A group of prominent Mennonite and Catholic scholars will gather this summer at St. Johns Abbey to begin a joint historical study of the sixteenth-century Anabaptist martyrs, many of them condemned to death by the Inquisition.
It will be the first time Catholics have publicly confronted these incidents, and the first time that Mennonites have engaged in historical study of the martyrs in an ecumenical setting.
Entitled “The Anabaptist Martyr in an Ecumenical Context” the conference is an outgrowth of the international Mennonite Catholic dialogue that has been taking place for the past five years under the auspices of the Mennonite World Conference and the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity.
The conference will take place at St. Johns Abbey in Collegeville, MN on July 15-16, 2003. St. John’s is the largest Benedictine monastery in the world, and is host to the annual Bridgefolk conferences, which bring together Mennonites and Catholics each summer for informal dialogue.
It is cosponsored by St. Johns University School of Theology and Seminary, the Institute of Mennonite Studies of the Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminaries, the Institute of Anabaptist and Mennonite Studies of Conrad Grebel College, and the Schwenkfelder Library. It was organized by members of the Bridgefolk group.
The conference’s stated goal is “to initiate an ecumenical study of the persecution and martyrdom of the sixteenth-century Anabaptists.” The statement of purpose says, “Memories of these events are definitional for the Mennonite community,” but in the Catholic community they “have received very little attention and are largely unknown. Their importance for the Anabaptist-origin Churches is largely unappreciated.”
“If substantial dialogue is to continue,” the statement says, “these historical events will have to be dealt with in a way that is satisfactory to the successors both of those who were persecuted, and those responsible for these martyr deaths.”
The keynote address will be given by Prof. Brad S. Gregory of Stanford University, a Catholic historian whose book Salvation at Stake, published in 1999 by Harvard Univ. Press, includes the first extended study of the Anabaptist martyrs by a Catholic scholar.
Other speakers will include Prof. Neal Blough, a Mennonite historian from Paris who is a member of the international Mennonite Catholic dialogue; and Prof. Peter Nissen, a Dutch Catholic historian who is also a member of the international dialogue. They will discuss the contemporary context of the sixteenth-century martyr deaths. The session will be chaired by Prof. Arnold Snyder of Conrad Grebel College, a leading Mennonite historian of the Anabaptists.
Prof. John D. Roth, editor of the Mennonite Quarterly Review and a member of the Mennonite Lutheran dialogue now underway will discuss the way Protestant histories have treated the Anabaptists. Prof. Walter Klaassen, a prominent historian of the Anabaptists who is now an Anglo-Catholic will also discuss this topic. This session will be chaired by Dr. John Rempel, an Anabaptist historian who is United Nations representative for the Mennonite Central Committee.
The third session will bring together two prominent Canadian theologians to discuss the contemporary context in which this study of the Anabaptists is taking place. Prof. Margaret O’Gara of the Univ. of Toronto, and Prof. A. James Reimer of Conrad Grebel College will be the speakers at this session.
The conference will open with greetings from Abbot John Klassen, whose personal support played an important role in making it possible, and who recently discovered that his family in Europe had at one point been Anabaptists.
The opening session will be chaired by Prof. Peter Erb of Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ont., chair of the conference’s program committee. Ivan J. Kauffman of Washington, DC, a Catholic author and former Mennonite who has been active in Mennonite Catholic dialogue and who initiated the conference will describe its origins at the opening session.
The concluding session will include a discussion of future steps. The conference statement of purpose points out that dealing with Anabaptist martyrs in a way that is satisfactory to both Mennonites and Catholics will require a combination of historical research and analysis, theological discussion, and ecumenical dialogue, and that “accomplishing these tasks will require a substantial effort, involving numerous persons and institutions, and extending over a period of years.”
“This initial meeting brings together a group of persons already engaged in one or more of these tasks,” the statement says. “Its purpose is to acquaint them with each others’ work; to begin work on all the tasks involved; and to lay plans for a long-range effort that can attract substantial funding from foundations and other institutions.”