Anabaptists ( Greek ἀνά " again, twice " + βαπτίζω " baptize ," thus " re-baptizers ") are Protestant Christians of the Radical Reformation of 16th-century Europe, although some consider Anabaptism to be a distinct movement from Protestantism.

While most Anabaptists adhered to a literal interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount which precluded taking oaths, participating in military actions, and participating in civil government, some who practiced re-baptism felt contrariwise.

They were thus technically Anabaptists, even though Conservative Mennonites, Amish, Mennonites, and Hutterites and some historians tend to consider them as outside of true Anabaptism.

Trinitarian Christian denominations that oppose infant baptism include Baptists, Christian Church ( Disciples of Christ ), Christian Churches / Churches of Christ, and Churches of Christ, Anabaptists such as Mennonite and Amish, Schwarzenau Brethren / German Baptists, Seventh-Day Adventists, some Methodists and most Pentecostals.

Some followers of Zwingli believed that the Reformation was too conservative, and moved independently toward more radical positions, some of which survive among modern day Anabaptists.

For example, some Amish and Mennonites came to the Palatinate and surrounding areas from the German-speaking part of Switzerland, where, as Anabaptists, they were persecuted, and so their stay in the Palatinate was of limited duration.

Although some Anabaptists in Amsterdam and Münster in the 16th century engaged in excesses, Dutch Mennonites generally became pious and peaceful.

It is important to avoid confusing it with the Catholic excommunication as it is normally practiced to-day based on the word " excommunication ", as the current Catholic practice favors maintaining some relationship with the excommunicant whereas the herem is more akin to " shunning " as practiced by Anabaptists and some of their descendant communities.

Foot washing is observed by numerous Protestant and proto-Protestant groups, including Seventh-day Adventist, Pentecostal, and Pietistic groups, some Anabaptists, and several types of Baptists.

Hubmaier was more conservative than some Anabaptists, such as Hans Denck and Leonhard Schiemer who went on to deny the doctrine of the Trinity, or avoided emphasis of the doctrine as Menno Simons.

Rothmann influenced the south German Anabaptists through Pilgram Marpeck, who borrowed some of his Vermanung from Rothmann's Bekenntnisse of 1533.

From the Anabaptists, he picked up non-resistance and non-conformity, and from the Adventists he took some of his eschatology.

In Calvinist and some other churches ( Waldensians, Katharoi, Anabaptists, Particular Baptists, etc.

Dr. John Thomas ( April 12, 1805 – March 5, 1871 ) was the founder of the Christadelphian movement, a Restorationist religion with doctrines similar in part to some 16th-century Antitrinitarian Rationalist Socinians and the 16th-century Swiss-German pacifist Anabaptists.

During the Interregnum although some officers said that he was too sympathetic to the Levellers and the Anabaptists, he supported Oliver Cromwell during first years of the Protectorate.

At some stage they moved to Strasburg where they were recorded as being Anabaptists.

This viewpoint is commonly held by Anabaptists and some Evangelical churches such as Baptists, many Pentecostals, Plymouth Brethren and segments of the Restoration Movement, but it is rejected by most branches of Christianity, including the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Oriental Orthodox Church, the Church of the East, Independent Catholic Churches, Lutherans, Presbyterians and other traditional Calvinists, as well as the vast majority of Anglicans and Methodists, who variously affirm the doctrine of the real presence.

Protestant historians would typically argue that this is historically what the Christian church was before Emperor Constantine and the State church of the Roman Empire, see Early Christianity, and did not appear again until the Protestant Reformation in groups such as the Calvinists and some particular radical movements such as the Anabaptists.

She was associated with Baptists and Anabaptists in Kent, some of them immigrants who had fled persecution in the low countries.

Calvinists, Anabaptists and Mennonites, angry with their being persecuted by the Roman Catholic Church and opposed to the Catholic images of saints ( which in their eyes conflicted with the Second Commandment ), destroyed statues in hundreds of churches and monasteries throughout the Netherlands.

In the Netherlands, David van der Leyen and Levina Ghyselins, described variously as Dutch Anabaptists or Mennonites, were executed by Catholic authorities in Ghent in 1554.

In Poland and the Netherlands, certain of the Anabaptists denied the Trinity, hence the saying that a Socinian was a learned Baptist ( see Socinus.

