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| Haban.org: the story continues, join us in the search for the past, the present and the future |
Friday 17th April 2026 15:09 |
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 The anniversary of 137 years from the start of the Hutterite immigration to America
The date 5th July remembers each year the day, when in 1874 onboard the ship Hammonia the first wave of about 500 refugees from Russia, their domicile on their hardship journey through Europe at that time, composed of the Hutterites and the Mennonites, reached New York. Their arrival was thus a bit symbolic, because the day before the gratest public holiday of the USA was celebrated, The Independence day. They originated in the groups Schmiedeleut and Daruiusleut. They settled in the Bon Homme County, South Dakota, from where also the name of the first colony "Bon Homme Bruderhof" originates, the mother colony of all other group Schmiedeleut colonies. The group Dariusleut founded its first colony about forty miles to the north, near Wolf Creek. Three years later (1877) reached America also the representants of Lehreleut group and founded the Elmspring Colony, only several miles away. Total of 1265 Hutterites came at that time, only 400 of them settled in the colonies. By that the history of the Hutterites in America came into existence.
Discussion
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 Views of the Hutterites life in Canada
The Hutterites live closed life in their colonies without contact with the world using modern technologies. Even so a visit occasionally comes to them and thus some views of their life get even to known video webs, for example. We bring some videos recorded by the visitors in the colonies.
Discussion
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The origin of the Habans
The Habans are the successors of the Hutteries, whose spiritual father was Jakob Hutter. They originated mainly from Germany, Switzerland and Netherlands and settled in South Moravia and in the west of current territory of Slovakia. The Hutteries formed one of the anabaptist groups and were as the other supporters of this way of thinking persecuted in the catholic Europe, Jakob Hutter himself was burned alive at the stake on 25th February 1526 on the command of king Ferdinand in Innsbruck, Austria. The origin of the Habans dates back to the period of the thirty years war (1618 - 1648), which was based on the conflict of catholic and protestant countries. As radical protestants, they had to leave Moravia in 1622 and moved to Slovakia, although 230 of them converted to the Catholic Church. During the next about hundred and fifty years they were forced to leave central Europe or to reunite with the catholic majority, although they still tried to keep their thoughts and habits. Those who remained are the Habans. This name originates from Hebrew word ha-banim as the term for children (of god), but it corresponds well also with the German denomination Die Haushaben, thus the occupants of community houses. The main reason why they managed to stay and were tolerated was in their abilities and diligence in many domains. They were excellent craftsmen, artists, but also for example doctors and the lords were glad to use their services.
Discussion
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The relics of medieval anabaptism in the present
It might seem, that the thoughts of anabaptism are in the current global society already out of date. But the communities of the anabaptists still exist and because of their closed life they still keep their almost original shape. The question of course is, if this way of life is still good and tenable for the future. The closed way of life of this communities in the past was in fact rather the grace of emergency and the defense against intolerant and mainly barbarian, not advancing and by the authorities controlled mass, driven by the Catholic Church. But the situation is very different in many countries today and better communication could help to this communities. The existing communities can be found for example in the USA, Canada, as well as in other countries and on many places they still keep the closed regime, when they for example have only one telephone for the whole group of several hudred people.
Discussion
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The starting points and thoughts for the anabaptism of the future
But the thoughts of the anabaptists do not belong to the past at all. Their foundation in the form of freedom, equality and fraternity is for example the ideal of one of the oldest modern times republic, France. The current world does not brush with the dominion of the Catholic Church, which by baptistery of children not knowing anything keeps and propagates its rule and the only allowed way of thinking. The big problem of current world is the control of people by property and money. Metaphorically said, the child is at present baptised by the econimical environment, into which it is born. And although it might seem that in the global world there are equal chances to everyone, rather the contrary is true. The current world economy works only thanks to it, that the work of people creating the real values is belittled and in the less developed countries also children are misused for difficult work only to keep the cost of the real work as low as possible and thus the greatest profit came to those, who in fact create no real values, who only create the economic pressure. And in such a world there is a place for cooperating communities able to defend against this economical pressure of nonsensual enrichment to the detriment of those, who create the real values and who could reach much better prosperity thanks to their creativity and diligence not charged by some ideology, as the Catholic Church did build its power by forcing everyone to believe in their lobby organization, which purpose was to concentrate the possession, control the people and abuse their work.
Discussion
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Introduction to the history
The history of anabaptism and the people related to it came into existence in the Middle Ages, however the thoughts on which it stands are definitely much older. Anabaptism references to the very beginnings of the Christianity and tries to return to the pure roots of the mankind. The question of course is, if something so ever existed, or in which form. Anyway this way of thinking is based on the deep basics of the fundamental existence of the mankind and is worth studying not only from the historical point of view, but is also worth to hand on and evolve for the next generations. To understand this way of thinking it is a good idea to read information from many sources and the list of them will be expanded here in this article.
Discussion
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