Published 9/5/2025

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Anabaptist women chose faith over life, facing drowning for baptism convictions. In 1525, Anabaptist women faced execution for refusing infant baptism and clinging to believer’s baptism. Their deaths, often by drowning as “counter-baptism,” shook both Catholic and Protestant authorities. This story illustrates the courage that shaped later faith and inspired religious liberty. This episode explores the harrowing story of Anabaptist women martyred in the 1520s–1530s. Executed by drowning for rejecting infant baptism, these women stood firm, singing and praying as they died. Their testimonies, preserved in Martyrs Mirror and hymns like the Ausbund, reveal the tension between conscience and coercion in early Reformation Europe. We trace how these stories became central to Anabaptist identity and how their legacy speaks to today’s debates about conscience, courage, and freedom of faith. Make sure you Like, Share, Subscribe, Follow, Comment, and Review this episode and the entire COACH series.

Keywords (≤200 chars)

Anabaptist martyrs, Maria of Monjou, Martyrs Mirror, believer’s baptism, 1525 Reformation, women of faith, drowning executions, religious liberty, conscience, hymns

Hashtags (≤100 chars)

#ChurchHistory #Anabaptist #Martyrs #FaithAndConscience #COACH

Description

In 1525, the Reformation took a radical turn that both Catholics and Protestants found intolerable. Men and women known as Anabaptists rejected infant baptism and insisted that baptism belonged only to those who could confess faith for themselves. What seemed like a small theological dispute quickly became a matter of life and death. To refuse infant baptism was not simply to reject a church ritual; it was to break from the entire social and political fabric of Europe, where church and state were bound together.

The cost was highest for those who embraced this conviction openly. Anabaptist women, often young wives and mothers, stood at the center of this controversy. For them, baptism was no longer something done to them as infants but something they chose in obedience to Christ. That choice was seen as treason against both civil authority and spiritual tradition. Drowning became a preferred method of execution for women—a grim “counter-baptism” that mocked their confession.

Yet the testimonies that survive do not describe terror or despair. They describe songs. They describe prayers. They describe women who went to the riverbanks and scaffolds singing hymns that still echo today. Maria of Monjou, executed in 1552 after years of imprisonment, became one of the most remembered of these martyrs. Her hymn, preserved in the Ausbund hymnal, declared: “Oh, joyfully I will sing, and give thanks to my Lord; He has redeemed me from death, and freed me from great distress.”

Their courage did not end with their deaths. The Martyrs Mirror gathered their stories, placing them alongside those of early Christians who faced lions and flames. Their hymns were preserved and sung for generations, long after their voices were silenced. These records remind us that genuine faith is not inherited by tradition or compelled by law. It must be confessed freely, lived boldly, and, if necessary, suffered for.

This episode of COACH tells their story—not as distant history, but as a living challenge. What does it mean to stand by faith when everything is against you? What does it mean to confess Christ when silence would be easier? The courage of these women is not simply to be admired—it is to be considered. Their witness asks us whether our own faith is convenience or conviction, custom or confession.

Make sure you Like, Share, Subscribe, Follow, Comment, and Review this episode and the entire COACH series.

Script

Cold Hook

The water was calm that morning, but the town square was not. Crowds pressed forward to see the condemned. Soldiers tied a woman’s hands, yet her lips moved in prayer. To some, she was a criminal; to others, a saint. Her defiance was not in violence or rebellion, but in her refusal to let anyone else decide when she would be baptized.

The authorities thought drowning a fitting punishment—a bitter parody of her choice to enter the water by faith. They called it a “second baptism.” She called it obedience to Christ. And as the ropes tightened, her voice rose. She sang a hymn, turning her final breath into witness.

No one expected women to defy both Catholic and Protestant rulers. No one expected them to preach with their deaths. Yet in the early years of the Reformation, beginning in 1525, Anabaptist women walked into rivers and flames with a courage that startled executioners and shook the conscience of onlookers.

Their story is not just about death—it is about a conviction that no government could silence. And it begins here, in 1525, when a new kind of Christian witness stood against both sword and scaffold.

[AD BREAK]

Intro

From the That’s Jesus Channel, welcome to COACH — Church Origins and Church History. I’m Bob Baulch. On Fridays, we stay between 1500 and 2000 AD.

