be drawn today. Friends of God and lovers of God have been handed down as the names of the community . Repentance and inner turning away from the world played a major role . The baptism was carried out according to Georg Köhler, in that the person to be baptized made a confession ( I desire the covenant of a good conscience with God and ask for baptism ), the baptism of Jesus by John read (1.9–11 EU ) and finally the to The baptismal end with three crosses on the forehead was wetted with water. There is also said to have been aspersion. The Lord's Supper (breaking bread) was celebrated as a sign of communion with Jesus, but not as a sacrament . There is also evidence of the washing of the feet before the Lord's Supper, as it is still practiced today in individual Mennonite communities. Even if the marriage was recognized as sacred, the congregation was still above the marriage community, so that there should also have been separations. The confession of people was rejected. Singing together played a major role . Prayer was mostly free. But our Father was also prayed. In the creed , Pilati suffered under the League was spoken instead of Pontio Pilato in order to tie in with one's own situation of persecution . Instead of sermons , there were often joint discussions at the meetings. Unlike the Hutterites , for example , no community of property ( collective property ) was practiced. Social revolutionary approaches such as those under Thomas Müntzer did not exist. However, a conscious distance was kept from a life that was perceived as courtly . The clothes were therefore mostly simple.
literature
- E. Jacobs: The Anabaptists in the Harz , In: Journal of the Harz Association for History and Antiquity XXXII. 1899, pages 423-536.
- P. Wappler: The Anabaptist movement in Thuringia from 1526-1584 . Jena, 1913.