This week in Christian history: ‘Battle Hymn,’ Menno Simons, Charlemagne

By Michael Gryboski, Mainline Church Editor Sunday, January 27, 2019

Menno Simons leaves Catholicism - January 30, 1536

A picture of Menno Simons (1496-1561), a noted sixteenth century Anabaptist leader whose followers eventually formed the Mennonite Church. | Public Domain

This week marks the anniversary of when Menno Simons, the influential Anabaptist leader whose followers eventually founded the Mennonite Church, announced that he was leaving Catholicism.

Born in Witmarsum in the Netherlands in 1496, Simons had become a Catholic priest in 1524, later writing that he and other local parish clergy spent their time “playing cards, drinking, and in diversions as, alas, is the fashion and usage of such useless people”

However, partly through the influence of the nascent Protestant Reformation, Simons came to doubt key beliefs of the Catholic Church, including transubstantiation and infant baptism.

Finally, 12 years after being consecrated a priest, Simons announced that he was leaving the priesthood and was soon baptized by Obbe Philips, an Anabaptist elder.