Here are the first several paragraphs from a news report by the Church of the Brethren on the recently-concluded 300th anniversary celebration in Schwarzenau, Germany. To read the entire article, click here.
Close to 1,000 people gathered in Schwarzenau, Germany, on Aug. 2-3 for the international celebrations of the 300th Anniversary of the Brethren movement. The observance has been held in the village on the banks of the Eder River, where the first group of eight Brethren, led by Alexander Mack Sr., were baptized in 1708.
Schwarzenau, “that small town at the edge of the wood…has attained a reputation” for tolerance and the free exercise of religion, said the keynote speaker for the celebration, in his address at the Anniversary Program in Schwarzenau’s Riding Hall on Aug. 3.