Swiss Brethren
The Swiss Brethren (Schweizer Brüder) are a branch of Anabaptism that started in Zürich, spread to nearby cities and towns, and then was exported to neighboring countries.
On the basis of Sola scriptura doctrine, the Swiss Brethren declared that since the Bible does not explicitly mention infant baptism, it should not be practiced by the church.
The Swiss Brethren became known as Mennonites after the division of 1693, a disagreement between groups led by Jacob Amman and Hans Reist.
Many of the Mennonites in France, Southern Germany, the Netherlands and North America, as well as most Amish descend from the Swiss Brethren.
He was educated at the University of Leipzig and served as a priest, but departed from the Catholic Church before he arrived in Zürich around 1524, for he had already taken a wife.
After a break with Zwingli in January 1525 and acting against a Zürich city council ruling, Blaurock asked Conrad Grebel to baptize him upon a confession of faith in Christ.
Core members of the group broke with Zwingli because they thought the reform process was proceeding too slowly.
Afterward, Blaurock baptized Grebel and the others, initiating a wave of rebaptisms that would spread throughout the Swiss cantons.
While he preached with George Blaurock in the Grüningen region, they were taken by surprise, arrested and imprisoned in Zürich at the Wellenburg prison.
On 5 January 1527, Felix Manz became the first casualty of the edict, and the first of the Swiss Brethren to be executed at the hands of Protestants.
The disagreement was fierce and the ill feelings generated by the exchange between Reist, Ammann, and other leaders resulted in an unrepairable breach.
Reublin was with Conrad Grebel and Felix Manz in Zürich in January 1525 at the birth of the Anabaptist movement.
Born around 1490 in Staufen, Germany, Sattler became a Benedictine monk in the cloister of St. Peter and most likely became prior by the time he left, around 1525.
That year they traveled to Zürich, which was then embroiled in controversy over infant baptism, and was expelled from the city in November.
Before execution by fire, his tongue was cut out, and red hot tongs were used to tear two pieces of flesh from his body.
He had firm views on clothing style, opposed trimmed beards and introduced foot washing.
He traveled among the Swiss Anabaptist communities in the cantons of Switzerland, Alsace and the Palatinate, promoting his views and excommunicating any who opposed him.
Because of his unbending convictions and harsh rhetoric, an irreparable breach developed between the two groups that continues centuries later in North America.
