Where do the words “Amish” and “Mennonite” come from?
Many visitors to Lancaster County mispronounce the word “Amish,” pronouncing it as “aim-ish.” The key to understanding how to pronounce this word is to look back briefly at the beginnings of the Amish and Mennonite faiths. The year was 1525; the place was Zurich, Switzerland. The Swiss Brethren, radicals who disagreed with reformers like Martin Luther and Ulrich Zwingli, formed their own “church.” Among other things, these “reformers of the Reformers” believed in separation of Church and State, non-resistance and adult baptism (which gave them the nickname of re-baptizers or Anabaptists). These ideas were considered radical and threatening to those in power. After fines, banishment and imprisonment failed to stop the movement, thousands of the Anabaptists were hunted down and killed. There was no single leader. Rather people of like thinking appeared in various parts of Europe. But of the many leaders, the most well known was Menno Simons. He was a Dutch Catholic priest who converted i
