Communion and the "white Handkerchief"

When my friends and I were baptized in the late 1970s in a bilingual, immigrant Canadian Mennonite General Conference church, most of our mothers presented us with a white handkerchief for our first experience (and observance) of communion.

Where did this tradition come from? A veneration of the bread? I chose not to use one.

In his 1723 book on the Vistula Delta, its peoples and customs, Abraham Hartwich--a generally unsympathetic observer of the Mennonites--quotes a 1701 letter he received from an official in Tiegenhoff. He describes the unique Frisian Mennonite practice (bey den groben Mannisten) of placing the communion bread in their clean handkerchief (in ihr reines Schnupfftuch) and eating with caution and respect (note 1; pic). 280 years later, this was still the practice in my home congregation.

In the period just prior immigration to Russia, the Danzig Mennonite (Flemish) church practiced communion twice a year—shortly after baptism in the spring, and then again on a Sunday in the Fall. Mannhardt’s history of the congregation does not mention a handkerchief, but notes that the bread is broken and eaten in unison (note 2). Similarly Heinrich Donner, elder in the Orlofferfelde (Frisian) Mennonite church does not make special mention of a handkerchief in his 1788 booklet on communion (note 3). White bread and a white table cloth for the communion table are usually noted.

A 1743 etching of a Mennonite communion service in Amsterdam shows women holding a hand fan in front of their mouths while eating the bread, and the men taking their hats from the hooks on the way to cover their mouths (note 3b). This suggests that it is not the bread as such that is venerated, but that the act of eating the bread is a holy and intimate act of communion.

The 1911 (Kirchliche) Ministers Manual (Russia) gives both models; Gnadenfeld has no handkerchief tradition (Frisian) but does practice footwashing before the Lord's Supper. The other older Flemish model expects that all come to the front--men first, then women--with an open handkerchief (note 4; pic). One Dutch scholar in 1915 however said it was the Frisians in Russia who practiced it (note 5).

How widespread was the "handkerchief" model? The GAMEO article by Cornelius Krahn helps only a little, and then makes a guess as to the "Catholic" origins of the practice:

"The practice of putting the bread into a cloth or handkerchief until it is eaten in unison must be old, going back to the Catholic days when the actual presence of Christ in the bread and wine was a basic belief. According to Vos (De avondmaalsbediening . . .) this practice was observed among the early Dutch Mennonites but disappeared completely. Among some of the Mennonites of Prussian, Polish, and Russian background in America, it was still practiced in the 1950s (Beatrice, Gnadenberg, Rosenort, and other congregations)." (Note 6)

This is speculation. The earlier materials certainly emphasize that the bread is “blessed” and should be “enjoyed” accordingly, but also that the supper is a memorial. Prussian /Russian Mennonites have not been shy to use the word “sacrament” either (note 7). But is this practice with the hanky a lingering element of "Roman Catholicism"? Likely that would not be a problem—unless it is seen as something “magical” or superstitious (there are examples of that). But I have seen no evidence that any Prussian/Russian Mennonite thought this.

A writing by Danzig Flemish Elder Georg Hansen in 1671 speaks of communion in the context of the purity of the congregation, citing a lot of scripture: “Let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates … perfecting holiness out of reverence for God” (2 Cor. 7:1; note 8). This too is connected to reconciliation with the neighbour before taking communion and with a congregation that takes the ban seriously.

While I have never heard a Mennonite preacher or theologian speak to this practice with anything more than curious speculation, ignorance or dismissiveness, I am beginning to think Hansen’s connections to a reconciled community are the origins of the symbol – something uniquely Mennonite, like a hanky without "spot or wrinkle." That might just predate the “quilt” as Mennonite symbol; it tells us much of the communal life and vision of Russian and Prussian Mennonites—for better or worse.

---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Note 1: Abraham Hartwich, Geographisch-Historische Landes-Beschribung derer dreyen im Pohlnischen Preußen liegenden Werdern (Königsberg, 1723), 291, https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/en/view/bsb10000874?page=306,307.

