August 5th, 2025On Words and Gestures of Apology
I am a retired church worker who really enjoyed writing and editing worship resources. That includes giving careful attention to words and symbols. When I lead worship now, I still choose words and symbols with intention, including the words of land recognition and apology. Last summer, I brought some indigenous forest plants from our cottage property to symbolize my gratitude for the land we have come to call home, which the indigenous peoples stewarded so well as their home on Mother Earth.
I am also an Anabaptist who is commemorating 500 years since the violent beginnings of our denomination. We are the descendants of Reformers who renounced both violence and infant baptism. Both distinctives made us the enemies of those who believed that Church and State needed to be closely intertwined and defended with the sword. This led other church leaders to persecute my ancestors. In Switzerland, where our movement began, violent persecution lasted for well over 100 years, always with the hope of eradicating Anabaptism.
Many Anabaptists fled to the Netherlands, Germany, and Prussia, from where some immigrated to the USA, Ukraine, and eventually to Canada, Paraguay, and Mexico. We have become a pilgrim and a mission-oriented people, with a majority of our members now located in Africa and Asia. Since the 1980s, led by those who stayed in Europe, we have worked for reconciliation and ecumenical collaboration with those who once persecuted us. Our efforts have been well received. Since 2004, numerous events and apologies have been celebrated as steps toward healing our memories and setting out good new ways of accepting our differences and celebrating that which binds us together. Public markers have been erected at sites of execution and arrest. The accompanying signage acknowledges wrongs that were committed and articulates intentions to live together in better ways.
On an “Anabaptism at 500” tour through Europe this summer, I was impressed by these markers and apologies. I listened and read with care, and tested the words of apology. Did they recognize the positive impacts of the Anabaptists on the wider Church? Did they acknowledge us as Reformers and apologize for calling us heretics for hundreds of years? But, I also listened with the ears of a Canadian Settler who is now repenting of the wrongs our ancestors committed towards the Indigenous peoples of this land. Do our words of apology acknowledge the wrongs that were committed and articulate our intentions to live together in better ways? Do they contribute toward the healing of memories by correctly naming the dark truths that blot our shared history?
The experience of reconciliation that moved me most deeply may have something to teach us. It was on the day after the highly celebrated Commemorative service in the Zurich Cathedral. Our group drove into the mountains to the village of Baeretsvil so we could hike up to a cave in which early Anabaptists worshiped and hid. The women of the local Catholic and Swiss Reformed Churches welcomed us, provided us with walking sticks and other traveling comforts. One walked up with us. Halfway up the somewhat strenuous climb, a floral arrangement greeted us from its place on a picnic table where a few of us stopped to rest. As we trudged on and approached the cave, a second, larger floral arrangement welcomed us into the cave. Once in the cave, we engaged in a time of reflection and song. Our guide listened respectfully, and then asked for permission to speak. In simplicity and with sincerity, she told us how sorry she was about the way her ancestors had treated our ancestors. She hoped that today’s welcome, the flowers, and the refreshments of fresh fruits and Swiss chocolate that awaited us on our descent could be good markers of reconciliation and help to support a good new direction. (They did this for each of the many Anabaptist tour groups that came through! That day we were one of three groups.)
And indeed, they did. Those simple, concrete words and actions of reconciliation live on in me. May they help me take good supportive steps and speak good words of reconciliation toward and about my Indigenous neighbours.
Elsie Rempel
July, 2025