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The Bruderhof Communities (Church Communities International, previously known as Society of Brothers or the Hutterian Society of Brothers) is an Anabaptist community founded by Eberhard Arnold (1883-1935) in the village of Sannerz in Germany in 1920.

The Bruderhof’s origins can be traced to 1907, when Arnold and his fiancée Emmy von Hollander decided to be baptized as adults, thus breaking away from the established church. Raised as a Lutheran, Arnold studied theology and philosophy. What he wrote in a letter to Emmy in September 1907 is an unwitting echo of the ideas of the first Anabaptists of 1525: “On Tuesday I’ll briefly inform our parents of my conviction, according to which I must a) be baptized as a believer, since infant baptism is in opposition to what is meant biblically and is therefore not baptism; b) withdraw from the established church, since I consider it dishonest through and through and contrary to the spirit of the Bible; c) embrace as my ideal church communities of believing, baptized Christians who use church discipline and celebrate the Lord’s Supper.” (Love letters, 145)

Arnold came to his conviction on pacifism through the horrors of World War I. He came to believe, too, that war was a direct result of selfishness, of the need to defend one’s property, and therefore that the private ownership of property was opposed to God’s will. In June 1920, he and his wife and children and Emmy’s sister, Else von Hollander, sold their home and moved into a villa in Sannerz. Here they formed a community with any who wished to join them. They ran a farm and a publishing house and took in foster children.

The community grew slowly, and in 1926 they purchased a nearby neglected farm at Neuhof, in the district of Fulda, which they named “Bruderhof,” a conscious imitation of the historic Hutterite term known to Arnold from his study of the 16th-century Hutterites. Inspired by their history (particularly their martyrs), and thrilled by the fact that this group was still living in community after 400 years, he established contact with the American Hutterites in 1928. He spent a year visiting them from 1930 to 1931 and in December 1930 was ordained a Hutterite minister at the Stand-Off Colony near Macleod, Alberta. He was commissioned to lead the new German Bruderhof group as a part of the ancient Hutterite brotherhood. Although the union between Bruderhof Communities and the Hutterian Brethren Church broke more than once, from 1930 on the Bruderhof Communities have shared the Hutterian tenets of faith – the same baptism and marriage vows, the same ordination of ministers, and the same practice of church discipline – which go back to Peter Riedemann in the 16th century.

The Almbruderhof was established in the principality of Liechtenstein in 1934 as a refuge for the school-age children when the Nazi government withdrew support of the Rhön Bruderhof’s private school. The following year, when a military draft was introduced in Germany, the young men too escaped to Liechtenstein. Eberhard Arnold died on 22 November 1935. The Rhön Bruderhof was dissolved by the National Socialist government in 1937. Two Hutterian elders, David Hofer from James Valley, Manitoba, and Michael Waldner from Bon Homme, South Dakota, were visiting at that time, and their presence probably saved the lives of Bruderhof members. The Bruderhof members expelled from Germany were welcomed by Mennonites in Holland until they were able to move to England.

The Cotswold Bruderhof, founded in England in 1936, became the home of the ongoing movement. There was great interest in an alternative way of life among pacifist circles in England before the outbreak of World War II, and the Bruderhof movement doubled in size during the four years there. However, with the outbreak of international hostilities, the high German population of this pacifist group became suspect. Rather than allowing their German members to be interned, the entire Bruderhof group migrated to Paraguay in South America, thanks to the help of Orie Miller and the Mennonite Central Committee. In Primavera, near the Mennonite colony of Friesland, about 80 miles northeast of Asunción, they established three communities, Isla Margarita, Loma Hoby, and Ibate. The group was incorporated under the name "Sociedad de Hermanos."

Meanwhile there was continued interest in the Bruderhof in England, and the representatives who had remained to close the Cotswold Bruderhof decided to start a new settlement at Wheathill in Shropshire.

In 1954 the first American Bruderhof was begun: Woodcrest in Rifton, New York, about 90 miles (80 km) north of New York City. Oak Lake (later called New Meadow Run) was established in 1957 in Farmington, Pennsylvania, and in 1958 a third American Bruderhof was founded: Evergreen (later called Deer Spring) in Norfolk, Connecticut. In the late 1950s, the Bruderhof returned to Germany at the Sinntal Bruderhof.

