A medieval chant echoes from the walls of an ancient building in a small town in Czechia. A small group, which includes six Hutterites from Canada, has come to see what remains of a once-vibrant Christian community in the Moravian town of Čermákovice.

This year celebrates the five hundredth anniversary of Anabaptism, a Christian movement spawned during the Reformation. Martin Luther’s 95 theses questioned many church practices and shook Europe’s spiritual foundations. People turned to the Bible for answers. In Zurich, a Bible study group concluded that the baptism they had received as infants was invalid; on January 21, 1525, they rebaptized one another as a sign that they would devote their lives to following Jesus Christ’s commandments.

The movement spread through German-speaking Europe. Persecution followed as both religious and secular authorities felt their influence threatened. The “Anabaptists,” as they came to be called, found refuge in Moravia (southern Czechia).

Here, under the leadership of Jakob Hutter, communities were established. Members shared their property, practiced believers’ baptism, and refused to take part in state-sanctioned violence. Hutter himself was executed in 1536, but the movement continued to grow until Moravia was dotted with close to one hundred communities.

King Ferdinand’s arm ultimately reached into Moravia as well, and under the Counter-Reformation the Anabaptists were forced to leave or return to Catholicism. Many fled across the border into today’s Slovakia, then under the Kingdom of Hungary, where they again established their communities.

Over the centuries they were driven from one country to another for the sake of their beliefs: Romania, Ukraine, Russia, and finally to the United States and Canada. Today there are about fifty thousand Hutterites living in Canada and the northwestern United States.

But they left their mark on the countries where they once lived. Faced with persecution, many Anabaptists chose to return to Catholicism rather than leave their homes. Known as Habaner, they preserved their German identity, practiced their crafts, continued to elect their own elders, and managed their farms cooperatively.

At the close of World War II, ethnic Germans were expelled from Czechoslovakia and the country found itself on the other side of the Iron Curtain. Memories of the difficult decades that followed are still alive.

On July 4–5, 2025, a symposium was held in Veľké Leváre, Slovakia, the site of a Hutterian community from 1588 to the late seventeenth century. The conference was titled: “500 Years of Anabaptist Heritage: Exploring the Legacy of the Hutterites and Habans.” Presenters arrived from Germany, Austria, Italy, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Czechia, Canada, and the United States. Topics included the unique Haban ceramics, the Hutterite German dialect, Hutterite architecture, the development of a Hutterite archive in Winnipeg, and Hutterite catechumen development, to mention just a few. A thread that ran through the conference was the tension between tradition and innovation as presenters noted changes in Hutterite practice over the centuries.

Included in the schedule were opportunities to visit several significant sites. For the Hutterites who attended the symposium, this became a sort of pilgrimage to the ancient home of their forebears. In visiting these sites, they recalled historic events and acknowledged them in song.

The first place they visited was a deserted field where, according to the Hutterite Chronicle, the practice of sharing property was started. In 1528, a group of about two hundred – forced to leave Nikolsburg because they refused to fight for their feudal lord – camped in a deserted village “between Dannowitz and Muschau.” Here they spread out a cloak and “each one laid his possessions on it with a willing heart, without being forced, so that the needy might be supported.” The six Hutterites visiting Czechia in 2025 reenacted the moment. They laid a cloth on the ground and placed items on it: phones and cash. It was a reminder that they too had promised to dedicate all their possessions, their time, and their strength to the service of their church.

Symposium attendees visit Alinkov, the ruins of a former community. Photograph courtesy of Emmy Barth Maendel.

At Přibice the archeology department of the Masaryk University in Brno is excavating the Hutterite cemetery. The community there was established in 1565 and became a thriving center of the movement, known for clockmaking and other crafts. However, in 1620 the community was attacked at 3:00 a.m. by imperial horsemen who brutally murdered fifty-two of them within three hours. Over four hundred years later, our group gathered at the cemetery to read the heartbreaking account and sing a favorite German hymn: “Jesus, you alone shall be my leader.”

It was thrilling to visit Alinkov, the only former Hutterian community in Moravia where buildings are still standing: a long narrow building that originally housed beef cattle on the ground floor, a communal dining hall and church room on the second floor, and dwelling rooms in the attic. Additional farm buildings and workshops forming a courtyard are in poor repair. Archeologist Jiří Pajer, who discovered the site in 2003, believes a community of about 150 members lived here. He has had it placed under protection as a cultural monument and has dreams of restoring it as a memorial to Moravian Anabaptists.

In Slovakia the group was able to visit Vel’ké Leváre and Sobotište. In these two communities a remnant of former Hutterites remained into the twentieth century, preserving something of their way of life. In fact, the symposium to celebrate the five hundredth anniversary took place in Vel’ké Leváre.

The symposium was a mind- and heart-stretching event that gave people an opportunity to learn of current research and to connect with others who share their interests.