The Amish (Old Order)

Denomination·Founded 1693 CE·est. 410,955 in North America as of June 2025 — adults and children — in 3,114 church districts and 684 settlements across 32 states and three Canadian provinces. Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies, Elizabethtown College. The population has roughly doubled since 2000 and doubles about every twenty years.

Judaism → Christianity → Catholicism → Protestantism → Anabaptism → The Amish (Old Order)

Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies, Elizabethtown CollegeThe recordMennonite Abuse Prevention

Branch
Overview Belief 3How to Live 1Practice 1Stories & Scripture 1Community 1 You × The Amish (Old Order) Discussion

Stories

the narratives it tells itself
Dirk Willems turns back across the ice. Escaping Asperen prison in 1569 across a frozen pond, Willems heard his pursuer fall through behind him, went back and pulled him out. The man arrested him anyway. He was burned at Asperen on 16 May 1569, and the woodcut of him reaching down through the ice is the single most reproduced image in Anabaptism. Read it in full — context & 1 source →

The Scriptures

the texts that carry the stories — and everything else

The Luther Bible

The Dordrecht Confession of Faith (1632)

The Ausbund

Martyrs Mirror (1660)

Numbers count Panfaith activity only — never real-world adherence.

Built on Hatchable