Skip to main content

Russia: A Refuge for all True Christians Living in the Last Days

If only it were so. It was not only a fringe group of Russian Mennonites who believed that they were living the Last Days. This view was widely shared--though rejected by the minority conservative Kleine Gemeinde.

In 1820 upon the recommendation of Rudnerweide (Frisian) Elder Franz Görz, the progressive and influential Mennonite leader Johann Cornies asked the Mennonite Tobias Voth (b. 1791) of Graudenz, Prussia to come and lead his Agricultural Association’s private high school in Ohrloff, in the Russian Mennonite colony of Molotschna.

Voth understood this as nothing less than a divine call upon his life (note 1; pic 3). In Ohrloff Voth grew not only a secondary school, but also a community lending library, book clubs, as well as mission prayer meetings, and Bible study evenings. Voth was the son of a Mennonite minister and his wife was raised Lutheran (note 2).

For some years, Voth had been strongly influenced by the warm, Pietist devotional fiction writings of Johann Heinrich Jung-Stilling. Jung-Stilling considered Napoleon’s defeat in Russia and eventual collapse as the overthrow of the First Horseman of the Apocalypse (Revelation 6), and as such a heavenly indictment of the Enlightenment’s philosophical claim to establish the new age by reason alone (note 3; sample pic 4).

Tsar Alexander I and many in his circle were also influenced by German Pietists. In 1814, the Tsar and Jung-Stilling met in Württemberg—the home state of the Alexander’s mother, and where his sister was also queen. Jung-Stilling had become convinced that Russia was predestined to oppose the antichrist and inaugurate a millennial kingdom and the rebirth of Christianity. “Praise the Lord, who has made the greatest monarch of the world and especially of Christendom into a great instrument for the preparations of his Kingdom” (note 4).

Jung-Stilling promoted the idea that Western Europe was the future kingdom of the antichrist, and that Russia was the great sheltering, protecting eagle foretold in scripture; in Russia “the fleeing ‘wise virgins’ were to be ‘kept secure from the great tribulation’” (note 5).

Already in his popular allegorical novel Heimweh (“Longing for Home”), Jung-Stilling's protagonist Prince Eugenius gathers the faithful and leads them to “Solyma” a distant land of peace that would become a refuge for all true Christians at the end of time (note 6).

Jung-Stilling’s fiction became seen by many as prophetic, and the novel served to launch the migration of radical German Pietists to South Russia for decades, particularly those from Württemberg who hoped to escape the persecution of the antichrist.

Of special note for Voth and other Mennonite readers was that Heimweh’s Prince Eugenius—an Abrahamic figure—meets and marries a spiritually insightful “noble beauty” from a “Swiss Mennonite family,” his biblical “Sarah” (note 7).

Elder Görz, like his friend Tobias Voth, shared the conviction that history was capable of unanticipated leaps forward toward a final consummation in the Last Days—perhaps in their lifetime.

The next generation’s most influential Russian Mennonite preacher, Bernhard Harder of Halbstadt, was also strongly influenced by the millennialist writings of Jung-Stilling and believed that the mid-century chaos of European revolutions was yet again a sign of the rise of the antichrist.

Harder was as convinced as Voth and Görz that the Russian monarch was a divinely ordained bulwark against the “pestilence,” and “vain and sinister schemes of democrats” and “servants of Satan” (note 8).

While Mennonites did not fit easily or fully into the mold of German Pietists, they were at least “distant cousins.”

We do not fully understand the Mennonite devotion to Tsar and state in the nineteenth century, or the self-understanding and mission of our “non-resistant” ancestors in Russia, without considering Jung-Stilling and the hopes, fears and expectations of the era that he helped to shape.

But … what about the Kleine Gemeinde?

Klaas Reimer of the Kleine Gemeinde was greatly troubled by a discussion with tne Rudnerweide elder: “We quickly came around to the [oncoming] ‘thousand-year reign [of Christ]’ and how at that time the spears would be made into scythes and the swords into plowshares and that this millennium would soon be instituted” (note 10).

