Persecution as Cauldron

Catholics, Lutherans, and Calvinists could all agree on one thing: Hutterites were heretics to be exterminated.

Maybe this was the hate given to the many communally-minded peasant variations of Christianity that popped up in Europe like a spring bloom every century or so since the 13th.

The promise of a tranquil life, with bonds beyond the manipulations of church and state.

Northern Italy. Chased out to Hungary. Turned into Ottoman slaves. East into Wallachia and Ukraine. Finally, the American Great Plains- where they are now.

Photographs of Hutterite communities in motion will say more than I can.