1690s Scandal in the Danzig Flemish Church: A Mennonite Artist

A very public congregational dispute between artist Enoch Seemann and Flemish Elder Georg Hansen in Danzig in the 1690s set new limits for Mennonite cultural participation and cemented the central role of the elder.

Renowned Canadian novelist Rudy Wiebe has put the story into a beautiful historical narrative in Sweeter than all the World, based largely on Harry Loewen’s historical tale of Seemann in Cities of Refuge. More recently we have a full text reconstruction of the key lost pamphlet and replies, by Hans Rudolf Lavater. Here is the gist of the story.

Seemann was born in the Hansa city of Elbing (Poland) to a Mennonite minister and artist—a reminder of the sophisticated urban culture that some refugees brought east. Seemann travelled abroad and apprenticed in Holland, then settled in Danzig where he also married. As an accomplished portrait painter, he was disciplined by Elder Hansen and the congregation in 1697 for painting “graven images” and was barred from communion, footwashing, and membership meetings (note 1).

This was an odd case, for Menno Simons too sat for portraits, Seemann argues, and all Mennonites were familiar with the gripping human scenes in the Martyrs Mirror, as well as the elaborate ceiling art in the Red Chamber of Danzig City Hall and paintings in its Treasury created by Flemish Mennonite artist Isaac von den Blocke.

Yet in obedience to the church, Seemann cut up two of his portraits before three congregational representatives and was then accepted back into the congregation. When minister shop-owners however did not destroy their painted signboards, Seemann felt free to return to his art which the congregation saw as deceit. An additional conflict arose when Hansen said the congregation could not permit Seemann to look at human figures, especially “exposed females” which he did “without shame” (note 2).

Hansen’s teaching on the “new creation” or the Christian life sought to warn against the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—all rooted in the power of sin (note 3). Seemann’s portraits were consistent with the best of seventeenth-century Dutch portraiture painting (Mennonite congregations in Holland were well represented in the “Dutch Golden Age” of painting; note 4). But unlike von den Blocke’s work, Seemann’s art was without an obvious moralistic narrative, e.g., of choosing between the “narrow and broad way” (note 5).

At a second church “brotherhood meeting” Seemann was placed under the ban and no longer referred to as “brother” by church members, but only “friend;” even his wife was not to share table or bed with him. In defiance, Seemann published a “well-intended brotherly admonition and faithful warning made public for all by a lover of the truth” with the title: “The Revelation and Punishment of Georg Hansen’s Folly” (note 6). This is likely the first Mennonite pamphlet (1697) published in Danzig and Poland, and in it Seemann attempted to “admonish” believers and also to expose the Flemish elder’s ignorance and maze of deceit, as well as to shame him into reconsideration. Hansen’s charge of making “graven images” was not only a poor reading of scripture, but superstitious and inconsistent, guided neither by divine nor worldly justice, according to Seemann. He argued that the elder reigned over others by his affects alone, even breaking up marriages—a civil matter—with the ban, which Seemann leveraged to bring before city council (note 7).

Hansen, while a cobbler, was the most theologically literate and eloquent Mennonite apologist in Danzig since Dirk Philips. Hansen judged the art of portraiture painting as “impudent,” “frivolous,” and vain (note 8), but what he really could not tolerate was Seemann’s free-spirited eccentricity as an artist and lack of respect and honour towards the congregation and its leaders.

This very public conflict gives profile to the struggles of the Flemish church in Danzig and Poland with early modernity. Are God-created human beings primarily “individuals” responsible to fulfill their unique spiritual and intellectual potentiality, or called primarily to obey God and to test and live this out in mutual submission to the Christian community? What are the limits to the authority of leaders in a believers’ church? Hansen often spoke of these “last evil times” when “many live as enemies of the cross of Christ, and their destiny is damnation (Philippians 3:17f.; note 9). That so few have not “defiled themselves” (note 10) is sign for the faithful that they are living in “the last days” (note 11). The Seemann case offers a vivid account of the excesses of congregational discipline that had burdened Mennonites now for a century in an attempt to preserve a pure and spotless church.

–Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Note 1: Cf. the Second Commandment: Exodus 20:4, with Deut. 4: 16-19 and other texts. Cf. Rudy Wiebe, Sweeter than all the World (Toronto: Jackpine House, 2001), 111–136. Harry Loewen, Cities of Refuge: Stories from Anabaptist-Mennonite History and Life (Kitchener, ON: Pandora, 2010), 79-85. The key document is Rudolf Lavater exhaustive reconstruction of documents and the story: “Der Danziger Maler Enoch I Seemann, die Danziger Mennoniten und die Kunst,” Mennonitica Helvetica 36 (2013): 11–97.

Note 2: Lavater, “Danziger Maler Enoch I Seemann,” 27, 31, 42f., 46, 91f., 111.

Note 3: Cf. summary of Hansen’s Spiegel des Levens in Harvey Plett, “Georg Hansen and the Danzig Flemish Mennonite Church: A Study in Continuity” (PhD dissertation, University of Manitoba, 1991), 318f., https://mspace.lib.umanitoba.ca/xmlui/handle/1993/7218. Hansen’s Confession oder Kurtze und einfältige Glaubens-Bekänetenüsse derer Mennonisten in Preußen, so man nennet die Clarichen (1678; http://pbc.gda.pl/dlibra/docmetadata?from=rss&id=35959) and appended examination is in line with Peter Twisck’s confession (in von Braght, Martyrs Mirror, 373–410); Twisck speaks of humanity after the fall as “corrupted” and “inclined to sin,” but affirms freedom of the will by God’s grace after the Fall. This larger message is arguably present in von Blocke’s works in Danzig City Hall; cf. Rainer Kobe, “Isaac von den Blocke, Painter and Mennonite at Gdańsk,” in European Mennonites and the Challenge of Modernity over Five Centuries. Contributors, Detractors, and Adaptors, edited by Mark Jantzen et al. (North Newton, KS: Bethel College, 2016).

Note 4: Cf. for example Robert W. Regier, “The Anabaptists and Art: The Dutch Golden Age of Painting,” Mennonite Life 23, no. 1 (January 1968) 16–21, https://mla.bethelks.edu/mennonitelife/pre2000/1968jan.pdf; Hendrick Meihuizen, “Dutch Painters in the Time of Vondel and Rembrandt,” in A Legacy of Faith: The Heritage of Menno Simons, edited by Cornelius J. Dyck, 119–135 (Newton, KS: Faith and Life, 1962), https://archive.org/details/legacyoffaithher00unse. See “The Dutch Golden Age: Mennonite to the Core” by Lauren Friesen, lecture at Kauffman Museum at Bethel College, October 2021, https://youtu.be/a38xkoTYZng.

Note 5: The name of von Blocke’s painting in the Protestant St. Catherine Church in Danzig.

Note 6: Lavater, “Danziger Maler Enoch I Seemann,” esp. 80, 89, 91, 92, 93.

Note 7: Lavater, “Danziger Maler Enoch I Seemann,” 43, 45, 94. For a contemporary English perspective on life in Danzig—including its forms of civil punishment, feasting, food, entertainment, recreation and church life—cf. Travels, Travels of Peter Mundy, vol. 4: Travels in Europe, 1639–1647, edited by Richard C. Temple (London: Hakluyt Society, 1925), 167–193, https://archive.org/details/travelspetermun00mundgoog/page/n8/mode/2up.

Note 8: Lavater, “Danziger Maler Enoch I Seemann,” 32, 37, 71, 145. Hansen uses Luther’s translation of Acts 19:19, in which those who practiced “fürwitzige” (frivolous) arts brought their scrolls to be publicly burnt. The Greek original refers to magical arts, as found in most translations.

Note 9: Hansen, Glaubens-Bericht, 73.

Note 10: Hansen, Glaubens-Bericht, 74.

Note 11: Hansen, Glaubens-Bericht, 78.

Comments

Swiss and Palatinate Connections

Sometime after 1850 Andreas Plennert and his family immigrated to South Russia from the Culm Region of West Prussia. Though there was at least one Mennonite “Plehnert” who had already immigrated to Russia in 1793, it is not a very common Prussian-Russian Mennonite name. As such, however, it is easier to trace than many and offers a minority narrative and identity within the longer and broader Russian Mennonite story. The account below is adapted largely from information in Horst Penner, Die ost- und westpreußischen Mennoniten , vol. 1, though I have expanded upon his work to offer a slightly different narrative. In 1724 there was a group of Mennonites forced out of the Memel region in East Prussia for political and religious reasons and were given assistance to resettle back to West Prussia in areas populated by Mennonites. Among the 23 households that went to the Stuhm region there is one Plenert listed, namely Christian Plenert. We know that Mennonites entered the Memel region ...