Prussian Mennonites had sent multiple copies of a booklet by Swabian Pietist Johann J. Friederich on “the faith and hope of the people of God living in the era of the antichrist” to the Ohrloff Church, which alarmed Reimer.

Friederich sought to show that End Times persecution by the antichrist had begun in 1800, which—according to his reading of scripture—would precede the imminent arrival of the Thousand Year Reign (note 11).

Reimer emphasized that such matters were of no concern to Menno in his Foundations book, nor were they consistent with the popular biblical history read by Mennonites over generations, The Wandering Soul (note 12).

While this seems to be a correct reading of the tradition, “the sixteenth century was, like the present, a time of feverish preoccupation with the approaching End of all things,” writes Reformation scholar Walter Klaassen (note 13). Anabaptists in the Low Countries under the influence of Menno taught a penitent life in patient, peaceful endurance until the Great Judgement. Though they had abandoned broader diabolical conspiracies and violent apocalyptic fantasies since the Münster fiasco, these Mennonites had their own form of discipline to keep the devil in check, namely through excommunication and avoidance of those under the ban, and in this way uphold the purity of the church in anticipation of the salvation of the Lord (note 14). That is an important strand of the Anabaptist-Mennonite tradition.

Certainly the majority of Russian Mennonites were convinced that world time was now accelerating and bringing with it terrifying and joyful things, according to the prophetic Word. When challenged by Kleine Gemeinde founder Klaas Reimer, Elder Görz allegedly told his interlocutor: “If the apostles were alive and here today, they would teach differently than what they had taught” (note 15).

Strange? Klaassen’s reflection that that preoccupation was not unlike “the present” gives me pause to think ...

            --Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Note 1: Letter, Tobias Voth (Graudenz) to David Epp, October 22, 1821. In Peter J. Braun Russian Mennonite Archive, file 871, reel 35. From Robarts Library, University of Toronto. Pic 3.

Note 2: Voth’s autobiography is included in P. M. Friesen, Mennonite Brotherhood in Russia 1789–1910 (Winnipeg, MB: Christian, 1978), 689, https://archive.org/details/TheMennoniteBrotherhoodInRussia17891910/. See also John B. Toews, “Tobias Voth: The Gentle Schoolmaster of Orlov: A Document of 1850 [‘A word about school discipline’],” Mennonite Life 33, no. 1 (March 1978): 27-29. https://ml-archive.bethelks.edu/store/ml-archive/files/1978mar.pdf.

Note 3: A. Walicki, The Flow of Ideas: Russian Thought from the Enlightenment to the Religious-Philosophical Renaissance (New York: Peter Lang, 2014), 103, 132. Cf. For an exhaustive literature review of Jung-Stilling on the “eternal east,” Alexander I, and on Christian Russia, cf. Gerhard Schwinge, Jung-Stilling als Erbauungsschriftsteller der Erweckung: eine literatur- und frömmigkeitsgeschichtliche Untersuchung (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1994), 133–156, https://digi20.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb00046226_00001.html.

Note 4: In Gustav A. Benrath, “Glaube und Frömmigkeit bei Johann Heinrich Jung-Stilling,” in Blicke auf Jung-Stilling.Festschrift, edited by Michael Frost, 95–113 (Kreuztal: Wielandschmiede, 1991), 108. In that year, the Austro-Prussian-Russian coalition marched victoriously into Paris.

Note 5: Friesen, Mennonite Brotherhood in Russia, 570f.; 1025 fn. 350; 97.

Note 6: Jung-Stilling derived “Solyma” from Jerusalem, and the Jewish word “shalom,” which means peace.

Note 7: Cf. Johann Heinrich Jung-Stilling, Heimweh, parts 1–3, vol. 4 of Sämmtliche Werke (Stuttgart: Scheible, 1841) pt. 1, bk. 1, 67–72. https://books.google.ca/books?id=1Cf16QIVYIMC&dq=inauthor%3A%22Johann%20Heinrich%20Jung-Stilling%22&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q&f=false. Cf. also “Jung-Stilling über Menno Simons,” Mennonitischer Rundschau 20, no. 34 (August 23, 1899), 1, https://archive.org/details/sim_die-mennonitische-rundschau_1899-08-23_20_34/mode/2up?q=Stilling.

