Mennonite Weekly Review

On forested ridges with countless ravines in central Europe’s Jura mountains, early Swiss Anabaptists once eked out a living.

A milk house stands halfway down a mountain from where the early Anabaptists lived and farmed, keeping contact with the world at a minimum. — Photo provided

Soon people today will be able to walk in their steps on a two-part hiking trail, the Chemin des Anabaptistes, to be dedicated Sept. 18.

Anabaptists found shelter in the Jura mountains during the mid1600s after being driven from their homes in central Switzerland’s Emmental. They had fled there a century earlier from Zurich and the eastern cantons.

The Jura mountains, which form the boundary between Switzerland and France, extend from Geneva to Basel.

The Catholic bishops of Basel ruled these ridges during the 17th and 18th centuries. These bishops tolerated the productive Anabaptists for the economic advantage to their domains — if the Anabaptists agreed to live above a 3,280-foot elevation. Renewed intolerance and outright persecution would later drive many of these Swiss Anabaptists to the French side of the Jura and eventually to America.

This story is now being told along a two-part hiking trail. Each section starts out at Sonceboz and leads past numerous points of interest. The Jura landscape shows the industri- ousness of the Anabaptists who worked the thin soils of this remote location. There are mountain pastures bordered by neatly stacked stone fences, seen against a background of tall evergreens, winding tree-lined roads leading to distant farms and small communities.

In the meetinghouse on the Sonnenberg are the archives of the Swiss Mennonite Conference. In the ice cave Creux de Glace, a natural deep freeze, there are initials carved in the rocks.

A highlight of the hike is the remains of the Bridge of the Anabaptists, which once crossed the ravine Combe du Bez. Anabaptists held forbidden worship services under the bridge. Again there are numerous names, initials and dates to be seen, all carved in the rocks below. The earliest extant date is 1633.

In 2007, during Switzerland’s Täuferjahr (Anabaptist year), Mennonites sought support for the restoration of the bridge. They contacted ViaStoria, an organization devoted to developing heritage trails. Out of this cooperation the idea of an Anabaptist trail emerged. The remains of the Bridge of the Anabaptists and the rock inscriptions under it have been secured and made more accessible.

The Chemin des Anabaptistes joins 22 other trails developed by ViaStoria. Scheduled group tours can include a visit to the Mennonite Archives.