Historically the roots of Anabaptist-Mennonite Churches go back to the sixteenth century Protestant Reformation and the origin of the Mennonite Brethren Church goes back to the great awakening of the Mennonites in nineteenth century in Russia. The Mennonite Brethren Church as an independent branch of the Mennonite community was founded in south Russia on 6th January 1860. Historically it is connected to the Anabaptist movement of sixteenth century. In the founding document adopted on January 6, 1860, the leaders of the new movement had a concluding and significant declaration: "…in all other points of our confession, we are in full agreement with Menno Simons" This historical connection and theological identification of the Mennonite Brethren Church with the sixteenth century Anabaptist-Mennonite movement has remained a basic characteristic of Mennonite Brethren confessions ever since.

The Anabaptist Movement and the Birth of the Mennonite Church

The Anabaptist movement arose in the first half of the sixteenth century in reaction to Lutheran and Zwinglian Reformations. The Anabaptists welcomed these reforms but understood them to be incomplete and partial. Anabaptists held that the Scriptures taught that baptism was for those who had made a conscious decision to follow Christ, and not for infants. Another of their beliefs was that church and state should be separate. They also held that the believing community and not the state should deal with doctrinal beliefs.

Because of their view of baptism, these believers were called "Anabaptists," from a Greek word meaning "rebaptizers." The Anabaptists, of course, did not teach rebaptism, but rather that baptism was for the believer. They preferred simply to be called brothers and sisters. Later many of them came to be identified as "Mennonites" after their leader Menno Simons who joined the movement in A.D.1536.

Menno Simons was an ordained Roman Catholic priest living in the Netherlands. One day while he was celebrating Mass, he had serious doubts about the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation. In search of an answer to the questions raised in his mind, he decided to turn to the scriptures. After careful study he became convinced that the church was wrong in its teaching that Christ was physically present in the Lord's Supper. Menno Simons became a diligent student of the scriptures and a genuine Biblicist in his theology. He broke with the Roman Catholic Church in a public statement on January30, 1536. For the next 25 years Menno provided outstanding and heroic leadership. Many of those who identified with this view of the scriptures, although known as Mennonites, were subjected to the harsh treatment that many states prescribed for Anabaptists, and so, as The Martyrs Mirror records, many Mennonites were killed because of their beliefs.

The Mennonite Migrations and the Birth of the Mennonite Brethren Church

It was this tradition of taking one's faith seriously that motivated a number of Mennonites in Russia in the middle of the nineteenth century to call for a greater emphasis on historic teachings.