View source for Église Évangélique Mennonite (Altkirch, Haut-Rhin, Alsace, France)

The Église Évangélique Mennonite, a member of [[Association des Églises Évangéliques Mennonites de France|l’Association des Églises Évangéliques Mennonites de France]], is located in Altkirch, in the Upper Alsace region of France. Its members are for the most part descendants of Mennonite immigrants from [[Switzerland|Switzerland]] to France and [[Alsace (France)|Alsace]]. Whether they settled at Altkirch in the seventeenth century soon after the close of the [[Thirty Years' War (1618-1648)|Thirty Years' War]] (1650), or whether they came from other Alsatian Mennonite communities is not clear. Probably the latter is the case. The Altkirch congregation (for a time known as Altkirch-Dammerkirch and then Altkirch-Birkenhof) has existed since about 1825. Its first minister, Joseph Hirschi, was born in<strong> </strong>Sigolsheim  (district of [[Colmar (Haut-Rhin, Alsace, France)|Colmar]]) and died about 1865 in Hirsingen near Altkirch.

Services were at first held in private homes; since 1846 (renovated in 1928) the congregation has had a meetinghouse in [[Birkenhof (Alsace, France)|Birkenhof]], and since 1825 a [[Cemeteries|cemetery]]. The meetinghouse in Altkirch was built in 1926. In 1912 Altkirch had 115 baptized members, and in 1950 it had seventy-two, with fifty-one at Birkenhof, most of them. The Birkenhof families are of [[Amish|Amish]] origin, while those in Altkirch are not. During the first half of the twentieth century some families migrated to this area from Switzerland.

In 1926 a church was built near the [[Nussbaumer, Samuel (1866-1944)|Samuel Nussbaumer]] farm. The first young people's institute for the French and Alsatian youth took place in Altkirch in 1949.  Family names at Altkirch are [[Amstutz (am Stutz, Am Stutz, Stutz, Amstuz, Amstoutz) family |Amstutz]], [[Goldsmith (Goldschmidt) family|Goldschmidt]], Gyger, [[Graber (Greber, Grayber, Gräber) family|Graber]], [[Kauffman (Kaufman, Kaufmann, Kauffmann, Coffman, Cauffman) family|Kaufmann]], Roth, Oberli, [[Nussbaumer (Nussbaum) family|Nussbaumer]], Richard, Rich, Weiss; at Birkenhof one finds Amstutz, [[Hershey family|Hirschi]], Ramseyer, Richard, Neuschwander, Sommer, [[Wenger (Wanger, Winger) family|Wenger]].
= Bibliography =
Hege, Christian and Christian Neff. <em>Mennonitisches Lexikon</em>, 4 vols. Frankfurt &amp; Weierhof: Hege; Karlsruhe: Schneider, 1913-1967: v. I, 48.
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