Jakob Hutter Author

In 1529, after the last of the Anabaptists’ first leaders had been burned at the stake, the recent convert Jakob Hutter became a missionary and leader in their underground congregations. These fellowships held their goods in common and abjured violence, seeking to live according to Jesus’ teachings. Ferdinand, ruler of Austria (later Holy Roman Emperor), sought to stamp out this movement through a campaign of surveillance, torture, and executions. Many Anabaptists fled to more tolerant Moravia; as the repression in Austria intensified, Hutter and his future wife Katharina followed them. But in 1535, Ferdinand pressured the governor of Moravia to expel the refugees from their homes. The Hutters returned to the mission field in Tyrol, where they were soon captured by Ferdinand’s forces; Jakob would be burned, Katharina was drowned two years later.