Note 8: Bernhard Harder wrote two hymns in response to the assassination; Geistliche Lieder und Gelegenheitsgedichte, vol. 1, edited by Heinrich Franz (Hamburg: A-G, 1888), https://chortitza.org/Pis/Hard1.pdf; no. 521, 568f.; and no. 533, 583. Cf. also “Mennonites in Asia,” Herold of Truth 39, no. 8 (April 15, 1902), 117, https://archive.org/details/heraldoftruth39unse/page/n59/mode/1up.

Note 10: Klaas Reimer, “Ein kleines [sic] Aufsatz or A Short Exposition: The Autobiography of Aeltester Klaas E. Reimer (1770-1837),” in Leaders of the Mennonite Kleine Gemeinde in Russia, 1812 to 1874, edited by D. Plett, 121156 (Steinbach, MB: Crossway, 1993), 134, https://www.mharchives.ca/download/1261/.

Note 11: Cf. Johann Jakob Friederich, Glaubens- und Hoffnungsblick des Volkes Gottes. Aus den göttlichen Weissagungen gezogen. On Friederich, see especially: Renate Föll, Sehnsucht nach Jerusalem. Zur Ostwanderung schwäbischer Pietisten (Tübingen: Tübinger Vereinigung für Volkskunde, 2002), https://tvv-verlag.de/pdf/foell_sehnsucht_nach_jerusalem.pdf.

Note 12: Reimer, “Ein kleines [sic] Aufsatz or A Short Exposition,” 134; Joh. P. Schabalie, Die Wandelnde Seele (Stuttgart, 1860), https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008917852; on Menno, cf. Marjan Blok, “Discipleship in Menno Simon’s Dat Fundament,” in Menno Simons: A Reappraisal, edited by Gerald R. Brunk, 105–130 (Harrisonburg, VA: Eastern Mennonite College, 1992), 122, n.50.

Note 13: Cf. Walter Klaassen, Living at the End of the Ages. Apocalyptic Expectation in the Radical Reformation (New York: University of America Press, 1992), xi; cf. also “Eschatological Themes in Early Dutch Anabaptism,” in The Dutch Dissenters: A Critical Companion to their History and Ideas, edited by Irvin B. Horst, 15–31. Leiden: Brill, 1986) 1,5-31.

Note 14: See Helmut Isaak, Menno Simons and the New Jerusalem (Kitchener, ON: Pandora, 2006), 93f.

Note 15: Reimer, “Ein kleines [sic] Aufsatz or A Short Exposition,” 136.













Print Friendly and PDF

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Turning Weapons into Waffle Irons!

Turning Weapons into Waffle Irons:  Heart-Shaped Waffles and a smooth talking General In 1874 with Mennonite immigration to North America in full swing, the Tsar sent General Eduard von Totleben to the colonies to talk the remaining Mennonites out of leaving ( note 1 ). He came with the now legendary offer of alternative service. Totleben made presentations in Mennonite churches and had many conversations in Mennonite homes. Decades later the women still recalled how fond Totleben was of Mennonite heart-shaped waffles. He complemented the women saying, “How beautiful are the hearts of Mennonites!,” and he joked about how “much Mennonites love waffles ( Waffeln ), but not weapons ( Waffen )” ( note 2 )! His visit resulted in an extensive reversal of opinion and the offer was welcomed officially by the Molotschna and Chortitza Colony ministerials. And upon leaving, the general was gifted with a poem by Bernhard Harder ( note 3 ) and a waffle iron ( note 4 ). Harder was an inf...