Note 2: Hermann G. Mannhardt, Die Danziger Mennonitengemeinde. Ihre Entstehung und ihre Geschichte von 1569–1919 (Danzig, 1919), https://archive.org/details/diedanzigermenno00mannuoft.

Note 3: Heinrich Donner, Abendmahls-Andachten: Gebete, und Liedern, vor, und nach dem heiligen Abendmahl, zum Gebrauch der Taufgesinnten Gemeine in Preußen (Marienwerder: Kanter, ca. 1788), https://mla.bethelks.edu/books/donner/.

Note 3b: Illustration: "Sharing the bread during the Holy Supper in the Mennonite Church De Zon in Amsterdam - 1743" (Delen van het brood tijdens het Heilig Avondmaal in de Doopsgezinde Kerk De Zon te Amsterdam - 1743), https://www.europeana.eu/item/90402/RP_P_AO_24_9. Similarly see: https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/dienst-in-de-kerk-bij-de-tooren-frans-de-bakker/VgGWbn9V64xZxg.

Note 4: Handbuch zum Gebrauch bei gottesdienstlichen Handlungen zunächst für die Aeltesten und Prediger der Mennoniten-Gemeinden in Rußland, edited by the Allgemeiner Konferenz der Mennoniten in Rußland (Berdjansk: Ediger, 1911), 82, https://mla.bethelks.edu/books/264.097%20Al34h/45.jpg ; see also the Gnadenfeld model, p. 49: https://mla.bethelks.edu/books/264.097%20Al34h/28.jpg. H. G. Mannhardt’s 1888 yearbook indicates which congregations practice footwashing and which do not (Jahrbuch der Altevangelischen Taufgesinnten oder Mennoniten-Gemeinden [Danzig, 1888]), https://books.google.ca/books?id=ok5FAQAAMAAJ&dq.

Note 5: Karel Vos, "De Avondmaalsbediening beij de Doopgezinden," Nederlands Archief voor Kerkgeschiedenis, NS 12 (1915/1916), 258-270; 260.

Note 6: Cornelius Krahn and John D. Rempel, “Communion,” GAMEO, http://gameo.org/index.php?title=Communion&oldid=162901; Krahn cites Vos (see above, "De Avondmaalsbediening," 265) who cites L. G. Le Poole, who thought it was once practice in Leiden, in Bijdragen tot de kennis van het kerkelijk leven: onder de Doopsgezinden (Leiden: Brill, 1905), 153, https://books.google.ca/books?id=BP0OAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA153#.

Note 7: E.g., see Jakob Mannhardt, ed., Gemeinde-Ordnung der vereinigten Mennoniten-Gemeinde zu Danzig vom Jahre 1841, revidiert im Jahre 1860 (Danzig, 1860), p. 6, no. 5, https://mla.bethelks.edu/gmsources/books/1860,%20Gemeinde%20Ordnung%20der%20vereinigten%20Mennoniten%20Gemeinde%20zu%20Danzig/DSCF9909.JPG.

Note 8: Georg Hansen, Ein Glaubens-Bericht für die Jugend durch einen Liebhaber der Wahrheit gestellt und ans Licht gebracht im Jahre Christi 1671 (Elkhart, IN: Mennonite Publishing, 1892), 138.

---

To cite this post: Arnold Neufeldt-Fast, "Communion and the 'white Handkerchief,'" History of the Russian Mennonites (blog), May 29, 2023, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/01/communion-and-white-handkerchief.html.

Comments

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...

1871: "Mennonite Tough Luck"

In 1868, a delegation of Prussian Mennonite elders met with Prussian Crown Prince Frederick in Berlin. The topic was universal conscription--now also for Mennonites. They were informed that “what has happened here is coming soon to Russia as well” ( note 1 ). In Berlin the secret was already out. Three years later this political cartoon appeared in a satirical Berlin newspaper. It captures the predicament of Russian Mennonites (some enticed in recent decades from Prussia), with the announcement of a new policy of compulsory, universal military service. “‘Out of the frying pan and into the fire—or: Mennonite tough luck.’ The Mennonites, who immigrated to Russia in order to avoid becoming soldiers in Prussia, are now subject to newly introduced compulsory military service.” ( Note 2 ) The man caught in between looks more like a Prussian than Russian Mennonite—but that’s beside the point. With the “Great Reforms” of the 1860s (including emancipation of serfs) the fundamentals were c...

