Melchior Rink

Who was Melchior Rink?

Melchior Rink was a central-German Anabaptist leader during the sixteenth-century. He participated in the German Peasants' War of 1525, and was accused by Lutherans of being an instigator of the war, propagating rebaptism, teaching that there should be no civil authority, and encouraging communities to dismiss their magistrates. Rink resented these accusations. According to his own followers he preached non-resistance to the persecutions the Anabaptists faced, and that he asked his follows to obey magistrates so long as they did not demand action against God's law.