Sesquicentennial: Proclamation of Universal Military Service Manifesto, January 1, 1874

One-hundred-and-fifty years ago Tsar Alexander II proclaimed a new universal military service requirement into law, which—despite the promises of his predecesors—included Russia’s Mennonites. This act fundamentally changed the course of the Russian Mennonite story, and resulted in the emigration of some 17,000 Mennonites. The Russian government’s intentions in this regard were first reported in newspapers in November 1870 ( note 1 ) and later confirmed by Senator Evgenii von Hahn, former President of the Guardianship Committee ( note 2 ). Some Russian Mennonite leaders were soon corresponding with American counterparts on the possibility of mass migration ( note 3 ). Despite painful internal differences in the Mennonite community, between 1871 and Fall 1873 they put up a united front with five joint delegations to St. Petersburg and Yalta to petition for a Mennonite exemption. While the delegations were well received and some options could be discussed with ministers of the Crown, ...

What is the Church to Say? Letter 4 (of 4) to American Mennonite Friends

Irony is used in this post to provoke and invite critical thought; the historical research on the Mennonite experience is accurate and carefully considered. ~ANF Preparing for your next AGM: Mennonite Congregations and Deportations Many U.S. Mennonite pastors voted for Donald Trump, whose signature promise was an immediate start to “the largest deportation operation in American history.” Confirmed this week, President Trump will declare a national emergency and deploy military assets to carry this out. The timing is ideal; in January many Mennonite congregations have their Annual General Meeting (AGM) with opportunity to review and update the bylaws of their constitution. Need help? We have related examples from our tradition, which I offer as a template, together with a few red flags. First, your congregational by-laws.  It is unlikely you have undocumented immigrants in your congregation, but you should flag this. Model: Gustav Reimer, a deacon and notary public from the ...

Fraktur (or Gothic) font and Kurrent- (or Sütterlin) handwriting: Nazi ban, 1941

In the middle of the war on January 1, 1942, the Winnipeg-based Mennonitische Rundschau published a new issue without the familiar Fraktur script masthead ( note 1 ). One might speculate on the reasons, but a year earlier Hitler banned the use of the font in the Reich . The Rundschau did not exactly follow all orders from Berlin—the rest of the paper was in Fraktur (sometimes referred to as "Gothic"); when the war ended in 1945, the Rundschau reintroduced the Fraktur font for its masthead. It wasn’t until the 1960s that an issue might have a page or title here or there with the “normal” or Latin font, even though post-war Germany was no longer using Fraktur . By 1973 only the Rundschau masthead is left in Fraktur , and that is only removed in December 1992. Attached is a copy of Nazi Party Secretary Martin Bormann's official letter dated January 3, 1941, which prohibited the use of Fraktur fonts "by order of the Führer. " Why? It was a Jewish invention, apparent...

Village Reports Commando Dr. Stumpp, 1942: List and Links

Each of the "Commando Dr. Stumpp" village reports written during German occupation of Ukraine 1942 contains a mountain of demographic data, names, dates, occupations, numbers of untimely deaths (revolution, famines, abductions), narratives of life in the 1930s, of repression and liberation, maps, and much more. The reports are critical for telling the story of Mennonites in the Soviet Union before 1942, albeit written with the dynamics of Nazi German rule at play. Reports for some 56 (predominantly) Mennonite villages from the historic Mennonite settlement areas of Chortitza, Sagradovka, Baratow, Schlachtin, Milorodovka, and Borosenko have survived. Unfortunately no village reports from the Molotschna area (known under occupation as “Halbstadt”) have been found. Dr. Karl Stumpp, a prolific chronicler of “Germans abroad,” became well-known to German Mennonites (Prof. Benjamin Unruh/ Dr. Walter Quiring) before the war as the director of the Research Center for Russian Germans...

"A Small Town near Auschwitz” – Chortitza Mennonite Refugee/ Resettlement Camps

Simple proximity to a place of horrors does not equal knowledge or complicity. Many Gnadenfeld-area Mennonite refugees were, for example, temporarily housed 20 km. away from the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp where 15-year-old Anne Frank died ultimately of typhus ( note 1 ). The day after liberation by British troops on April 15, 1945, camp survivors began to flow through neighbouring villages. “What a sight they were! They had been tortured and starved, and were swollen from lack of food. … We could hardly believe that the glorious country of Germany could commit such crimes against people,” Susanna Toews wrote ( note 2 ). My mother was only seven, but she remembers overhearing shocking descriptions given by their host family’s teenaged girls forced by the British to clean some of the camp buses. What about the much larger death camp at Auschwitz? There is a book entitled: A Small Town near Auschwitz: Ordinary Nazis and the Holocaust. It is about an administrator living near the ...

