1693–1694 · event
The Amish division and the call for renewal
Disagreement over communion, church discipline, and relations with sympathetic outsiders divided the Swiss Brethren.
Also searchable as: Hans Reist · Jacob Ammann · True-Hearted
By the 1690s some Swiss Brethren in Switzerland and the Alsace–South Rhine region believed that accommodations with the state church had weakened the brotherhood’s witness. Jakob Ammann spoke for leaders who sought renewed faithfulness. The dispute concerned the frequency of communion, social avoidance of those who had left the church, and relations with people in the state church who sympathized with the Anabaptists but would not join them.
The exhibit names Hans Reist as an elder challenged by Ammann. The disputed outsiders were called the “True-Hearted.” The question was practical as well as doctrinal: how should a disciplined community of disciples recognize fellowship, show charity, and maintain the boundaries of church membership?
Several contentious meetings failed to restore agreement, and the two groups separated. The panel dates this phase of renewal and division to 1693–1694. Later Amish congregations carried the resulting church order into new regions, but their later migrations and divisions should be followed as further chapters rather than compressed into this first dispute.
Sources for this history: [1]
