Brotherhood Church

The Brotherhood Church is a Christian anarchist and pacifist community. An intentional community with Quaker origins has been located at Stapleton, near Pontefract, Yorkshire, since 1921.

The church can be traced back to 1887 when a Congregationalist minister called John Bruce Wallace started a magazine called "The Brotherhood" in Limavady, Northern Ireland. Wallace was influenced by the views of Henry George and Edward Bellamy. In 1891 Wallace moved to London and took over a derelict church in Southgate Road, Hackney, naming it "The Brotherhood Church." The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party used the building in 1907 for their 5th Congress.

Subsequent communities were established by a Tolstoyan named John Coleman Kenworthy in Croydon, Surrey in 1894 and Purleigh, Essex in 1896. Residents at Croydon and Purleigh included Aylmer and Louise Maude and Vladimir Chertkov. However both these communities ceased shortly after they were established, as Kenworthy fell out with Chertkov and argued with Aylmer Maude over the English translation of Tolstoy's works. Based on a letter from Tolstoy, Kenworthy was under the impression that he had exclusive rights over some of Tolstoy's texts. Aylmer Maude, on the other hand, believed the reason for the failure of the colony was due to Kenworthy's autocratic and irresponsible behaviour.

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