Collegiants

thumb|'Grote Huis', Rijnsburg, baptism, ca. 1735 (Balthasar Bernards, after Louis Fabricius Dubourg, 1736) In Christian history, the Collegiants (; ), also called Collegians, were an association, founded in 1619 among the Arminians and Anabaptists in Holland. They were so called because of their colleges (meetings) held the first Sunday of each month, at which everyone had the same liberty of expounding the scripture and praying.

==History== Collegiants were an association, founded in 1619 among the Arminians and Anabaptists in Holland. The practice originated in 1619 when, after the Synod of Dort forced the States of Holland to dismiss clerics for encouraging refuge to individuals being persecuted for religious beliefs, three brothers of Warmond by the name of van der Kodde (or Codde)—Gijsbert, Jan Jacobsz, and Adriaen—decided to hold religious services of their own. The sect began as a refuge from the bitterness of the Calvinist and Arminian controversies of the day. Their name is derived from the custom they had of calling their communities "Colleges", as did Spener and the Pietists of Germany.