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21 January 1525Reputable source · 2 sourcesWell documented

The First Adult Baptisms Launch the Anabaptist Movement

Three young Zurich radicals decide Zwingli's Reformation has not gone far enough

On the timeline · around 21 January 1525 · Luther's RevoltLuther's RevoltReformations MultiplyThe First Adult Baptisms Launch the Anabaptist Movement152115221523152415251526152715281529

Quick facts

Location
Zollikon, near Zurich
Key figures
Conrad Grebel, Felix Manz, George Blaurock
Zurich's response
Adult baptism outlawed 1525, capital offense 1526

What happened

A group of young Zurich reformers, including Conrad Grebel and Felix Manz, had grown convinced that Zwingli's reforms stopped short of the New Testament pattern, especially on infant baptism, which they came to see as unscriptural because infants could not confess personal faith. On the night of 21 January 1525, in a private home in Zollikon outside Zurich, George Blaurock asked Grebel to baptize him as an adult believer; Grebel did, and Blaurock then baptized the others present. It was the first known adult, or re-, baptism since the early church, and it launched the movement opponents labeled Anabaptists, meaning re-baptizers. Zwingli, whose own authority the group had directly challenged, backed the city council's response: adult baptism was outlawed in 1525 and made a capital offense in 1526.

Why it matters

The split created a third wing of the Reformation, one that rejected any state-established church at all, a position more radical than either Luther's or Zwingli's and one that made Anabaptists targets of persecution by Catholics and other Protestants alike. Felix Manz became the first Anabaptist executed by fellow Protestants, drowned in the Limmat River in January 1527 on the city council's order.

How we know

The Hutterite Chronicle, a 16th-century Anabaptist community's own record, preserves a first-hand account of the January 1525 baptism, and Zurich's council records document the subsequent criminalization and Manz's execution; the World History Encyclopedia's article quotes the Chronicle directly.

Sources

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The First Adult Baptisms Launch the Anabaptist Movement · The Protestant Reformation · SourcedStory