Today we enter 1525, the year the Anabaptist movement was born. In homes and fields, in barns and rivers, men and women stepped away from the churches of their birth to embrace baptism on confession of faith. For them, it was not simply a ritual but a declaration: faith must be personal, voluntary, and lived.

That declaration carried a price. Authorities called it heresy. City councils called it treason. Both Catholics and Protestants agreed on one thing: Anabaptists must be stopped. For women, the cost was not hypothetical. Refusing infant baptism meant losing family, losing safety, and—often—losing life.

The question is why. Why would women, often young mothers or wives, embrace a path that could end at the stake or in the river? And how did their courage echo far beyond their own generation, shaping the conscience of believers who would carry their story into song and into history?

The answer lies in how 1525 unfolded—not as an isolated moment, but as the spark of a fire that no empire could quench.

Foundation

The word “Anabaptist” may sound unfamiliar, but its meaning is simple. It comes from two parts: ana, meaning “again,” and baptist, meaning “one who baptizes.” In other words, “re-baptizers.” That was not a compliment—it was a charge. Authorities used it to label those who rejected the practice of infant baptism and chose instead to be baptized as adults, by their own confession of faith.

Think of it plainly. These were men and women who had already been baptized as babies. But as they read the New Testament, they became convinced that baptism was meant for believers who could confess faith personally. So they asked to be baptized again—not because the first baptism was forgotten, but because they believed it was never truly theirs.

In the year 1525, in Zurich, Switzerland, a group of young men and women gathered in a house. One of them, George Blaurock, stood and asked Conrad Grebel to baptize him upon his confession of Christ. Then Blaurock turned and baptized the others. With that act, the Anabaptist movement was born.

From the beginning, it set them apart. Catholics held to infant baptism as a sacrament that marked entry into the church. Protestants, though rejecting Rome in many ways, still baptized infants to preserve social and political unity. Anabaptists broke from both, declaring that faith could not be inherited, legislated, or imposed.

That break carried enormous consequences. To refuse infant baptism was to challenge family expectations, church tradition, and civil law all at once. For women who took this step, the risk was even greater—defying not just rulers, but cultural roles that demanded quiet submission.

Development

News of these baptisms spread quickly, and with it, alarm. City councils, bishops, and magistrates saw more than a religious issue—they saw a direct threat to order.

Eventually, the Catholic Church’s Council of Trent, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Ulrich Zwingli, Jacobus Arminius, and Theodore Beza all may have disagreed with each other on certain points — but every one of them agreed on this: the Anabaptist rejection of infant baptism and promotion of adult-only baptism was heresy. To them, it was more than a theological misstep. It was an assault on the church, a threat to the family, and a danger to the stability of the state. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Laws moved swiftly. In 1529, the Imperial Diet at Speyer declared rebaptism a capital crime. From that moment forward, men and women who received adult baptism lived under the shadow of death.

Authorities had many punishments at their disposal: exile, torture, fire. But for women, drowning became common. The sentence was sometimes announced with a grim pun—“she wants water, let her have it.” Chroniclers later called it a “counter-baptism.” It was meant not only to kill, but to shame the faith that led them there.

And yet, the records do not describe shame. They describe singing. They tell of women who were imprisoned praying aloud as they walked to the water, defying their captors to the very end.

Instead of silencing the Anabaptists, these executions gave them a legacy. Their witness spread through story and song, carried from prison cells to hidden gatherings, from riversides to family tables. Each drowning or burning became not an end, but a beginning—a testimony that faith could outlive the flames and the flood.

Climax/Impact

The executions reached a point where the spectacle itself became impossible to ignore. Crowds gathered at riversides and market squares, not to watch hardened criminals, but to watch wives, mothers, and daughters put to death. And instead of curses or cries, what they heard were prayers and hymns.

It unsettled the executioners. Accounts describe men tasked with tying the ropes or lighting the fires who trembled at their duty. Chroniclers call them “reluctant executioners”—men who knew they were killing the devout. The officials wanted the people to see defiance crushed, but the people often saw something else: courage that no threat could erase.

To the state, these deaths were warnings. To the faithful, they were seeds. Every woman who went to the stake or scaffold left behind a testimony: faith cannot be forced, and conscience cannot be drowned.

This was the high point of tension—the empire wielding its power, the church defending its order, and women standing in the gap, refusing to bend. Their deaths did not end the movement. They defined it.

