union in early 1958. On April 6, 1958, the merged groups held their first united communion meeting, and by 1962 they chose to call themselves the Orthodox Mennonite Church. Division and partial reunification In 1974 the Orthodox Mennonites divided, primarily over the question of whether the wearing of beards should be enforced or not, along with other issues of disciplinary interpretation. The beard wearing group, which included Bishop Elam S. Martin, moved to Howick, Ontario, en masse beginning in 1979. They were eventually nicknamed "Gorries", but are legally referred to as Orthodox Mennonite Church, Huron County, Ontario. The original group, nicknamed "Hoovers", remained in the Waterloo Region and are legally known as Orthodox Mennonite Church, Wellesley Township, Ontario. In 1976 the Wellesley Orthodox group excommunicated their acting bishop, Anson Hoover, and Amos Sherk was advanced as acting bishop. In 1987 the majority of this group, some 70 members, went back to the David Martin Mennonites. Amos Sherk in 1986 was also excommunicated. The remaining families, with a few exceptions, then united with the Huron Orthodox group, so that the split of 1974 was largely overcome, and the majority of Orthodox Mennonites were a single group again. The original Wellesley Orthodox Mennonites have been under the leadership of their minister David E. M. Martin since 2009. Influx from other groups After 1989 the Huron Orthodox Mennonites were joined by some very conservative families from the Ontario Old Order Mennonite Conference, because their parent group decided to allow telephones in the home. This influx continued and until 2001, 37 families had made the transition to the Orthodox Mennonites. Between 1999 and 2005 the Huron Orthodox Mennonites were joined by four local groups of Old Order Mennonites, one of them coming from the Phares S. Stauffer group, a subgroup of the Stauffer Mennonites and one from the Henry Hoover group, a subgroup of the Reidenbach Mennonites. In 2009 about half of the Wellesley Orthodox, the original group of Orthodox Mennonites in the Waterloo Region in Ontario, Canada joined the Huron Orthodox Mennonites. Customs and beliefs Orthodox Mennonites advocate high moral standard and have many restrictions on technology. They live with no electricity, no telephones, and no propane gas in their homes. They do not own automobiles or computerized technologies, and farmers use work horses instead of tractors. They dress very plain, with or without beards and no neckties, and speak Pennsylvania German. Donnermeyer