Member of the Hutterite Brethren, an Anabaptist sect that takes its name from its Austrian founder, Jakob Hutter, who was burned as a heretic in 1536.
His followers modeled themselves on the early church in Jerusalem by holding their goods in common. Persecuted in Moravia and the Tirol, they moved eastward to Hungary and the Ukraine. In the 1870s many emigrated to the U.S. and settled in South Dakota. The society still exists in the western U.S. and Canada, where it has colonies of 60–150 members, who operate collective farms. Hutterites are pacifists who take no part in politics and remain separate from outside society.