Twisck, Pieter Jansz (17th century)
Pieter Jansz Twisck (Pieter Jansz de Jonge), a Dutch Mennonite elder, grandson of Pieter Jansz Twisck, served the Old Frisian congregation in Hoorn 1649-after 1690. His stubbornness and strictness in the doctrines on the ban and the mixed marriages caused dissension between Twisck and some followers and the more progressive part of the congregation, of which the preacher Jan Willems Sleutel was the leader. When a certain proposal by Twisck was rejected by the church board in April 1688, Twisck protested by retiring from the board. Secretly his group tried to reduce the influence of Sleutel and the progressives; they even proposed to the city magistrates to have the preacher Gerrit Willems Seylemaker removed. Endeavors to heal the rupture failed, and Twisck with a number of adherents held a meeting in his home on 25 December 1689, thus separating from the main body of the church. On 8 January 1690, the schism was completed. With the aid of a gift of 32,000 Dutch guilders received from Immetje Pieters, the widow of the deacon Claes Reyders, Twisck bought a house "De Plemp," which was remodeled as a meeting place for his group, then usually called "Twiscken" or also "Plempsche Mennoniten." Twisck probably died soon after; the exact year of his death is unknown. In 1743 the "Twiscken" returned to the main body.
Twisck was a man of great power and dominance, not only in the home church, but also elsewhere and particularly in the Frisian conference of North Holland. It was Twisck, for example, who in 1682 dedicated the new meetinghouse of the Frisian congregation at Alkmaar.
As far as is known, Twisck did not publish any writings of his own; he edited a few writings, e.g., Schriftuurlijke Vereeniging (1661), of his grandfather's, with whom he was so congenial and whose nature seemed to have passed to his grandson, except his sharp intellect.
Bibliography
Doopsgezinde Bijdragen (1867): 78-89; (1891): 9.
| Author(s) | Nanne van der Zijpp |
|---|---|
| Date Published | 1959 |
Cite This Article
MLA style
Zijpp, Nanne van der. "Twisck, Pieter Jansz (17th century)." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. 1959. Web. 22 Nov 2024. https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Twisck,_Pieter_Jansz_(17th_century)&oldid=110119.
APA style
Zijpp, Nanne van der. (1959). Twisck, Pieter Jansz (17th century). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 22 November 2024, from https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Twisck,_Pieter_Jansz_(17th_century)&oldid=110119.
Adapted by permission of Herald Press, Harrisonburg, Virginia, from Mennonite Encyclopedia, Vol. 4, p. 759. All rights reserved.
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