Anabaptist Roots: Täufer Versteck

                                                        
Note: This is second in a series about my trip to Europe last summer, part of which I spent exploring religious and family roots.

The oldest continuously operating Mennonite Church in the world is located in the village of Langnau, Switzerland. It was unlocked but seemingly empty when I arrived on a Sunday afternoon in July 2009.

The bulletin board in the vestibule featured a large topographic map of the area marked with “meeting places around 1888.” The persecution of Anabaptists in Switzerland had ended only a few decades earlier. These meetinghouse churches are thus likely to be located in places where the Anabaptists hid from authorities. The terrain depicted on the map makes it clear why: This part of Switzerland is a warren of narrow valleys between forested mountain ridges, offering a wealth of hiding places and making pursuit difficult.

To the left of the map was a photograph of the very church in which I was standing, the “Alteste, Alttäufergemeinde Kehr” or “oldest Old Baptist Community Church.” Of course, the building has changed a great deal, but it is still recognizable as the building in the photo.

In a room just off the vestibule, two very old silver chalices were displayed in a case mounted on the wall. These artifacts surprised me. The Mennonite Church I grew up in would never have owned a silver chalice. Such vestiges of Roman Catholic and Swiss Reformed liturgy were soon judged by the Mennonites to be idolatrous distractions, and they developed instead a plain, unadorned “non-liturgical” style.

The sound of a piano eventually drew me to the main sanctuary, where a young man was practicing. When he found out why I was there, he gave directions to a place called the “Taüfer Versteck,” or “Baptist Hideout,” near the tiny village of Trub, Switzerland, about 20 minutes away.

The Täufer Versteck is in a combination barn and farmhouse built in 1608. It has been in the same family for centuries. During the Anabaptist persecutions, the family built a cleverly concealed hiding place, covered by a balanced piece of timber in the hayloft, such that a person fleeing the authorities could run to the place, jump on the end of the timber and slide into the hole, disappearing in an instant with the timber falling back into place over his head. (It was in fact the male leaders of the movement who were pursued most aggressively, but some women lost their lives as well.)

Although it was Sunday and the Taüfer Versteck was supposed to be closed, the matron of the farm saw me and my travel companion walking about outside. When she learned that I was a descendant of the Anabaptists, she opened the museum, showed us the hideout and demonstrated how it worked, then left us to roam about at our leisure. In one room, we listened to audio-taped stories from the diaries and letters of people who had survived the persecutions. We went into the gift shop, picked out books and souvenirs, and left money for them in an open basket there for that purpose.

The next day we traveled to Bern, the source and site of the severest persecutions in all of Switzerland. That story will be posted next week.