John Smyth

John Smyth was an English minister who broke with the established Church and became a leader among Separatists. Under pressure from the English authorities he and his followers moved to Amsterdam, where debates about church membership and baptism led Smyth towards believer’s baptism and into close contact with Mennonite ideas.

John Smyth was an English Separatist minister and theologian whose Amsterdam congregation became central to the emergence of the Baptist movement. John Smyth also worked as Separatist minister and Baptist theologian. John Smyth was born in Sturton le Steeple, England and died in Amsterdam, Dutch Republic.

In Karen Haden’s Naming the Dead, The novel places Baxby among the English religious exiles of Amsterdam, including historical figures Thomas Helwys, John Smyth, John Robinson and William Brewster, whose communities contributed to the later Baptist and Pilgrim traditions.