And the question pressed harder with every execution: if faith could demand this much, what might it ask of those still living?

[AD BREAK]

Legacy & Modern Relevance

Long after the rivers closed over their voices, the songs of these women kept speaking. History placed their names beside those of early Christians who faced lions or flames. Their stories became identity markers for generations of believers—reminders that true faith might cost everything, yet nothing could separate them from Christ.

Their courage also shaped ideas far beyond their own time. When later Christians wrestled with freedom of conscience, the Anabaptist martyrs stood as proof that faith must never be coerced. Their example still challenges the church to ask whether we value voluntary, genuine confession of Christ—or whether we are content to confuse faith with social custom.

One hymn in particular was preserved, capturing not fear but joy:

QUOTE “Oh, joyfully I will sing, And give thanks to my Lord; He has redeemed me from death, And freed me from great distress.

Therefore I will praise Him, And sing joyfully to Him, For He is my Lord and God, And has rescued me from death.” end quote.

Every time those words are sung, testimonies rise again. The witness of women by a riverbank continues to echo in voices of faith centuries later.

And here is the legacy that touches us today: faith was never meant to be inherited by birth certificate or enforced by law. It was meant to be confessed freely, lived boldly, and, if necessary, suffered for. Their witness leaves us asking whether we see faith as convenience—or as conviction.

Reflection & Call

Their stories refuse to stay in the past. They press into our present, asking questions we might rather avoid.

What would it take for us to hold faith when everything is against us? For the Anabaptist women, the cost was not theoretical—it was children left behind, homes confiscated, lives ended by fire or water. Yet they counted Christ worth more.

One prison hymn, sung by those who waited in chains for execution, still speaks today:

QUOTE “O Lord, I cry to Thee, Hear me in my distress; Though bonds and chains surround me, Thy word I still confess.

The world may pass away, Its beauty fade and die; But Thy truth shall remain, And lift me up on high.” end quote.

Those lines, born in darkness, shine a light straight into our hearts. We may not face a scaffold or riverbank, but we still face choices. Do we treat faith as negotiable when culture presses us to conform? Do we keep silent when speaking the name of Jesus could cost reputation, friendships, or opportunity? Or do we live as though conviction matters more than comfort?

The courage of these women is not simply to be admired—it is to be considered. Their witness was not just about baptism, but about a deeper question: Will I let Christ define me when the world demands that I bend?

And so we close with another hymn that carried the voice of martyrs across the centuries, a hymn that sets treasure in Jesus above every loss:

QUOTE “My body they may kill, Take all my earthly store; But Christ remains my treasure, His word forevermore.

Though friends may all forsake, And foes against me rise, My hope is set in Jesus, Who reigns above the skies.” end quote.

Outro

If this story of Anabaptist women martyrs challenged or encouraged you, like, comment, and share it with a friend—they might need it. Leave a review on your podcast app!

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Check the show notes for the full transcript and sources, including contrary opinions—we include those intentionally.

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You never know what we’ll cover next on COACH. Every episode explores a unique corner of church history. On Fridays, we stay between 1500 and 2000 AD.

Access these stories on YouTube at the That’s Jesus Channel. Thanks for listening to COACH – Church Origins and Church History.

I’m Bob Baulch with the That’s Jesus Channel. Be blessed.

It’s hard to record when you keep having to take a cry break—but that’s why they pay me the big bucks. Actually, zero bucks. I need a tissue.

Word Count: 146

Quotes

Z-Notes (Zero Dispute Notes)

POP (Parallel Orthodox Perspectives)

SCOP (Skeptical or Contrary Opinion Points)

Sources

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Equipment

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Credits

Social Links

Small Group Guide

Summary

This episode tells the story of Anabaptist women, beginning in 1525, who faced death by drowning or fire rather than abandon their conviction that baptism belongs to confessing believers. Their courage was preserved in songs and stories that continue to speak about faith, conscience, and the cost of conviction.

Discussion Questions

Scripture

Application

Reflect on areas where faith may cost you comfort, reputation, or relationships. Pray for courage to remain faithful when those pressures come. Share one specific step you can take this week to live your conviction openly.

Prayer Point

Pray that God would strengthen His people with boldness and joy in Christ, even when obedience is costly.