Hutterites (; ), also called Hutterian Brethren (), are a communal ethnoreligious branch of Anabaptists, who, like the Amish and Mennonites, trace their roots to the Radical Reformation of the early 16th century and have formed intentional communities.
The founder of the Hutterites, Jakob Hutter, "established the Hutterite colonies on the basis of the Schleitheim Confession, a classic Anabaptist statement of faith" of 1527. He formed the first communes in 1528 in Tyrol (present-day Italy). Since the death of Hutter in 1536, the beliefs of the Hutterites, especially those espousing a community of goods and nonresistance, have resulted in hundreds of years of diaspora in many countries. The Hutterites embarked on a series of migrations through central and eastern Europe. Nearly extinct by the 18th century, they migrated to Russia in 1770 and about a hundred years later to North America. Over the course of 140 years, their population living in communities of goods recovered from about 400 to around 50,000 at present. Due to the preservation of their original way of life, the Hutterites fall under the larger category of Old Order Anabaptists. Today, almost all Hutterites live in Western Canada, the upper Great Plains of the United States, central Washington State, and northern Oregon.
History
Beginnings
The Anabaptist movement, from which the Hutterites emerged, started in groups that formed after the early Reformation in Switzerland led by Huldrych Zwingli (1484–1531). These new groups were part of the Radical Reformation, which departed from the teachings of Zwingli and the Swiss Reformed Church. In Zürich on January 21, 1525, Conrad Grebel (c. 1498–1526) and Jörg Blaurock (c. 1491–1529) practiced adult baptism to each other and then to others.Anthony L. Chute, Nathan A. Finn, Michael A. G. Haykin. The Baptist Story, Nashville, 2015, p. 12. From Switzerland Anabaptism quickly spread northward and eastward in the timespan of one year. Balthasar Hubmaier (c. 1480–1528), a Bavarian from Friedberg, became an Anabaptist in Zürich in 1525 but fled to Nikolsburg in Moravia in May 1526. Other early Anabaptists who became important for the emerging Hutterites were Hans Denck (c. 1500–1527), Hans Hut (1490–1527), Hans Schlaffer († 1528), Leonhard Schiemer (c. 1500–1528), Ambrosius Spittelmayr (1497–1528) and Jakob Widemann († 1536).John A. Hostetler: Hutterite Society, Baltimore 1974, pp. 10–11. Most of these early Anabaptists soon became martyrs of their faith.
Tyrol Anabaptism appears to have come to Tyrol through the labors of Jörg Blaurock. The Gaismair uprising set the stage by producing a hope for social justice in a way that was similar to the German Peasants' War. Michael Gaismair had tried to bring religious, political, and economical reform through a violent peasant uprising, but the movement was squashed.Peter Hoover: The Mystery of the Mark-Anabaptist Mission Work under the Fire of God, Mountain Lake, Minnesota, Elmendorf Books, 2008, pp. 14–66. Although little hard evidence exists of a direct connection between Gaismair's uprising and Tyrolian Anabaptism, at least a few of the peasants involved in the uprising later became Anabaptists. While a connection between a violent social revolution and non-resistant Anabaptism may be hard to imagine, the common link was the desire for a radical change in the prevailing social injustices. Disappointed with the failure of armed revolt, Anabaptist ideals of an alternative peaceful, just society probably resonated on the ears of the disappointed peasants.Werner O. Packull: Hutterite Beginnings: Communitarian Experiments During the Reformation, Baltimore, Maryland, 1995, pp. 169–175
Before Anabaptism proper was introduced to South Tyrol, Protestant ideas had been propagated in the region by men such as Hans Vischer, a former Dominican. Some of those who participated in conventicles where Protestant ideas were presented later became Anabaptists. As well, the population in general seemed to have a favorable attitude towards reform, be it Protestant or Anabaptist. Jörg Blaurock appears to have preached itinerantly in the Puster Valley region in 1527, which most likely was the first introduction of Anabaptist ideas in the area. Another visit through the area in 1529 reinforced these ideas, but he was captured and burned at the stake in Klausen on September 6, 1529.Werner O. Packull: Hutterite Beginnings: Communitarian Experiments During the Reformation, Baltimore, Maryland, 1995, pp. 181–185
Jakob Hutter was one of the early converts in South Tyrol and later became a leader among the Hutterites, who received their name from him. Hutter made several trips between Moravia and Tyrol—most of the Anabaptists in South Tyrol ended up emigrating to Moravia because of the fierce persecution unleashed by Ferdinand I. In November 1535, Hutter was captured near Klausen and taken to Innsbruck, where he was burned at the stake on February 25, 1536. By 1540 Anabaptism in South Tyrol was beginning to die out, largely because of the emigration to Moravia of the converts to escape incessant persecution.Werner O. Packull: Hutterite Beginnings: Communitarian Experiments During the Reformation, Baltimore, Maryland, 1995, p. 280
Moravia and Hungary In the 16th century, there was a considerable degree of religious tolerance in Moravia because in the 15th century there had been several proto-Protestant movements and upheavals (Czech Brethren, Utraquists, Picards, Minor Unity) in Bohemia and Moravia due to the teachings of Jan Hus (c. 1369–1415).John A. Hostetler: Hutterite Society, Baltimore 1974, p. 12.