Catherine the Great’s 1763 Manifesto

“We must swarm our vast wastelands with people. I do not think that in order to achieve this it would be useful to compel our non-Christians to accept our faith--polygamy for example, is even more useful for the multiplication of the population. … "Russia does not have enough inhabitants, …but still possesses a large expanse of land, which is neither inhabited nor cultivated. … The fields that could nourish the whole nation, barely feeds one family..." – Catherine II (Note 1 ) “We perceive, among other things, that a considerable number of regions are still uncultivated which could easily and advantageously be made available for productive use of population and settlement. Most of the lands hold hidden in their depth an inexhaustible wealth of all kinds of precious ores and metals, and because they are well provided with forests, rivers and lakes, and located close to the sea for purpose of trade, they are also most convenient for the development and growth of many kinds ...

Quiet in the Land: Peter Fast, 1932-2010

My father Peter Fast passed away in January 2010. The years have given me many opportunities to reflect on his life and impact. He was a gentle and good person--and could work like horse. He was born into poverty in 1932 in Paraguay. His parents were pioneers, first in Fernheim and then (1937) in Friesland. He liked to tell me that he ate manioc root for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I was never sure if that was true, and it didn’t help to convince me to eat things I didn’t like. His mother died when he was fourteen; the basic medical aid she needed was out of reach. His new step-mother was a complex person who made life difficult for him and others. Dad only finished the 6th grade in Friesland. He was more than happy to get off the school bench and onto a horse. I don’t think I ever saw him write a complete sentence in my life, whether in English or in German. He had no interest in history, let alone reading—though over time he read the local city paper. Nothing I’ve written on...

Jews and Mennonites Together in Danzig's Suburbs

There has been very little reflection on the relationship of Jews and Mennonites in the suburb of Schottland (or Alt-Schottland or Stare Szkoty) where Mennonites first settled in the mid-1500s. Here Mennonites and Jews lived in the small community together for two centuries, quite literally on the margins outside the gates of the city of Danzig. Many historic maps that include Alt Schottland have become available in recent years ( note 1; pic ). H.G. Mannhardt’s book on the Danzig Mennonite church community plus some archival membership lists are our best sources for the Mennonite experience, while illustrations from the day bring many of those episodes of prosperity, repressions, war, plague, emigration, flooding etc. in an urban environment to life ( note 2 ). Peter J. Klassen’s writings on Mennonites in Poland and Prussia also present newer research on Mennonite life in and around Danzig in helpful ways ( note 3 ). There is one small sentence in Klassen’s larger volume that sugg...

Mennonite-Designed Mosque on the Molotschna

The “Peter J. Braun Archive" is a mammoth 78 reel microfilm collection of Russian Mennonite materials from 1803 to 1920 -- and largely still untapped by researchers ( note 1 ). In the files of Philipp Wiebe, son-in-law and heir to Johann Cornies, is a blueprint for a mosque ( pic ) as well as another file entitled “Akkerman Mosque Construction Accounts, 1850-1859” ( note 2 ). The Molotschna Mennonites were settlers on traditional Nogai lands; their Nogai neighbours were a nomadic, Muslim Tartar group. In 1825, Cornies wrote a significant anthropological report on the Nogai at the request of the Guardianship Committee, based largely on his engagements with these neighbours on Molotschna’s southern border ( note 3 ). Building upon these experiences and relationships, in 1835 Cornies founded the Nogai agricultural colony “Akkerman” outside the southern border of the Molotschna Colony. Akkerman was a projection of Cornies’ ideal Mennonite village outlined in exacting detail, with un...

Invitation to the Russian Consulate, Danzig, January 19, 1788

B elow is one of the most important original Mennonite artifacts I have seen. It concerns January 19. The two land scouts Jacob Höppner and Johann Bartsch had returned to Danzig from Russia on November 10, 1787 with the Russian Immigration Agent, Georg von Trappe. Soon thereafter, Trappe had copies of the royal decree and agreement (Gnadenbrief) printed for distribution in the Flemish and Frisian Mennonite congregations in Danzig and other locations, dated December 29, 1787 ( see pic ; note 1 ). After the flyer was handed out to congregants in Danzig after worship on January 13, 1788, city councilors made the most bitter accusations against church elders for allowing Trappe and the Russian Consulate to do this; something similar had happened before ( note 2 ). In the flyer Trappe boasted that land scouts Höppner and Bartsch met not only with Gregory Potemkin, Catherine the Great’s vice-regent and administrator of New Russia, but also with “the Most Gracious Russian Monarch” herse...

