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Jacob Gottschalk
Jacob Gottschalk (Godtschalk) Henricks van der Heggen (c.1670 – c.1763) was the first person to serve as a Mennonite bishop in America. Life Gottschalk was born around 1670 in Germany, in Goch, a town at the Dutch border. In 1701, he received a letter from the church in Goch, permitting him to migrate to Pennsylvania, where he arrived at Germantown, Pennsylvania in 1702. On August 10, 1702, he became a preacher to the Mennonite congregation there. He died in May 1763, and his grave is unmarked; however, there is a memorial stone at the Towamencin Meeting church yard at Kulpsville, Montgomery County, PennsylvaniaWhite pg. 145 that reads: In memory of Bishop Jacob Gottshall 1670-1763 Born in Goch Germany, ordained a bishop in the Germantown Mennonite Church in 1702 and also served the Skippack and Towamencin congregations. He performed the first baptism and conducted the first communion service in the American church in 1708. The Skippack alms audits were signed by him fro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mennonite
Mennonites are groups of Anabaptist Christian church communities of denominations. The name is derived from the founder of the movement, Menno Simons (1496–1561) of Friesland. Through his writings about Reformed Christianity during the Radical Reformation, Simons articulated and formalized the teachings of earlier Swiss founders, with the early teachings of the Mennonites founded on the belief in both the mission and ministry of Jesus, which the original Anabaptist followers held with great conviction, despite persecution by various Roman Catholic and Mainline Protestant states. Formal Mennonite beliefs were codified in the Dordrecht Confession of Faith in 1632, which affirmed "the baptism of believers only, the washing of the feet as a symbol of servanthood, church discipline, the shunning of the excommunicated, the non-swearing of oaths, marriage within the same church, strict pacifistic physical nonresistance, anti-Catholicism and in general, more emphasis on "true Ch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
