Mennonites in general

• The name “Mennonites” derives from Menno Simons (1496-1561), a catholic priest from the Netherlands, who joined the anabaptist movement in 1536 and became its organizer and leader in the Netherlands and northern Germany.
• He was not the founder of the movement, as is often thought, but one of its significant leaders, whose writings contributed greatly toward the orientation, as well as the institutional form of a rather heterogeneous movement. Originally they were simply termed the “Baptists” or the “Anabaptists”. In Holland and Switzerland they call themselves the “Taufgesinnte” i. e. the “baptist-minded” even today, but the term “Mennonites” has gained widespread acceptance, and is used worldwide to designate this free church movement.