Mennonites in Danzig's Suburbs: Maps and Illustrations

Mennonites first settled in the Danzig suburb of Schottland (lit: "Scotland"; “Stare-Szkoty”; also “Alt-Schottland”) in the mid-1500s. “Danzig” is the oldest and most important Mennonite congregation in Prussia. Menno Simons visited Schottland and Dirk Phillips was its first elder and lived here for a time. Two centuries later the number of families from the suburbs of Danzig that immigrated to Russia was not large: Stolzenberg 5, Schidlitz 3, Alt-Schottland 2, Ohra 1, Langfuhr 1, Emaus 1, Nobel 1, and Krampetz 2 ( map 1 ). However most Russian Mennonites had at least some connection to the Danzig church—whether Frisian or Flemish—if not in the 1700s, then in 1600s. Map 2 is from 1615; a larger number of Mennonites had been in Schottland at this point for more than four decades. Its buildings are not rural but look very Dutch urban/suburban in style. These were weavers, merchants and craftsmen, and since the 17th century they lived side-by-side with a larger number of Jews a...

"They are useful to the state." An almost forgotten Prussian view of Mennonites, ca. 1780s-90s

In 1787 Mennonite interest for emigration was extremely strong outside the quasi independent City of Danzig in the Prussian annexed Marienwerder and Elbing regions. Even before the land scouts Johann Bartsch and Jacob Höppner had returned from Russia later that year, so many Mennonite exit applications had flooded offices that officials wrote Berlin in August 1787 for direction ( note 1a ). Initially officials did not see a problem: because Mennonites do not provide soldiers, the cantons lose nothing by their departure, and in fact benefit from the ten-percent tax imposed on financial assets leaving the state. Ludwig von Baczko (1756-1823), Professor of History at the Artillery Academy in Königsberg, East Prussia, was the general editor of a series that included a travelogue through Prussia written by a certain Karl Ephraim Nanke. Nanke had no special love for Mennonites, but was generally balanced in his judgements and based his now almost forgotten account of Mennonites on perso...

Snapshots of Danzig Mennonites, late 1600s & early 1700s

A picture can be worth a thousand words. We do not have photographs, but we have a few colour paintings of life in and around Danzig in the late 1600s and early 1700s, as well as maps. We also have a limited number of "textual snapshots" of Mennonites at this time and place, which offer an instructive window into that foreign world. These snapshots of work, worship, health, education, community relationships, smaller repressions, and security can contribute to the creation of a larger collage of Mennonite life in Danzig and Polish Prussia. Snapshot 1 : In 1681 there were approximately 180 Mennonite families who lived in the “gardens” or villages outside Danzig, with 113 of those families within the jurisdiction of the city. At this time Mennonites were barred from owning houses within the walls of the city. Of these 113 family heads, we know: 43 were retailers of spirits, 24 merchants, 9 lacemakers, 7 dyers, 3 silk dyers, 3 pressers, 2 brokers, 2 treasurers, 2 waitresses, et...

The Politics of Map-Making: A "Mennonite Map"

Maps are political artifacts. Russia or Ukraine? A late nineteenth-century map of “German Settlements and Presence throughout History” offers a good example from the Mennonite settlements ( note 1 ). It was based on the German Colonial Atlas of Paul Langhans ( note 2 ). Langhans was the most important mapmaker and promoter of German settlements around the globe; he continued this work of “pan-Germanism” well into the Nazi era ( note 3 ). Already in the nineteenth century, more than one Russian journalist claimed that Russian Germans—including Mennonites in Russia—promoted pan-Germanism in their schools and spread hatred against Russia ( note 4 ). The consequences on the ground were harsh: Johannes H. Janzen—a geography instructor in the Mennonite high school in Ohrloff—who was known “to love the Russian people and Fatherland more than most of his contemporaries,” was placed under “serious suspicion of treason” for an instructional map ( note 5 ) he made of the Molotschna Mennoni...

History of the Russian Mennonites

Search This Blog