Menno Simons

Menno Simons (mĕn`ō sē`mōns), 1496?–1561, Dutch religious reformer. The name of the Mennonites was derived from his name, although he was not the actual founder of the sect. In 1524 he became a Roman Catholic priest but in 1536 he left the church when he announced that he no longer believed in infant baptism and other Catholic teachings. His test of the true Christian was regeneration. He was active in Holland and Germany as an organizer and leader of the less aggressive division of Anabaptists. His writings and sermons were published as Opera omnia theologica (1681).

Bibliography

See his Complete Writings ed. by J. C. Wenger (tr. 1956); C. J. Dyck, ed., A Legacy of Faith (1962); W. E. Keeney, The Development of Dutch Anabaptist Thought and Practice from 1539–1564 (1968).

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Menno Simonsz.

 or Menno Simons

Menno Simons, engraving by Christopher van Sichem, 1605–08.

(credit: Courtesy of the Mennonite Library and Archives, North Newton, Kansas)

(born 1496, Witmarsum, Friesland—died Jan. 31, 1561, near Lübeck, Holstein) Dutch Anabaptist leader. Born into a peasant family, he was ordained a Roman Catholic priest, but, doubting the doctrine of transubstantiation, he came under the influence of Lutheranism and withdrew from the church in 1536. Convinced that infant baptism was wrong and that only people of mature faith were eligible for membership in the church, he became a leader in the peaceful wing of the Anabaptist movement in 1537. Pronounced a heretic, he was in constant danger of arrest for the rest of his life but continued to organize Anabaptist groups. He wrote and printed many theological works, and his followers founded the Mennonite Church.