Mennonites are groups of Anabaptist Christian church communities of denominations. The name is derived from the founder of the movement, Menno Simons (1496–1561) of Friesland. Through his writings about Reformed Christianity during the Radical Reformation, Simons articulated and formalized the teachings of earlier Swiss founders, with the early teachings of the Mennonites founded on the belief in both the mission and ministry of Jesus, which the original Anabaptist followers held with great conviction, despite persecution by various Roman Catholic and Mainline Protestant states. Formal Mennonite beliefs were codified in the Dordrecht Confession of Faith in 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", strict pacifistic physical nonresistance, anti-Catholicism and in general, more emphasis on "true Christianity" involving "being Christian and obeying Christ" however they interpret it from the Holy Bible.
The Evangelical Mennonite Conference is a conference of Canadian evangelical Mennonite Christians headquartered in Steinbach, Manitoba, with 62 churches from British Columbia to southern Ontario. It includes people with a wide range of cultural and denominational backgrounds.
The Fellowship of Evangelical Bible Churches (FEBC) is a small evangelical Christian denomination with an Anabaptist Mennonite heritage. Most of the denomination's approximately 5000 members are in congregations located in the U.S. and Canada.
The Russian Mennonites are a group of Mennonites who are the descendants of German-speaking Anabaptists who settled in the Vistula delta in West Prussia for about 250 years and established colonies in the Russian Empire beginning in 1789. Since the late 19th century, many of them have emigrated to countries which are located throughout the Western Hemisphere. The rest of them were forcibly relocated, so very few of their descendants currently live in the locations of the original colonies. Russian Mennonites are traditionally multilingual but Plautdietsch is their first language as well as their lingua franca. In 2014, there were several hundred thousand Russian Mennonites: about 200,000 live in Germany, 74,122 live in Mexico, 70,000 in Bolivia, 40,000 live in Paraguay, 10,000 live in Belize, tens of thousands of them live in Canada and the US, and a few thousand live in Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil.
Johann Peter Klassen (1868–1947) was a Russian Mennonite poet and writer who emigrated to Canada in 1923 but wrote primarily in the German language. He was born 27 May 1868 in Neu-Schönwiese near Alexandrovsk (Zaporizhia) Ukraine, the third of four children of Peter Abram Klassen and Aganetha (Schultz) Klassen. His father had four children from his first marriage to Anna Janzen (1828-1863).
According to the 2012 estimates, there were 100,000 Mennonites living in Mexico, the vast majority of them, or about 90,000 are established in the state of Chihuahua, 6,500 were living in Durango, with the rest living in small colonies in the states of Campeche, Tamaulipas, Zacatecas, San Luis Potosí and Quintana Roo.
Mennonites in Belize form different religious bodies and come from different ethnic backgrounds. There are groups of Mennonites living in Belize who are quite traditional and conservative, while others have modernized to various degrees.
Kleine Gemeinde is a Mennonite denomination founded in 1812 by Klaas Reimer in the Russian Empire. The current group primarily consists of Plautdietsch-speaking Russian Mennonites in Belize, Mexico and Bolivia, as well as a small presence in Canada and the United States. In 2015 it had some 5,400 baptized members. Most of its Canadian congregations diverged from the others over the latter half of the 20th century and are now called the Evangelical Mennonite Conference.
The Mennonites in Bolivia are among the most traditional and conservative of all Mennonite denominations in South America. They are mostly Russian Mennonites of Frisian, Flemish, and North German descent. As of 2013, there were about 70,000 Mennonites living in Bolivia.
Mennonites in Paraguay are either ethnic Mennonites with mostly Flemish, Frisian and Prussian ancestry and who speak Plautdietsch or of mixed or Amerindian ancestry like the vast majority of Paraguayans. Ethnic Mennonites contribute heavily to the agricultural and dairy output of Paraguay.
Manitoba Colony is a large community of Plautdietch-speaking Mennonites mostly north of Ciudad Cuauhtémoc in the state of Chihuahua in Mexico. It was founded in 1922 by Old Colony Mennonites from Manitoba, Canada and consisted originally of 47 villages. It is the largest and oldest Mennonite colony in Mexico.
Mennonites in Uruguay have been present since 1948. The Mennonites of Uruguay are made up of ethnic Plautdietsch-speaking Russian Mennonites, who are descendants of Friesian, Flemish and Prussian people, as well as Spanish-speaking Uruguayans of all ethnic backgrounds, that converted responding to the missionary efforts of the immigrants.
Mennonites in Argentina belong to two quite different groups: conservative and very conservative Plautdietsch-speaking group of Russian Mennonites who are descendants of Friesian, Flemish and Prussian people, and converts to the Mennonite faith from the general Argentinian population. The Russian Mennonites are the third largest community of Mennonites in South America, with six colonies in Argentina. While Russian Mennonites have their own language and customs and live in colonies, converts to the Mennonite faith normally live in cities and speak Spanish and do not differ much from other Protestants in Argentina. Conservative ethnic Mennonites normally do not engage in missionary activities but look for a quiet and remote place where they can live according to their tradition. More liberal Mennonites are engaged in worldwide missionary work like other North American Protestant denominations. About one third of Mennonites in Argentina are conservative ethnic Mennonites who belong to the Altkolonier branch.
Barton Creek is the name of a small river and the area it flows through in Cayo District, Belize. The river is a right tributary of Belize River. In the area with this name there are two Mennonite settlements: Lower and Upper Barton Creek. Both are settlements of very conservative Mennonites in Belize. Barton Creek Cave can also be found here.
Upper Barton Creek is a mixed Mennonite settlement and expats in Cayo District in Belize in the area of the Barton Creek. The Mennonites in Upper Barton Creek are ethnic Mennonites of the Noah Hoover group.
Blue Creek, also Blue Creek Colony, is a Mennonite settlement that is also an administrative village in Orange Walk District in Belize. It borders Blue Creek river, which forms the border to Mexico. Its inhabitants are Plautdietsch-speaking Russian Mennonites.
The term ethnic Mennonite refers to Mennonites of Central European ancestry and culture who are considered to be members of a Mennonite ethnic or ethnoreligious group. The term is also used for aspects of their culture, such as language, dress, and Mennonite food.
The Sommerfelders, also called Sommerfeld Mennonites or Sommerfeld Mennonite Church, are a subgroup of the so-called Russian Mennonites that took this name in Canada in 1894, coming originally from the Bergthal Colony in the Russian Empire. Many of them left Canada for Latin America starting in the early 1920s. They now live in Canada, Mexico, Paraguay and Bolivia.
Nehrungisch is a subdialect (Mundart) of Low Prussian, belonging to the Low German language variety. It was spoken in East Prussia and West Prussia, in the region around the Vistula Spit near Gdansk. The easternmost locality where this variety was spoken was Narmeln, and it was spoken from Narmeln to Krakau (Krakowiec). The dialect survives in Chortitza-Plautdietsch, a dialect of Low Prussian brought to Ukraine by migrants from the Vistula region. Nehrungisch shares features with Eastern Low Prussian.
Werdersch is a subdialect of Low Prussian, which itself is a subdialect of Low German. This dialect is spoken in Poland and was spoken in the former province of West Prussia. Werdersch is closely related to Nehrungisch and Plautdietsch.
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