Many groups were influenced by biblicism ( like the Swiss Brethren ), spiritualism ( like the South German Anabaptists ) and mainly absolute pacifism ( like the Swiss Brethren, the Hutterites and the Mennonites from Northern Germany and the Netherlands ).

Anabaptists survived throughout the centuries and they were recognized by the States-General of the Netherlands in 1578.

He met Anabaptists and Roman Catholics, including Jesuits and Oratorians, as well as Jews, broadening his religious education.

In comparable terms, earlier primitivist movements, including the Hussites, Anabaptists, Landmarkists and the Puritans, have been described as examples of restorationism, as have many seventh-day Sabbatarians.

The Bruderhof movement draws inspiration and guidance from a number of historical streams including the early Christians, the Anabaptists and the German Youth Movement.

Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin preserved infant baptism against the attacks of more radical reformers including Anabaptists, and with it, sponsors at baptism.

There were a variety of anarchistic religious movements in Europe during the Middle Ages, including the Brothers and Sisters of the Free Spirit, the Klompdraggers, the Hussites, Adamites and the early Anabaptists.

These core beliefs are shared by the Anabaptists who belong to the conservative Mennonite streams ( including the Old Order, horse-and-buggy-driving groups ) – who tend to dress distinctively and to live separately from mainstream society, thus avoiding higher education – as well as those modern Anabaptists who attend EMU and who go on to become physicians, nurses, social workers, counselors, lawyers, business people, teachers and other highly educated citizens fully functioning in the larger world.

In 1624, the then five existing Baptist churches of London issued an anathema against the Anabaptists.

Though it is difficult to sum up almost five centuries of evolution and differentiation among the Anabaptists, five distinctive attributes of Anabaptist Christians can be discerned: Firstly, they do not practice infant baptism – they believe it is important for someone to be old enough to make a mature choice about whether to be baptized and to be a church member.

* May 10 – Amsterdam: A small troop of Anabaptists, led by the minister Jacob van Geel, attacks the city hall in an attempted coup to seize the city.

Two Anabaptists, Caroli and Benoit, are to challenge you and William to a debate before the Council.

Denominations like the Anabaptists ( beginning in 1525 ), and Waldensians ( pre-Reformation ), and other groups prior to the Reformation have also held this view of the Free Will of man.

Ambrosians is a term that might be applied either to members of one of the religious brotherhoods which at various times since the 14th century have sprung up in and around Milan or, exceptionally to a 16th century sect of Anabaptists.

Anabaptists required that baptismal candidates be able to make their own confessions of faith and so rejected baptism of infants.

As a result of their views on the nature of baptism and other issues, Anabaptists were heavily persecuted during the 16th century and into the 17th by both Magisterial Protestants and Roman Catholics.

Although Anabaptists began with the Radical Reformers in the 16th century, certain people and groups may still legitimately be considered their forerunners due to a similar approach to the interpretation and application of the Bible.

* The Rise and Fall of the Anabaptists, by E. Belfort Bax 1903

Several churches, such as the Anabaptists and Socinians of the Reformation, then Seventh-day Adventist Church, Christadelphians, Jehovah's Witnesses, and theologians of different traditions reject the idea of the immortality of a non-physical soul as a vestige of Neoplatonism, and other pagan traditions.

Zwingli also clashed with the Anabaptists, which resulted in their persecution.

Ainsworth died in 1622, or early in 1623, for in that year was published his Seasonable Discourse, or a Censure upon a Dialogue of the Anabaptists, in which the editor speaks of him as a departed worthy.

His first theological work, the Psychopannychia, attempted to refute the doctrine of soul sleep as promulgated by the Anabaptists.

" Any known Anabaptists in the army were specifically discharged.

During the Reformation, Anabaptists were persecuted by Lutheran, Calvinist, Anglican and Catholic regimes.

Hence many other Christians saw the Anabaptists as subversive of all order.

** Felix Manz, leader of the Swiss Anabaptists ( d. 1527 )

* February 27 – A group of Anabaptists, led by Jan Matthys, seize Münster in Westphalia and declare it " The New Jerusalem ", begin to exile dissenters and forcibly baptize all others.

Knox retorted that the Bible notes that Israel was punished when it followed an unfaithful king and that the Continental reformers were refuting arguments made by the Anabaptists who rejected all forms of government.

* A religious schism takes place in Switzerland within a group of Swiss and Alsatian Anabaptists led by Jakob Ammann.