Jacob Rupp

Jacob Rupp (ca. 1801-1875) - Amish Minster 

Jacob Rupp was involved in a division in Fulton County Ohio(Ashtabula area). He was a minister in the Amish congregation which had been organized there in 1835. He and others in the congregation came under the influence of “evangelical” ministers who were preaching a message of regeneration and the new birth in the schoolhouses of the community. These were ministers from the Apostolic Christian congregation that had organized in Fulton County in 1855. Rupp accepted these points of emphasis and attempted to translate them into the Fulton County Amish congregation. There were personality clashes, particularly between Jacob Rupp and Peter Nafziger (1809-1877), the bishop of the congregation, who was convinced that “the new birth was a worldly teaching.” The church had a charge against Rupp, but he would not make a confession. One Sunday after meeting Rupp stood up and said, “Next Sunday there is to be church at my house. Those can come who want to and those stay away who want to.” He was then expelled from the Amish church and placed under the ban.

Rupp and the others did not join the AC church, due to a variety of issues, including the formality of the church, which at the same time seemed to Rupp to be too lax in such matters as bundling.

Locally known as the “Rupp church,” this group followed Henry Egly (1824-1890) in 1866 in forming what became the Evangelical Mennonite Church, and divided into the Fellowship of Evangelical Churches, and Missionary Church USA.

Source

- Proceedings of the Amish ministers' meetings, 1862-1878