Jakob Hutter
Jakob Hutter (c. 1500 – 1536) was a Tyrolean Anabaptist leader and founder of the Hutterites, an Anabaptist group distinguished by its practice of communal ownership of goods and strict church discipline modeled on the early Christian community in Jerusalem.[1][2]
Born in Moos near St. Lorenz in the Tyrol (present-day South Tyrol, Italy), Hutter apprenticed as a hatmaker and had limited formal education before encountering Anabaptist teachings in Klagenfurt, leading to his baptism and missionary work by the late 1520s.[1][2] In 1533, he relocated to Auspitz in Moravia to unify scattered Anabaptist refugees, where he implemented reforms emphasizing shared possessions, apostolic poverty, and separation from worldly ties, forming organized Bruderhofs that laid the foundation for Hutterite communalism.[1][2] Expelled from Moravia in 1535 amid internal and external pressures, Hutter was arrested on November 29 during a missionary journey in Klausen, Tyrol, and after torture in Innsbruck, he was executed by burning at the stake on February 25, 1536, in the city's public square under orders from King Ferdinand, becoming a martyr whose steadfastness inspired the perseverance of his followers.[3][2][1] His brief leadership forged a distinctive Anabaptist tradition that endures today in Hutterite colonies, primarily in North America, committed to pacifism, adult baptism, and economic communalism amid ongoing separation from state churches.[1][2]