1921: Formation of the “Union of Citizens of Dutch Lineage in Ukraine”

Famine was imminent; unprecedented drought; taxes and requisitions exceeded what was harvested; some villages had no horses; extortion and arrests were widespread; many men were disenfranchised and barred from village affairs (see note 1 ). Lenin responded with the 1921 “New Economic Policy” (NEP), which allowed for a degree of market flexibility within the context of socialism to ward off complete economic collapse. A fixed-tax was imposed, grain quotas were eased, farmers were allowed a small amount of land and could sell excess produce at free-market prices after taxes had been paid. Much was in the air. In secret talks, Soviet Trade Commissar Leonid Krasin told the head of the Eastern Section in the German Foreign Office, Gustav Behrendt, that the USSR was “prepared—just like Catherine the Great of old—to call hundreds of thousands of German colonists into the land and transfer them to large, closed complexes for settlement,” especially in Turkestan and the North Caucasus, be...

1920s: Those who left and those who stayed behind

The picture below is my grandmother's family in 1928. Some could leave but most stayed behind. In 1928 a small group of some 511 Soviet Mennonites were unexpectedly approved for emigration ( note 1 ). None of the circa 21,000 Mennonites who emigrated from Russia in the 1920s “simply” left. And for everyone who left, at least three more hoped to leave but couldn’t. It is a complex story. Canada only wanted a certain type—young healthy farmers—and not all were transparent about their skills and intentions The Soviet Union wanted to rid itself of a specifically-defined “excess,” and Mennonite leadership knew how to leverage that Estate owners, and Selbstschutz /White Army militia were the first to be helped to leave, because they were deemed as most threatened community members; What role did money play? Thousands paid cash for their tickets; Who made the final decision on group lists, and for which regions? This was not transparent. Exit visa applications were also regularly reje...

Molotschna Elder Heinrich Dirks and tensions with Mennonite Brethren

Russian Mennonites were not always kind to each other—and nowhere is this seen better than in the tensions between “old” Mennonites and the “separatist” Mennonite Brethren, who had their beginnings in Gnadenfeld, Molotschna in 1860. Heinrich Dirks (1842-1915) was the first Russian Mennonite overseas missionary and later long-time Gnadenfeld, Molotschna ( note 1 ). Everything about Dirks’ life suggests that he would have joined the Brethren in 1860. He too was influenced by the "powerful and gripping” conversionist ministry of Eduard Wüst in his youth. Dirks was a young adult in the Gnadenfeld congregation in South Russia where the Mennonite Brethren /separatist movement began. Shortly thereafter, he was trained in the German pietist Barmen Mission School (1863-67), and famously travelled to Sumatra (Indonesia) where he started a mission outpost and school. The Mennonite Brethren too would later connect the global mission imperative with the impending return of Christ as did Dirk...

When Mennonite Agencies withdraw support from star player: Benjamin Unruh, 1938

In 1938 Mennonite Central Committee took the decision to significantly reduce their support of Benjamin Unruh’s work in Germany as of August 1, and Dutch Mennonites announced the same effective January 1, 1939. What to do? Ask the Nazi Party and government agencies to make up the difference ( note 1 )! On December 3, 1938, Unruh made the following pitch: “Germany generously and magnanimously helped our [Mennonite] organizations, on my intercession, to overcome the manifold difficulties connected with such a large movement of people [beginning 1923] in such critical times. ... The fact that finally all Mennonite synodal and national associations formally appointed me as their representative in the field of Russian-German welfare (Fürsorge), had its deeper reason especially in the success of my activity in Germany. … You see that I stand in the center of the global Mennonite [relief] work. However, I have always done this as a German man and not only as a representative of my denominat...