Erlenbach im Simmental

Erlenbach im Simmental is a municipality in the canton of Bern, in the administrative district of Frutigen-Bas-Simmental. Its church, recorded from 1228, is Romanesque in architecture, dating to the 11th and 12th centuries. It is chiefly known for its interior decoration: wall paintings spanning the late 14th century, through the 15th, to the early 16th century, considered an exceptional painted heritage of the late Gothic period.

These paintings were covered with whitewash at the Reformation, in 1527 and 1528 — a move that paradoxically preserved them until a first restoration in 1931-32. In the early 19th century, music regained its place in Bernese Reformed churches: in 1812 the Bernese organ builder Johannes Stölli (1760-1833), based in Habstetten, built an organ for Erlenbach whose case survives to this day; the instrument was restored and rebuilt in 1966-67 by the Kuhn organ workshop.

The village is the birthplace, in 1644, of Jakob Amman, the Swiss reformer who founded the very small Anabaptist movement known as the Amish.

Why this place is remarkable

Erlenbach im Simmental owes its singularity to two legacies out of proportion for a Bernese village of its size: a church whose late-Gothic wall paintings, saved by the chance of a Reformation-era whitewashing, rank among the best-preserved painted ensembles in the region, and the 1644 birth of Jakob Amman, whose small reform movement would spread as far as the Amish communities of North America.

History and origin

Erlenbach's Romanesque church, attested from 1228, received a cycle of wall paintings between the late 14th and early 16th centuries. The Bernese Reformation of 1527-28 had them covered with whitewash, which protected them until they were uncovered during a restoration in 1931-32. Jakob Amman, born in the village in 1644, grew up there before founding the Anabaptist Amish movement.