How many mennonites in canada

Here are some things you should know about your Mennonite, Old Order and Amish neighbours. Mennonites believe in the importance of community and the priesthood of all believers; primary decision-making is based in the congregation or within a group of congregations.

Over the years there has been considerable splintering as groups within the church disagreed about how to best to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ.

Today there is a wide spectrum of Mennonite churches in North America. Some churches are similar to mainstream Canadians in how they worship and how they dress; other Mennonites are more traditional and they use dress and transportation styles from the 19th century. All Mennonites believe in the importance of a church built on the foundation of Jesus Christ, that community is essential for faithful living, and that love and peace are at the centre of what it means to be Christian.

But Mennonites do not all agree on how to best live out their faith. Beginning in the 19th century, some Mennonites chose not to adopt the latest technology, believing that these new inventions would erode their values of humility and simple living. While more progressive Mennonites have adopted many of the changes of mainstream culture, traditionalist Mennonites have maintained many of the old ways. They have chosen to be selective in what technology they will accept. There are many different kinds of traditionalist Mennonite groups, and they do not draw the same line on what is acceptable.

Over the centuries Old Order Mennonites and Amish have had little formal cooperation, but they have many similarities. They cooperate informally and sometimes live in neighbouring geographical areas. In the last 50 years, Mennonites have been coming to Canada from Mexico. In the s some of the more traditionalist Mennonites of the s migration who settled in Manitoba moved to Mexico in order to live in traditional colonies where they could control their own civil affairs, including education of their children.

Land scarcity has been an ongoing problem in Mexico, and families who choose to return to Canada generally do so for economic reasons. Of course there are also many Mennonites in Canada who do not share this Germanic ethnicity. Especially in the last 50 years many people have chosen to join Mennonite churches, although this is rare in the traditionalist churches. Some Canadian Mennonite congregations are predominantly made up of immigrants from another culture such as Chinese, Hmong, Hispanic, or Ethiopian, and they worship in languages other than English.

The customs of Old Order Mennonites, the Amish communities and Old Colony Mennonites have a number of similarities, but the cultural differences are significant enough so that members of one group would not feel comfortable moving to another group.

The Old Order Mennonites and Amish have the same European roots and the language spoken in their homes is the same German dialect. The Old Order Mennonites and Amish have been in Canada for nearly years and are well established. They each have their own parochial schools and do not send their children to public schools. Old Colony Mennonites are less well-established and have been using public schools, although they are working at increasing the availability of their private schools.

While traditionalist Mennonites in Mexico often use horse-and-buggy transportation, Old Colony Mennonites in Canada use cars or vans. Women do not take leadership roles; they are expected to be homemakers and raise the children. Women wear skirts, never pants; they do not cut their hair, and they wear some type of hair covering—either a net cap or some type of kerchief. Children are considered a valuable part of the family and are expected to help with chores from a young age.

Teaching children about faith is considered to be primarily the responsibility of the family, although Old Colony Mennonites do have Sunday school for children. These groups generally do not use birth control, and families tend to be much larger than the average Canadian family. All of these groups have strong ties of family and community.

They want to encourage each other to live as true followers of Jesus, living humbly and simply. Today Mennonites can be found across Canada. Some of the larger concentrations are found in various pockets in Ontario, including Kitchener-Waterloo, Aylmer, Leamington, Markham and the Niagara Peninsula.

In the west, large concentrations can be found in southern Manitoba, in the Saskatchewan Valley north of Saskatoon, and in the lower Fraser Valley in British Columbia. Traditionalist Mennonites tend to live in rural areas, and the horse-and-buggy groups are predominantly in southwestern Ontario, especially in north Waterloo Region and Wellington, Perth, Huron, Grey and Bruce counties.

Mennonites are Christians who trace their beginnings to the Protestant Reformation, and their basic beliefs are similar to other Christian denominations.

Mennonites believe in the importance of a church built on the teachings of Jesus Christ. A Mennonite in Ontario is also a millionaire with luxury properties and multiple investments. A Mennonite in Ontario might claim ancestral connections to many generations of Mennonites from Switzerland and Pennsylvania.

Another Mennonite might be a second-generation Canadian and new Mennonite whose parents immigrated from Laos or India.

It is not unusual to hear Mennonites described as both a religious body and an ethnic group. Mennonites themselves debate this identity issue, and there is good reason to see it both ways. First and foremost, their origin as a radical movement within the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century clearly defines them as a religious group.

The history of the Mennonites, which at various times found them living in close-knit and sometimes isolated communities in particular geographic settings gave them cultural characteristics — language, family names, foods, artistic forms, for instance — that we normally associate with an ethnic group. Today, the question of ethnicity has changed as individuals with a wide range of ethnic or cultural backgrounds join Mennonite churches. When people hear about Mennonites, many think of horse and buggy transportation, black bonnets and long dark dresses, and a lifestyle without most modern technologies.

Indeed, the Old Order Mennonites, Amish, and other groups that do not use motorized transportation, living primarily in the regions north and west of the city of Waterloo, are a unique part of the religious denomination known as Mennonites. There are about , Mennonites in Canada this includes children , and about 59, in Ontario self-identified in National Household Survey. Mennonite groups can be found across Canada, with over half of the population residing in urban areas such as Winnipeg, Vancouver, and Kitchener-Waterloo.

