The Bruderhof Communities (German: place of brothers) are Christian faith-based communities with branches in New York and Pennsylvania in the USA, Great Britain, Germany, and Australia. They have previously been called The Society of Brothers and The Hutterian Brethren.
They were founded in Germany in 1920 by Eberhard Arnold. He was a religious seeker for several years. Then in 1920 he rented a farm at Sannerz, Germany and founded a religious community with seven adults. When the group outgrew the farm at Sannerz, they moved to the nearby Rhön Mountains. While there, Arnold discovered that the Hutterites (a body he had studied with great interest) were still in existence in North America. In 1930 he traveled to meet the Hutterites and was ordained as a Hutterian minister. Nevertheless, acceptance of the Bruderhof was not consistent among the various branches of Hutterites in North America.
Due the rise of Adolf Hitler and Nazism, the Rhön community moved its draft-age men and others to Liechtenstein around 1934. This community became known as the Alm Bruderhof. Continuing fears caused others to move to England and found the Cotswold Bruderhof in 1936. By 1938, all the Bruderhofs had left Germany for England. While in England, the population grew to about 300 members. When England entered World War II, the Bruderhof moved to Paraguay and established their colony there, and grew to about 700 members by the early 1950s. The Forest River colony of Schmiedeleut Hutterites in North Dakota invited the Bruderhof to join them, and about 36 members moved to North Dakota. In 1955, the Schmiedeleut group excluded the Bruderhof and placed the Forest River colony under probation.
In 1954, the Paraguayan Bruderhof moved to the United States and settled near Rifton, New York. In 1973, the Bruderhof leadership apologized for the problems among the Forest River colony and in 1974 was re-admitted to the Schmiedeleut group on a probationary basis. However, in 1990 the Dariusleut and Lehrerleut Hutterites excommunicated the Bruderhof, refusing to recognize them as Hutterites because of practices that did not conform to standard Hutterite order. For ten charges by the Hutterites against the Bruderhof, see Peregrine Archives.
In spite of controversies and divisions, the Bruderhof communities have continued to grow, and presently consist of communities in the United States, England, Germany and Australia. Membership is more than 2500. Like the Hutterites, the Bruderhof does not hold private property, but rather share everything in common.
They get involved with various peace and justice issues and have agitated for the release of Mumia Abu Jamal. They live communally.
In the film Road Scholar (1993) Andrei Cordrescu of NPR fame visited a Bruderhof Community.
The Peregrine Foundation was founded by ex members of the Bruderhof, which it accuses of being a totalitarian sect.
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