The governments of Europe spared no effort to eradicate the Anabaptist threat. Anabaptism was heresy. Heresy was treason. The penalty for treason was death.

Of the three best-known members of the Bible study group that met in Zurich on Jan. 21, 1525, only Conrad Grebel died a natural death, succumbing to the plague five months after escaping from jail. He was about 28 years old.

Felix Manz soon followed Grebel in death, drowned in the river that flows through Zurich. He was 29 years old. As he was marched to the river, his mother’s and brother’s voices could be heard above the crowd, encouraging him to remain true to Christ in the hour of his greatest test.

On the same day Manz was drowned, George Blaurock was severely beaten. Banished from Zurich, he fled to Austria, where he continued to preach. He was arrested in 1529 and burned at the stake at the age of 38.

Grebel’s death and the executions of Manz and Blaurock were hard on the fledgling movement. Anabaptism suffered because its leaders were killed.

One of the most influential was Michael Sattler, author of the Schleitheim Brotherly Agreement, the seminal Swiss Anabaptist statement of how Christians should live. Written in 1527, its seven articles set the tone for how Mennonites have traditionally expressed their beliefs: in statements that emphasize how one should serve God and follow Jesus rather than in creeds that state what one should believe.

Sattler’s execution became a symbol of Anabaptist faithfulness unto death. In May 1527, pieces of his body were torn by red-hot tongs, and his tongue was half cut out. With a sack of gunpowder tied around his neck to hasten his death, he was thrown into the fire.

As the flames burned away the ropes binding his wrists, he raised his hand and pointed with one or two fingers — the promised signal that a martyr’s death was bearable. He was about 37 years old. His wife, Margaretha, was drowned three days later.

The persecution of Anabaptists continued, with varying degrees of intensity, for about 300 years. Hans Landis, beheaded in 1614 in Zurich, was the last Anabaptist executed in the Swiss Confederation.

Both Catholic and Protestant authorities sentenced Anabaptists to death. Some of their stories are recorded in Martyrs Mirror, first published in the Netherlands in 1660. It became one of the most treasured books in the Anabaptist faith.

Its full title: “The Bloody Theater or Martyrs Mirror of the Defenseless Christians who baptized only upon confession of faith and who suffered and died for the testimony of Jesus, their Savior, from the time of Christ to the year A.D. 1660.”

Anabaptists believed Jesus’ followers should expect to suffer, for he had said, “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you” (Matthew 5:11).

The testimony of Anneken Jans, drowned in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, in 1539, exemplifies the martyrs’ courage. Already a widow, she wrote a final testament to her young son, Isaiah, whom she would give to a willing family at the site of her execution:

“I go today the way of the prophets, apostles and martyrs and drink of the cup of which they all have drunk. My child, do not regard the great number, nor walk in their ways. Wherever you hear of a poor, simple, cast-off little flock, which is despised and rejected by the world, join them; for where you hear of the cross, there is Christ.”