The Mennonite population in Ontario is concentrated in a number of geographic areas: in the southwest corner of the province, in the municipality of Leamington and eastward to include the city of London; in the Niagara Peninsula; in south-central Ontario surrounding the Region of Waterloo and northward as far as the Bruce Peninsula; and in the Greater Toronto Area.

Mennonite communities and congregations can also be found in urban areas like Ottawa and Sudbury as well as in scattered rural areas in northern and central Ontario such as near Lindsay, Cochrane, and Red Lake.

Ontario may well present the greatest diversity of Mennonites in the entire world. Indeed, the variety of Mennonites is actually increasing.

Note the two young Amish girls in distance in the upper right aprons are full length. World War II caused the same turmoil as did WW I among Mennonites, Amish and other pacifist groups — difficulties accentuated by weak coordination among the various pacifist groups, a generally non-sympathetic public and national government especially for German-speaking people, inconsistent court and governmental decisions, and confusion about the membership status of unbaptized young men.

Many young Mennonites and Amish attended work camps, an alternative to military service, in Northern Ontario and, later, British Columbia. Their fate in Germany was still difficult with Soviet leader Stalin wanting them sent home and hence likely to Siberia and the Allies often treating them as Nazi sympathizers and not welcoming them as immigrants.

About eventually ended up in Canada, thanks strongly to efforts of the Mennonite Central Committee. About came to Ontario and the rest to Western Canada. Canadian Mennonite congregations had difficulties dealing with previously, largely unknown issues like unwed mothers who had been raped by enemy soldiers, and husbands missing after forced service in Soviet or German armies. Denial of membership or communion sometimes occurred. Wellesley Township in Waterloo Region has been the centre of several divisions among Mennonites.

One major incident occurred around when a group known as Plymouth Brethren started a few years earlier in Ireland and England staged an extended, major revival campaign at Hawkesville. This caused many former Mennonites to leave their traditional churches and join the new gospel mission. About one thousand people observed a baptism by immersion one day in the nearby Conestogo River.

The Hawkesville Bible Chapel existed until or when its members joined a split-off group from the Elmira Mennonite Church to form the larger Wallenstein Bible Chapel about 5 km further north. Also unusual was the creation of the officially named Orthodox Mennonite Church of Wellesley Township.

It was created in by Elam S. Martin, initially a David Martin minister who left that group after being excommunicated twice. He took many David Martin members with him and starting his own church. The new group was commonly known as Elam S. Martin Mennonites. Eighteen years later a split occurred within this group, with one of the issues being obligate beards for men.

The pro-beard group led by Elam S. It is probably now the most conservative of the Mennonite groups in Ontario. The remaining group split again soon afterward, with many members rejoining the David Martins and the rest remaining as Wellesley Orthodox Mennonites.

Their meetinghouse near Hawkesville burned in August ; a local newspaper article at the time said it had not been used regularly for 30 years. It is maintained by other Old Order Mennonites who live nearby. A nearby small school, initially established by Wellesley Orthodox Mennonites in about , was then used by Old Order Mennonites after about , before being closed as a school in It now serves as a supply depot for Old Order Mennonite schools across Ontario.

Their relocation to Mexico was prompted in part by a Manitoba Government decision that all schools had to operate now in English, not German. Most returned to Western Canada but about came to Ontario with the biggest settlement being around Tillsonburg and later Aylmer. Some formed their own Old Colony churches and others joining existing Mennonite and non-Mennonite-though-German-based congregations. Because they can drive and own cars, Old Colony employees often serve as chauffeurs for David Martins.

Language is an obstacle with the arrivals speaking Spanish and Low German and the operating languages in the Waterloo area being Pennsylvania Dutch Deitsch and English. The years to also saw the establishment of 10 new Amish communities across Southern Ontario all of them immigrants from the US. This wave of immigration was triggered by continuing military conscription in the US though not in Canada , the Vietnam War, and the introduction of some social insurance programs that Old Order groups in the US opposed.

Old Order Mennonites and Amish in Canada eventually secured exemptions from CPP participation and use of SIN for anything other than income tax filing, but the process took many years of petitions to the Government of Canada. Not all of these survived but most are still there today. This represented a huge expansion from the earlier Old Order Amish base that was mostly in Mornington Township and the western edge of Wellesley Township. Old Order Amish, unlike most of the other Mennonite and Amish groups, have no formal structure connecting different congregations.

This means limited communication among the different groups in Ontario and, as a result, beliefs and accepted living practices differ significantly. The connections are often stronger with US Amish communities from where they originated. They are also strong where daughter congregations have been created in Canada, triggered by both population growth large families and the limited availability of additional farmland in existing areas.

Of interest, Amish now live only in the United States and Canada, with the largest number residing in Ohio, but with substantial numbers also in Indiana and Pennsylvania. Mennonites, by contrast, are found in many countries. Current building for Maple View Mennonite Church. Congregation established before by Amish Mennonites, near Wellesley Ontario.

