Oct. 10, 2011 issue
Dutch celebrate church history
Milestones range from Menno Simons to 1st female pastor
By Tim Huber Mennonite Weekly ReviewPage:
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Dutch Mennonites have found ample reason to celebrate their history this year.
Hetty Smit, a member of the Amsterdam Mennonite Congregation, sings during a Dutch Mennonite Conference gathering Sept. 16-18 at the Mennorode conference center near Elspeet. — Photo by Derk Stenvers/Dutch Mennonite Conference
In a national gathering of Algemene Doopsgezinde Sociëteit (Dutch Mennonite Conference, ADS) at the Mennorode conference center near Elspeet, Netherlands, Sept. 16-18, about 1,500 people reflected on a series of significant anniversaries and — like Menno Simons himself — looked to the future.
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Four hundred seventy-five years ago, Menno Simons accepted leadership after the Münster rebellion’s failure ended in Jan van Leiden’s death. Though he lived on the run from church and state authorities, Menno established congregations in the German states of Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein, as well as in the Netherlands.
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It has been 450 years since Menno’s death. He is buried in Bad Oldesloe, Germany.
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Three centuries have passed since more than 100 Swiss Mennonites arrived in the Dutch city of Groningen as a result of the Bern exodus.
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It has been 275 years since the Dutch Mennonite Seminary was established in Amsterdam.
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Two centuries ago, two streams — the liberal Lammists and more strict Sonnists — merged to form the ADS.
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Anne Zernike, a Mennonite, became the first female pastor in the Netherlands 100 years ago. Her ministry began in 1911 in the Frisian town of Bovenknijpe, near Heerenveen. She was ordained Nov. 5, 1911, and served the Bovenknijpe congregation until 1915, during which the congregation grew significantly.
This fall, the pioneering pastor’s life is being recognized with a one-woman play, Anne Zernike, the First Woman in the Pulpit. The show, featuring Holwerd-Blija-Ternaard Mennonite Church pastor Korneel Roosma de Vries, opened Sept. 25 in Holwerd and will travel to other areas throughout the fall and winter.
Frits Zernike, Anne’s brother, won the Nobel prize in physics in 1953.
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