Peter Walpot 

1518 - 1578 

Famous elder of the Hutterites  

Peter Walpot was born in this house around 1518. His family enjoyed great prestige; two ancestors were mayors. At the age of about 8 he witnessed the burning of the Swiss Anabaptist pioneer Jörg Blaurock at the stake. Peter became a cloth shearer and later joined the Hutterites, who were being bloodily persecuted in Tyrol, with his wife Margaret Egger (Gredel). In 1540 they both fled to safer Moravia, where he was elected "servant of the word" (preacher) in 1542 and elder in 1565. As an extraordinary personality, he left his mark on the "golden age" of the approximately 30,000 Hutterites living together in about 100 "Haushaben” (communities). Numerous important letters, dogmatic and pedagogical writings and songs have come down to us from him. Peter developed an independent, forward-looking school system and initiated the Chronicle of the Hutterian Brethren. Crafts and agriculture were systematized. He died on 30.01.1578 in Pribitz / Moravia - today Přibice / Czech Republic.  

The Hutterites are a christian church formed in the early 16th century during the Reformation from the Anabaptist movement in Tyrol. Bloodily persecuted over and over again, they first fled to Moravia / Czech Republic. Later they had to emigrate via Slovakia, Romania and Ukraine to the USA and Canada. 2023 more than 57,000 descendants are living there on about 535 colonies run as communities of property. They still speak Huttrisch, a Tyrolean-Carinthian dialect. 

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Bible Matt. 5,5