The post-World War II years saw a continuation of divisions among Mennonite and Amish Mennonite congregations and the creation of new ones, often located not far away. There were breakaways to form new congregations that were either more conservativism or more liberal. In , more liberal Amish Mennonite churches renamed their conference, the Western Ontario Mennonite Conference, eliminating the word, Amish. A larger split occurred in when a number of Ontario congregations, led by six ordained men in Wilmot Township, left the mainstream Mennonite Church of Ontario to form the Conservative Mennonite Church of Ontario.

It established several new congregations quite quickly in Waterloo starting with one in Heidelberg , and in Huron County Zurich and Brussels. The decision by the Province of Ontario to close all one-room elementary schools in Ontario in led to major disruption.

Prior to then, Old Order children had attended small generally one-room public schools along with all other rural Ontario children. As a result, the Government of Ontario agreed to let these groups establish their own one-room schools, with local school boards just as had existed before.

This was a very traumatic period for Old Order groups as it meant a need for an across-congregational organization beyond what most had known before, plus the financing of schools and training of teachers. Almost none of the Old Order trustees or early teachers had ever advanced in school beyond age 14, the age that Ontarians who were farm children were permitted to quit school at the time, and the age at which almost every Old Order Mennonite and Amish child did.

The age to which Ontario children must attend school has since risen to 16, but remains 14 for these parochial schools. Many of the school buildings were generally built new as the former township school boards opposed the creation of the new parochial schools and refused to sell them the former one-room schools, even though they were no longer needed. Most were sold for conversion to homes.

The number of Old Order schools has increased substantially since Intriguingly, David Martin Mennonite children, though also Old Order in many ways, go to regular public schools. Schooling is in English even though children often speak Pennsylvania Dutch at home.

There have been some intriguing initiatives. Jacobs, for Mennonite children of all types but especially Old Order , apparently as a failed early attempt to keep Old Order children still in the provincial public school system after It was closed a few years ago because of declining attendance. However, it has recently been purchased by Old Colony Mennonites and is now used to educate their children.

There is so much more that could be written as background information on who the Mennonites and Amish are, and how they got to who they are today. The Mennonite Central Committee, now with Canadian headquarters in Winnipeg but with a strong Ontario presence, celebrated its th anniversary in The New Hamburg Mennonite Relief Sale has raised substantial funds from the auction sale of quilts for more than 50 years.

As but one example of its activities, MDS had support teams on the ground immediately afterwards to help clean up the debris left by a tornado at Goderich, Ontario in August There are many other related programs. There is also a major urban presence in Western Canada. Mennonites have a long history of mission work in inner Toronto. Mennonites established a residential and teaching college, Conrad Grebel University College, soon after the founding of the University of Waterloo in Among other functions, Conrad Grebel does a great job in documenting Mennonite and Amish history.

Cedar Grove began as a breakaway congregation by more conservative families from Maple View. The remainder of this article involves a listing and brief description of the various Mennonite and Amish groups and congregations as they existed across Ontario in — or as close to as I can find relevant information.

SM includes groups who accept some evangelistic philosophy and government programs but also stick with many practices that make them visible, like prayer veils and plain dress. EM means groups that are more evangelical and with limited or no compliance with old-order practices. AM means groups that use the same living and farming practices as the rest of modern society. Mention should also be made of the Midwest Mennonite Fellowship , an affiliation created in from previously unaffiliated and relatively conservative congregations from Ontario to Iowa.

This is a separate entity from the Conservative Mennonite Church of Ontario. The diversity of groups is large, indeed far more than I expected when I started this project. In general, most Old Order groups use horses and buggies for personal transport, with the women wearing bonnets and distinctive dresses, and the men wearing braces instead of belts for trouser suspension.

My information may not all be current. The process for change generally involves a combination of special congregational meetings and decisions unilateral or based on consensus by bishops and ministers. There are some restrictions on tractor usage, e.

They are obliged to remove windows from the tractor cabs. Old Order Mennonites can use covered buggies with rubber-tired wheels including pneumatic , unlike some other old order groups. Thanks to an overall organizational structure for Ontario, the Old Order Mennonite Church, practices are similar at all places. Old-Order and Markham-Waterloo Mennonites cooperate a great deal, sharing schools, and meetingplaces for church services.

Orthodox Mennonites are more restrictive — no phones, line electricity, rubber-tired buggies or farm tractors, as I understand it. David Martin Mennonites are a combination of very conservative and very modern. They do use telephones including cell phones and, I understand, some modern home appliances. There are strict limitations on usage of electricity in the houses, but much less so in the farm shops.

Indeed, they have their own Internet server company. Their rules for buggies are apparently about the same as for Old Order Mennonites though David Martin buggies and wagons are often larger. Most Mennonites and Amish are very entrepreneurial. One suspects that this represents a substantial portion of family cash income because the farms are generally not large.

Sunday sales, of course, are forbidden. David Martin Mennonites often go beyond this by adding on-farm manufacturing capabilities such as complex metal machining and injection molding for plastics.

To do so, they use sophisticated computer software, complex electrical tools and other electronic equipment as long as it does not use line electricity.