
Mennonites in Birkenhof, Ruederbach, France, to inaugurate new church
Four hundred people are expected on Sunday 28 April at Birkenhof, a hamlet in Ruederbach, for a festive meal marking the inauguration of a new church built by the local Mennonite community.
The Mennonite community has farmed the plateau between Ruederbach and Feldbach for more than a century, and its presence there predates that by a long stretch. Land was leased to Anabaptists from the early eighteenth century, and they became owners a few decades after the Revolution. Birkenhof has a Mennonite cemetery on the edge of a forest whose origin dates to 1860, a site that links the community’s present to its past (Psalm 78:4).
Before a church building existed, the community met in several large farms in the surrounding area, including Rehhof, Blochmont, Neuneich, Lucelle and places on the side of Delle. The community later bought a small Alsatian house and rebuilt it at Birkenhof in 1846, according to the report.
The first church building at Birkenhof dates to 1958. The available text does not give further details about the new church’s design, construction or cost.
Source: Read the original report (translated from French)
Kingdom News Location
Birkenhof, Ruederbach, Altkirch, Haut-Rhin, European Collectivity of Alsace, Great East, Metropolitan France, 68560, France
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