In 1959–1961, the Bruderhof movement experienced a spiritual crisis, leading to the closing of all centers in South America, Germany, and England (except for Bulstrode, begun in 1958, which closed in 1966). Darvell, in Robertsbridge, England, was begun in 1971, and several additional Bruderhofs have been established since that time. In 1999 Danthonia was begun in Australia. Starting in December 2003, the Bruderhof set up small urban communities in various cities, some closing after a few months or years and others lasting longer. In 2002 they returned to the original villa in Sannerz, and in 2010 a small center was re-established in Paraguay, in Asunción.

In 1962, Johann Heinrich Arnold was appointed bishop for the whole Bruderhof movement. After his death in 1982, Johann Christoph Arnold became bishop. J. C. Arnold retired in 2001, and the brotherhood members appointed Richard Scott in his place; Arnold continued serving in an advisory capacity until his death in 2017. Richard Scott died in 2011, and Paul Winter continued as the current (2017) bishop.

Relationship with the Hutterites

When Eberhard Arnold was incorporated into the Hutterian Church in December 1930 he said that he wanted to join the original Hutterian Church of Jacob Hutter’s time rather than what it had become by 1930: “I am of the opinion that our turning to Hutterianism means that we should become like the early Hutterites. We don’t want to become Hutterites in the sense of 1692; we don’t want to become Hutterites in the sense of 1930–1931; but we do want to become Hutterian in the sense of 1529–1589, in the sense of these first fifty years. With this the Hutterites are in agreement.” (Brothers Unite, 249) Unfortunately, over the decades the relationship between the two groups has gone through times of tension and conflict.

In 1955 members of the Forest River Hutterian colony in North Dakota wished for a closer association with the Bruderhof. Due largely to differences in general outlook – the Hutterites depending on tradition while the Bruderhof Communities were more spontaneous and outward-looking – this led to a complete break. In January 1974 J. Heinrich Arnold with several other Bruderhof ministers, working with Hutterite elder Jacob Kleinsasser, was able to reestablish unity.

For the next 20 years the two groups worked together on various projects, such as helping one another build communities and mission trips to various parts of the world. There were joint baptisms and several marriages between the “western” and “eastern” Hutterites (named thus because the Bruderhof was situated on the US east coast). But in 1994 a rupture again took place with significant bitterness on both sides, again over cultural and theological differences.

Publishing

Publishing books and a magazine has been part of the Bruderhof’s mission since its beginning. Eberhard Arnold was editor of a periodical Das neue Werk and the Eberhard Arnold Verlag published, among other things, a series of books (Quellen) of Christian witnesses through the centuries. The Plough Publishing House was established at the Cotswold Bruderhof in 1938, with a quarterly The Plough. It was re-established by the Woodcrest Service Committee in the 1960s; during the years of a military draft in the United States, the Plough Publishing House was part of an alternative service program recognized by Selective Service.

Plough has translated into English and published several Hutterian doctrinal writings. Peter Riedemann’s Rechenschaft was published at the Cotswold Bruderhof in 1938 and in English by the Wheathill Bruderhof in 1950 as Account of our Religion, Doctrine, and Faith. In 2011 Plough published The Christian and the Sword: An Anabaptist Manifesto of 1577, one section of the Great Article Book attributed to Peter Walpot. The translation and English publication of The Chronicle of the Hutterian Brethren in 1987 was a significant contribution to Anabaptist study. In 2014 Plough was set up at the Fox Hill Bruderhof in Walden, New York, with a reformatted Plough Quarterly.

Business

Bruderhof members run a variety of businesses that provide income: Community Playthings was developed during the 1950s and soon became the Bruderhof's main source of income. Community Playthings designs and manufactures quality wooden classroom and play environments for schools and daycare centers. The business is run by the communities in the United States[35] and United Kingdom. Rifton Equipment, run by some of the American communities, sells mobility and rehabilitation equipment for disabled adults and children. It was founded in 1977.

Danthonia Designs is the business that supports the Australian Bruderhofs. It specializes in hand-carved three-dimensional signage and was founded in 2001.

List of Bruderhofs

(Some centers that have existed only a short time are not included in the list below. Those marked with an asterisk are small, urban communities.)

