The Lehrerleut, also Lehrerleit, are a branch of the Hutterites that emerged in 1877. They are the most traditional branch of the Hutterites.
Thirteen Hutterite families under the leadership of Jacob Wipf (1835–1896) emigrated from Johannesruh, Ukraine, to South Dakota in 1877. After their arrival, they formed the Lehrerleut by establishing a community of goods at Elmspring Colony near Parkston, South Dakota, thus following the example of the Schmiedeleut and the Dariusleut. [1] The group's leader was a teacher (German: Lehrer), hence their name Lehrerleut ("teacher people"). [2]
Shortly after World War I, two Hutterite conscientious objectors from the Lehrerleut branch, Joseph and Michael Hofer, died in an American prison. This and growing anti-German sentiment caused the emigration of all four Lehrerleut colonies to Alberta, Canada, in the following years. [3] In 1945, the Lehrerleut started to form new colonies in Montana, thus returning to the United States.
In 1957 there were 20 Lehrerleut colonies in Alberta, 3 in Saskatchewan and 8 in Montana. In 1973 the total number of Lehrerleut colonies was 61. [4] According to the "2004 Hutterite Phone Book" there were 69 Lehrerleut colonies in Alberta and 30 in Saskatchewan. An additional 44 colonies were in Montana, all together 143. [5] Rod Janzen and Max Stanton report in their book of 2010 that there were 139 Lehrerleut colonies, 72 in Alberta, 32 Saskatchewan and 35 in Montana. [6]
Mennonites are a group of Anabaptist Christian communities tracing their roots to the epoch of the Radical Reformation. The name Mennonites is derived from the cleric Menno Simons (1496–1561) of Friesland, part of the Holy Roman Empire, present day Netherlands. Menno Simons became a prominent leader within the wider Anabaptist movement and was a contemporary of Martin Luther (1483–1546) and Philip Melanchthon (1497-1560). Through his writings about the Reformation Simons articulated and formalized the teachings of earlier Swiss Anabaptist founders as well as early teachings of the Mennonites founded on the belief in both the mission and ministry of Jesus. Formal Mennonite beliefs were codified in the Dordrecht Confession of Faith (1632), which affirmed "the baptism of believers only, the washing of the feet as a symbol of servanthood, church discipline, the shunning of the excommunicated, the non-swearing of oaths, marriage within the same church", nonresistance, and in general, more emphasis on "true Christianity" involving "being Christian and obeying Christ" as they interpret it from the Holy Bible.
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.
Hutterite German is an Upper German dialect of the Bavarian variety of the German language, which is spoken by Hutterite communities in Canada and the United States. Hutterite is also called Tirolean, but this is an anachronism.
A block settlement is a particular type of land distribution which allows settlers with the same ethnicity to form small colonies. This settlement type was used throughout western Canada between the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Some were planned and others were spontaneously created by the settlers themselves. As a legacy of the block settlements, the three Prairie Provinces have several regions where ancestries other than British are the largest, unlike the norm in surrounding regions.
John A. Hostetler was an American author, educator, and scholar of Amish and Hutterite societies. Some of his works are still in print.
Christianity is the most adhered-to religion in Canada, with 19,373,330 Canadians, or 53.3%, identifying themselves as of the 2021 census. The preamble to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms refers to God. The French colonization beginning in the 17th century established a Roman Catholic francophone population in New France, especially Acadia and Lower Canada. British colonization brought waves of Anglicans and other Protestants to Upper Canada, now Ontario. The Russian Empire spread Orthodox Christianity in a small extent to the tribes in the far north and western coasts, particularly hyperborean nomads like the Inuit. Orthodoxy would arrive in mainland Canada with immigrants from the eastern and southern Austro-Hungarian Empire and western Russian Empire starting in the 1890s; then refugees from the Soviet Union, Eastern Bloc, Greece and elsewhere during the last half of the 20th century.
Holy Matrimony is a 1994 American comedy film directed by Leonard Nimoy and starring Patricia Arquette and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. The film tells the story of a beautiful thief, hiding in a small, isolated Hutterite community, who marries a young boy in order to retrieve a hidden fortune following the death of her boyfriend, who was also the older brother of her current husband. It was the final feature film directed by Nimoy.
Joseph and Michael Hofer were brothers who died from mistreatment at the United States Disciplinary Barracks, Fort Leavenworth in 1918. The pair, who were Hutterites from South Dakota, were among four conscientious objectors from their Christian colony who had been court-martialed and sentenced to twenty years imprisonment for refusing to be drafted in to the United States Army during World War I. After initially being sent to Fort Alcatraz for refusal to comply with military orders and discipline, Joseph and Michael were transferred to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where they both died within two weeks of their arrival. Their bodies were returned to their families in military uniforms that they had refused to wear.
Dolynske is a village in Melitopol Raion, Zaporizhia Oblast, Ukraine, some 20 km west of Melitopol. It was originally a Hutterite village and until 1945 was known as Johannesruh or Johannesruhe.
Kushchove is a small village in Orikhiv Raion, Zaporizhia Oblast, Ukraine, some 35 km east of Zaporizhia. It has population of 191 people.
The Prairieleut, also written Prärieleut and sometimes also called Prairie People, were a branch of the Hutterite tradition from the immigration of the Hutterites to the United States in the 1870s until the about the middle of the 20th century, when they had almost totally assimilated into Mennonite congregations, especially into the Krimmer Mennonite Brethren or into mainstream society. The Prairieleut did not live in colonies, with community of goods, but on individual farms, mostly homesteads on South Dakota grasslands. During the 20th century the Prairieleut mostly lost their distinctive language Hutterisch.
The Schmiedeleut, also Schmiedeleit, are a branch of the Hutterites that emerged in 1859. It is divided into two subgroups.
The Dariusleut, also Dariusleit, are a branch of the Hutterites that emerged in 1860.
The Christian Community of New Hutterian Brethren at Ōwa (大輪) was a Hutterite colony of the Dariusleut branch in Japan. It was located near Ōwa village in Nasu District, Tochigi. It existed from 1972 to the end of 2019. The members of the colony were ethnic Japanese.
A Seeker is a person likely to join an Old Order Anabaptist community, like the Amish, the Old Order Mennonites, the Hutterites, the Old Order Schwarzenau Brethren or the Old Order River Brethren. Among the 500,000 members of such communities in the United States there are only an estimated 1,200 to 1,300 outsiders who have joined them.
The Community Farm of the Brethren, also called Juliusleut, is a Christian community with communal living at Bright, Ontario. It was in fellowship with the Hutterites from its beginning in 1941 until 1950.
Fort Pitt Farms Christian Community is a Christian Community of Dariusleut Hutterite origin and of many Hutterite traditions, but that is fully autonomous since 1999. It is located in Frenchman Butte, Saskatchewan, Canada close to Fort Pitt Provincial Park. Its spiritual leaders are Reuben Walter and Ben Walter.
Old Order Anabaptism encompasses those groups which have preserved the old ways of Anabaptist Christian religion and lifestyle.
The Hutterites is a 1964 film directed by Colin Low for the National Film Board of Canada. It was produced to help calm anti-Hutterite tensions in Alberta and remains the only film that fully depicts and explains the sect's way of life.