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Remembering the Cloud of Witnesses: Second Ecumenical Conference on 16th-century Martyrdom

COLLEGEVILLE, Minnesota — Mennonite and Catholic historians and theologians continued the study of 16th-century religious martyrdom that began last year. Discussions at Saint John's Abbey, a Benedictine monastery in Minnesota, July 26-28, included plans to form an ecumenical institute for on-going scholarly research on this topic.

The conference was entitled, "Sixteenth century martyrdom in ecumenical perspective." Ivan Kauffman, a Washington, D.C.-based writer and one of the conference organizers, provided this framework: "The church today stands between a past marred by extensive violence and a future committed to peacemaking. We must somehow connect our historical past to our very different future."

Sixteenth-century martyrdom became a topic of ecumenical discussion when, in 1998, the Mennonite World Conference entered into a five-year dialogue with the Vatican's Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity. Two major contributors to the international dialogue, Drew Christiansen, S.J., and Helmut Harder, spoke at this year's martyrs conference.

The importance of martyr history to ecumenical dialogue was emphasized in the keynote address by Margaret O'Gara, a leading Catholic ecumenist and theologian at the University of Toronto.

Dr. O'Gara noted that remembering Jesus' own sacrifice at the Lord's Supper is at the heart of Christian life. Also, in remembering together those who "laid down their lives for Christ and conscience's sake," she said, "we are linked to our faith in a deep way."

Both Dr. O'Gara and Abbot John Klassen, spiritual leader of St. John's Abbey, noted Pope John Paul II's repeated call for repentance of the sins of violence and intolerance committed in the past.

The purpose of the ecumenical conferences at St. John's is to carry forward what the Pope calls the "purification of memory." Others call it a "right remembering" of not only the Anabaptist martyr experience but also the persecution and hostility faced by Catholics and other Christians in other contexts.

C. Arnold Snyder, a Mennonite professor of history at Conrad Grebel College in Ontario (Canada) and author of Following in the Footsteps of Christ: The Anabaptist Spirituality (Orbis 2004), presented a case study of an early Anabaptist martyr, Hans Schlaffer.

Focusing on Schlaffer's prison writings, Dr. Snyder showed how Schlaffer's willingness to die for his faith followed directly from the Anabaptist experience of spirituality. Gelassenheit, a heart surrendered or yielded to God's grace and the Holy Spirit, brings, in Schlafferís words, "the mind of Christ" and readiness for the "baptism of blood."

Brad Gregory, Catholic historian at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, (USA) and author of the leading study of 16th-century martyrdom, Salvation at Stake: Christian Martyrdom in Early Modern Europe (Harvard 1999), commented that the most striking element of Dr. Snyder's account "was the primacy of place that Schlaffer gave to the work of the Holy Spirit, which is foundational for the entire process."

Dr. Gregory said this analysis was remarkable because it breaks down some firm, traditional scholarly distinctions within the Radical Reformation "between 'spiritualists' and biblically literalist, ethically radical Anabaptists."

For a second case study, Professor Peter Erb of Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario (Canada), and another conference organizer, presented a paper on the Schwenkfelders.

Although no Schwenkfelders were ever executed as heretics, a period of oppression in 18th-century Germany led to an emigration to Pennsylvania. The Schwenkfelders then developed a tradition of being a community of martyrs in the cause of religious freedom. It is this martyrdom identity that holds the group together today, rather than any persisting shared theology.

A third comparative study of a Catholic 16th-century martyr was to have been presented by Peter Nissen, Catholic professor of history at the University of Nijmegen in the Netherlands and member of the international dialogue, but the presentation was prevented by illness.

Professor John Roth of Goshen College, Indiana, reported on recent dialogue between representatives of Mennonite Church USA and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Helmut Harder, professor emeritus at Canadian Mennonite Bible College, Winnipeg, Manitoba, reported on a consultation at Bose Monastery in Italy in March 2004, which addressed the possibility of ecumenically recognizing one common "cloud of witnesses." (Heb.12:1)

The group at Bose identified three reasons for building an ecumenical martyrology: to provide the occasion to urge gestures of penitence and reconciliation; to engage the churches in the urgent task of building unity and community; and to nurture disciples.

Participants at the conference agreed that religious martyrdom deserves much greater study, especially in an ecumenical setting, so that the various Christian traditions can achieve a shared "right remembering" of historical facts. Further study of this kind was specifically recommended by the report of the international dialogue, "Called Together to Be Peacemakers," which was released by Mennonite World Conference and the Vatican in early 2004.

Conference participants endorsed the formation of an organizing committee to plan an institute dedicated specifically to the ecumenical study of Christian martyrs.