Therefore, Moravia, where Hubmaier had also found refuge,John A. Hostetler: Hutterite Society, Baltimore 1974, p. 13. was the land where the persecuted Anabaptist forerunners of the Hutterites fled to, originating mostly from different locations in what is today Southern Germany, Austria and South Tyrol.John A. Hostetler: Hutterite Society, Baltimore 1974, p. 8. Under the leadership of Jakob Hutter in the years 1530 to 1535, they developed the communal form of living that distinguishes them from other Anabaptists, such as the Mennonites and the Amish.John A. Hostetler: Hutterite Society, Baltimore 1974, pp. 17–20. Hutterite communal living is based on the New Testament books of the Acts of the Apostles (chapters 2 (especially verse 44), 4, and 5) and 2 Corinthians.
A basic tenet of Hutterite groups has always been nonresistance, i.e., forbidding its members from taking part in military activities, taking orders from military persons, wearing a formal uniform (such as a soldier's or a police officer's) or paying taxes to be spent on war. This has led to expulsion from or persecution in the several lands in which they have lived.
In Moravia, the Hutterites flourished for several decades; the period between 1554 and 1565 was called "good" and the period between 1565 and 1592 was called "golden". During that time the Hutterites expanded to Upper Hungary, present-day Slovakia. In the time until 1622 some 100 settlements, called , developed in Moravia and Kingdom of Hungary, and the number of Hutterites reached twenty to thirty thousand.John A. Hostetler: Hutterite Society, Baltimore 1974, p. 31.
In 1593 the Long Turkish War, which affected the Hutterites severely, broke out.John A. Hostetler: Hutterite Society, Baltimore 1974, p. 61. During this war, in 1605, some 240 Hutterites were abducted by the Ottoman Turkish army and their Tatar allies and sold into Ottoman slavery.John A. Hostetler: Hutterite Society, Baltimore 1974, p. 63.Johannes Waldner: Das Klein-Geschichtsbuch der Hutterischen Brüder, Philadelphia, 1947, p. 203. It lasted until 1606; however, before the Hutterites could rebuild their resources, the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) broke out. It soon developed into a war about religion when in 1620 the mostly Protestant Bohemia and Moravia were invaded by the Habsburg Emperor Ferdinand II, a Catholic, who annihilated and plundered several Hutterite settlements. In 1621 the Bubonic plague followed the war and killed one third of the remaining Hutterites.John A. Hostetler: Hutterite Society, Baltimore 1974, pp. 63-65.
Renewed persecution followed the Habsburg takeover of the Czech lands in 1620 and in the end annihilated them there as an Anabaptist group. In 1622 the Hutterites were expelled from Moravia and fled to the Hutterite settlements in Hungary, where overcrowding caused severe hardship.John A. Hostetler: Hutterite Society, Baltimore 1974, pp. 65-67. Some Moravian Hutterites converted to Catholicism and retained a separate ethnic identity as the Habans (German: ) until the 19th century (by the end of World War II, the Haban group had become essentially extinct).
Transylvania In 1621 Gabriel Bethlen, prince of Transylvania and a Calvinist, "invited" Hutterites to come to his country. In fact he forced a group of 186 Hutterites to come to Alvinc (today Vințu de Jos, Romania) in 1622, because he needed craftsmen and agricultural workers to develop his land. In the next two years more Hutterites migrated to Transylvania, in total 690 or 1,089 persons, depending on the sources.John A. Hostetler: Hutterite Society, Baltimore 1974, pp. 72–73.
In the second half of the 17th century, the Hutterite community was in decline. It had suffered from Ottoman incursions during which the at Alvinc was burned down in 1661.John Horsch: The Hutterian Brethren 1528-1931. A Story of Martyrdom and Loyalty, Reprint MacMillan Colony, 1985, p. 75. Towards the end of the century, community of goods was abandoned, when exactly is not known. Johannes Waldner assumes in Das Klein-Geschichtsbuch der Hutterischen Brüder that this happened in 1693 or 1694.Johannes Waldner: Das Klein-Geschichtsbuch der Hutterischen Brüder, Volume 2, p. 223: ("In welchem Jahr aber die Gemeinschaft vergangen und aufgehebt worden, [...] dz kann man nit anzeigen. weil man [...] weder mündliche noch schriftliche Nachricht davon hat. [...] Aus einigen Umständen ist zu schließen, dass es ungefähr Anno 1693 or 94 zum End damit sei gegangen.")
In 1756, a group of Crypto-Protestants from Carinthia who in 1755 were deported to Transylvania by the Habsburg monarchy, met the Hutterian Brethren at Alvinc. These Carinthian Protestants read the "account of the belief of the Hutterian Brethren" written by Peter Riedemann, which was given to them by the Brothers, and then decided to join the Hutterites.Johannes Waldner: Das Klein-Geschichtsbuch der Hutterischen Brüder, Volume 2, pp. 273-274 This latter group revived the Hutterite religion, became dominant among the Hutterites and replaced the Tyrolean dialect of the old Hutterites by their Carinthian one, both being Southern Bavarian dialects. In 1762 community of goods was reestablished in Alvinc.
Wallachia In 1767 the Hutterites fled from Transylvania first to Kräbach, that is Ciorogârla in Wallachia, which was at that time some from Bucharest. When the Hutterites left Transylvania, their number was down to 67 people.John A. Hostetler: Hutterite Society, Baltimore 1974, p. 78.
In Wallachia they encountered much hardship because of lawlessness and the war between Russia and Turkey (1768–1774). The Russians took Bucharest on November 17, 1769. The Hutterites then sought the advice of Russian army commander "Sämetin" (Генерал-майор Александр Гаврилович Замятин, General-Mayor Aleksandr Gavrilovitch Zamyatin) in Bucharest, who proposed that they emigrate to Russia where Count Pyotr Rumyantsev would provide them with land all they need for a new beginning.
Ukraine