Mission:

The mission of the Mennonite Historians of Eastern Pennsylvania is to collect, preserve, and interpret the Anabaptist-Mennonite heritage in order to educate, inspire, and witness to the church and broader community.

About Us:

The Mennonite Heritage Center tells the story of Mennonite faith and life in eastern Pennsylvania. Its architecture, with lines modeling the simplicity of traditional Pennsylvania Mennonite meetinghouses, points toward the spiritual center of Mennonite life. The concept was that "church" was the congregation, not the building in which they "met." The building also suggests rural images of mill, barn and house, while exhibits show the movement toward a more urban society, giving contemporary expression to a deep-rooted heritage.

Begun in 1525 in Switzerland, the "Anabaptist" fellowship (a radical, nonviolent wing of the Christian Reformation) was later named for a leader, Menno Simons, from the Netherlands. In 1683, the first Mennonite couple helped to settle the village of Germantown near Philadelphia, the oldest continuing Mennonite community in the New World. The story of local Mennonites and their neighbors is introduced through an interpretive video presented in a room designed to resemble an early meetinghouse.

The Mennonite Heritage Center houses a permanent exhibit "Work and Hope," fraktur and changing exhibits, an historical library and archives, and a museum store.