February 24-26, 1525

Soon after February 19, Hans Brötli wrote his second letter from exile to the Anabaptist congregation in Zollikon. In it, he indicated that he had heard about the members of the congregation who had been arrested soon after he left town. He likely also heard that most of the imprisoned members had been released, but that Felix Mantz and George (Jörg) Blaurock lingered in a cell in Zurich. “Oh, how strong, I hear, my brother Felix Mantz is, and Jörg,” he wrote, “God be praised!”¹

Within a few days, however, Blaurock found his freedom too. He promptly headed for Zollikon, where he had disrupted the sermon of the local pastor at a church service in late January, likely precipitating the arrests of the Zollikon Anabaptists.² But the growing Zollikon congregation still welcomed his preaching in their midst upon his return to their town. On Sunday, February 26, he preached during two house-church meetings where one of his hosts estimated that 200 people had gathered.³

Several “went forward with tears in their eyes and expressed their desire for the sign of baptism,” the host later told authorities after he was arrested. This group included the wife of Fridli Schumacher, whom Hans Brötli had recently baptized, and Margaret Hottinger,⁴ whose brother Jacob had been baptized by Felix Mantz and was arrested along with him on January 30. The Hottinger family supplied several early leaders of the Zollikon congregation, and a critical, outside observer would later write that Margaret was “deeply loved and respected by the Anabaptists.”⁵ Several other women were baptized with them.

Another who received baptism that day was Heinrich Aberli, a baker from Zurich, who had been one of Zwingli’s close followers from the start of Zwingi’s reform movement; like Margaret Hottinger’s brother Claus, he was even part of the Zwinglian group that provoked an early cleavage in church life in Zurich by publicly breaking the Lenten fast in 1522. He had also been a participant in the Bible studies that Conrad Grebel and Andreas Castelberger had been leading.⁶ When Aberli was arrested a few weeks later, the Zurich authorities recorded his interrogation testimony about the scene of his baptism: When Aberli came to the house-church meeting, Blaurock proclaimed, “Brother Heinrich…God be praised that we all believe on Jesus and want to remain steadfast in this faith!” Blaurock then asked, “Brother Heinrich, do you testify that the Lord Jesus Christ suffered for us and that what is written concerning Him is true?” When Aberli responded “Ja!” Blaurock took “a handful of water” and baptized him “in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”⁷ Aberli would go on to join Jacob Hottinger in baptizing others throughout 1525, even though it cost them several stays in prison.⁸

About This Series

This post is part of a series entitled “The Reformation at 500: Timeline of the Free-Church Movement.” Click here for more information on this series.

Featured image courtesy of the Wick’sche Sammlung, ca. 1575, Zentralbibliothek Zurich, Ms. F 23, fol. 294.

1. Hans Brötli, Letter to Fridli Schumacher and other Brethren (Hallau, after Feb. 19, 1525), in The Sources of Swiss Anabaptism: The Grebel Letters and Related Documents, ed. Leland Harder (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1985), 351. ↩︎
2. Fritz Blanke suggests that it was Blaurock’s incivility in the church service that prompted the Zurich Council to initiate the arrests. Blanke, “Zollikon 1525: die Entstehung der ältesten Täufergemeinde,” Theologische Zeitschrift 8 (1952): 251-52. ↩︎
3. Testimony of Hans Murer (Feb. 27-March 11, 1525), in Quellen zur Geschichte der Täufer in der Schweiz, vol. 1, eds. Leonhard von Muralt & Walter Schmid (Zürich: Theologischer Verlag, 1952), 58-59. ↩︎
4. Ibid., 59; reiterated by the testimonies of Hans Kienast, Jacob Plüwler, Heinrich Wüst, Felix Kienast, and Conrad Hottinger, ibid., 58-59. ↩︎
5. Harder, 547-48. ↩︎
6. Harder, 527, 545. ↩︎
7. Testimony of Heinrich Aberli (March 16-25, 1525), in Quellen, vol. 1, 62; trans. Christian Neff, in “Blaurock, Georg (ca. 1492-1529),” (1953), Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online, at https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Blaurock,_Georg_(ca._1492-1529). ↩︎
8. Harder, 527-28, 547-48. ↩︎