Community name	Location	Dates
Sannerz	Sannerz, Germany	1920 – 1927; 2002 -
Rhön	Post Neuhof, Kreis Fulda, Germany	1927 - 1937
Alm	Silum, Liechtenstein	1934 - 1938
Cotswold	Ashton Keynes, England	1936 - 1941
Oaksey	Swindon, England	1939 - 1940
Wheathill	Bridgnorth, England	1942 - 1961
Isla Margarita, Primavera	Paraguay	1941 - 1961
Loma Hoby, Primavera	Paraguay	1942 - 1960
Ibate, Primavera	Paraguay	1947 - 1961
El Arado	Montevideo, Uruguay	1952 - 1960
Woodcrest	Rifton, NY, USA	1954 -
Sinntal	Bad Brückenau, Germany	1955 - 1961
New Meadow Run (Oak Lake)	Farmington, PA, USA	1957 -
Deer Spring (Evergreen)	Norfolk, CT, USA	1958 - 1998
Bulstrode	Gerrards Cross, England	1958 - 1966
Darvell	Robertsbridge, England	1971 -
Maple Ridge (Pleasant View)	Ulster Park, NY, USA	1985 -
Platte Clove	Elka Park, NY, USA	1990 -
Spring Valley	Farmington, PA, USA	1990 -
Beech Grove	Nonington, England	1995 -
Fox Hill	Montgomery, NY, USA	1998 -
Michaelshof	Birnbach, Germany	1988 - 1995
Palmgrove	Nigeria	1993 - 1994
Danthonia	Inverell, Australia	1999 -
Bellvale	Chester, NY, USA	2001 -
Holzland	Bad Klosterlausnitz, Germany	2004 -
Kingston*	Kingston, NY	2004 -
London*	London, England	2005 -
Inverell	Inverall, Australia	2005 -
Armidale	Armidale, Australia	2005 -
Morgantown*	West Virginia, USA	2006 -
Bayboro	St. Petersburg, FL, USA	2006 -
Harlem*	Harlem, NY, USA	2006 -
Parkview*	Albany, NY, USA	2006 -
Villa Primavera	Asuncion, Paraguay	2010 -
Mount Community	Esopus, NY, USA	2012 -

Bibliography

Author(s)	Emmy Maendel
Date Published	August 2017

Arnold, Eberhard and Emmy von Hollander. Love Letters. Rifton, NY: Plough Publishing House 2007: 145.

Arnold, Emmy. A Joyful Pilgrimage: My Life in Community. Rifton, NY: Plough Publishing House, 1999.

Barth, Emmy. An Embassy Besieged: The Story of a Christian Community in Nazi Germany. Eugene, Oregon: Cascade Books, 2010.

Barth, Emmy. No Lasting Home: A Year in the Paraguayan Wilderness. Rifton, NY: Plough Publishing House, 2009.

Baum, Marcus. Against the Wind: Eberhard Arnold and the Bruderhof. Farmington, PA: Plough Publishing House, 1998.

The Bruderhof: Foundations of our Faith & Calling. Rifton, New York: The Plough Publishing House, 2012.

Mommsen, Peter. Homage to a Broken Man. Walden, NY: Plough Publishing House, 2015.

Hutterian Brethren, Ed. Brothers Unite: An Account of the Uniting of Eberhard Arnold and the Rhön Bruderhof with the Hutterian Church, introduced by John A. Hostetler and Leonard Gross. Rifton, NY: Plough Publishing House, 1988: 249.

See also Hutterian Brethren

For the description of the historic Hutterite Brethren settlements in Moravia and Slovakia see Bruderhof.

Additional Information

Thomas Nauerth, Zeugnis, Liebe und Widerstand: Der Rhönbruderhof 1933–1937

Ian M. Randall, "The Spirituality of the Bruderhof"

Websites:

Christian Communities International

Plough Publishing

Eberhard Arnold

Cite This Article

MLA style

Maendel, Emmy. "Bruderhof Communities." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. August 2017. Web. 25 Nov 2024. https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Bruderhof_Communities&oldid=154040.

APA style

Maendel, Emmy. (August 2017). Bruderhof Communities. Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 25 November 2024, from https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Bruderhof_Communities&oldid=154040.

Bruderhof Communities

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