500 Years of Anabaptist Movement: How Religious Freedom Began in a Snowy Zurich Home

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January 21, 2025 at 06:42 AM

On January 21, 1525, a group of young Swiss reformers gathered secretly in Felix Manz's home in Zurich, defying the city council's ban on their Bible studies. This meeting would mark the birth of the Anabaptist movement and plant the seeds of religious freedom.

Days before, these reformers had disputed with their former teacher, Huldrych Zwingli, over infant baptism. Though Zwingli had taught them to reform the church according to Scripture alone, he consistently yielded to government authority. His students—Conrad Grebel, Felix Manz, and George Blaurock—believed the Reformation needed to go further.

That snowy evening, after intense prayer, they made their historic decision. Grebel baptized Blaurock with water, who then baptized the others, establishing the first Reformation-era believers' church. This act launched the Anabaptist movement, which would experience both remarkable growth and severe persecution.

By 1527, the movement had produced the Schleitheim Confession, rejecting war, lawsuits, and oaths. However, the price for their convictions was high. Within a year, Grebel died of plague. Manz was drowned in 1527, becoming the first Anabaptist martyr. Blaurock was burned at the stake in 1529.

The Anabaptists' legacy lives on through their commitment to religious liberty and pacifism. Their "Letter to Thomas Müntzer" (1524) is considered the earliest Protestant free church document. Though later Baptists distanced themselves from some Anabaptist practices, their influence on religious freedom in America remains significant.