The Amish are descendants of European Anabaptists who organized during the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. The Anabaptists thought that only believing adults should be baptized which placed them in direct conflict with the Roman Catholic Church that practiced infant baptism. The Church of Rome regulated not only religious matters, but it also became closely connected to state politics. Church reformers, lead by Martin Luther in 1517, began a series of reforms that caused the Roman Catholic Church to lose much of its political power. The reformers began to make a clear distinction between church and state, a concept endorsed by the Anabaptists; such a stand made the reformers in general, and the Anabaptists in particular, a threat to the social, religious, and political order of the day. Consequently, a large number of Anabaptists, under the direction of Menno Simmons, fled to remote areas of Europe to escape persecution. During the late 1600’s, a challenge to Anabaptist leadership occurred when Mennonites advocated reforms not acceptable to Jacob Amann. Followers of Amann formed a new religious division, and subsequently, became known as the “Amish.” The division within the Anabaptist movement, combined with persecution from state authorities, caused the Amish to move about Europe and later immigrate to Pennsylvania where other religious groups had fled, seeking religious freedom. Many Amish settled in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and later migrated westward to other parts of Pennsylvania and Maryland. Later Amish immigration from Germany in the 1800’s, had more to do with avoiding military conscription than physical persecution.