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...

The Tinkelstein Family of Chortitza-Rosenthal (Ukraine)

Chortitza was the first Mennonite settlement in "New Russia" (later Ukraine), est. 1789. The last Mennonites left in 1943 ( note 1 ). During the Stalin years in Ukraine (after 1928), marriage with Jewish neighbours—especially among better educated Mennonites in cities—had become somewhat more common. When the Germans arrived mid-August 1941, however, it meant certain death for the Jewish partner and usually for the children of those marriages. A family friend, Peter Harder, died in 2022 at age 96. Peter was born in Osterwick to a teacher and grew up in Chortitza. As a 16-year-old in 1942, Peter was compelled by occupying German forces to participate in the war effort. Ukrainians and Russians (prisoners of war?) were used by the Germans to rebuild the massive dam at Einlage near Zaporizhzhia, and Peter was engaged as a translator. In the next year he changed focus and started teachers college, which included significant Nazi indoctrination. In 2017 I interviewed Peter Ha...

Mennonite Literacy in Polish-Prussia

At a Mennonite wedding in Deutsch Kazun in 1833 (pic), neither groom nor bride nor the witnesses could sign the wedding register. A Görtz, a Janzen, a Schröder—born a Görtzen – illiterate. “This act was read to the married couple and witnesses, but not signed because they were unable to write.” Similarly, with the certification of a Mennonite death in Culm (Chelmo), West Prussia, 1813-14: “This document was read and it was signed by us because the witnesses were illiterate.” Spouse and children were unable to read or write. Names like Gerz, Plenert, Kliewer, Kasper, Buller and others. 14 families of the 25 Mennonite deaths registered --or 56%--could not sign the paperwork ( note 1 ; pic ). This appears to be an anomaly. We know some pioneers to Russia were well educated. The letters of the land-scout to Russia, Johann Bartsch to his wife back home (1786-87) are eloquent, beautifully written and indicate a high level of literacy ( note 2 ). Even Klaas Reimer (b. 1770), the founder t...

"Between Monarchs" a lot can happen (like revolt). A Mennonite "Accession" Prayer for the Monarch

It is surprising for many to learn that Russian Mennonites sang the Russian national anthem "God save the Tsar" in special worship services ... frequently! We have a "Mennonite prayer" and sermon sample for the accession of the monarch ( Thronbesteigung ) or its anniversary, with closing prayer-- and another Mennonite sampler of a coronation ( Krönung ) prayer, sermon and closing prayer ( note 1 ). After 70 years with one monarch, the manual is made for a time like this--try sharing it with your Canadian Mennonite pastor ;) Technically there is no “between” monarchs: “The Queen is Dead. Long live the King!” But there is much that happens or can happen before the coronation of the new monarch. Including revolt. Mennonites in Molotschna had hosted Tsar Alexander I shortly before his death in 1825. Upon his death in December, Alexander's brother and heir Constantine declined succession, and prior to the coronation of the next brother Nicholas, some 3,000 rebel (mos...

Why study and write about Russian Mennonite history?

David G. Rempel’s credentials as an historian of the Russian Mennonite story are impeccable—he was a mentor to James Urry in the 1980s, for example, which says it all. In 1974 Rempel wrote an article on Mennonite historical work for an issue of the Mennonite Quarterly Review commemorating the arrival of Russian Mennonites to North America 100 years earlier ( note 1). In one section of the essay Rempel reflected on Mennonites’ general “lack of interest in their history,” and why they were so “exceedingly slow” in reflecting on their historic development in Russia with so little scholarly rigour. Rempel noted that he was not alone in this observation; some prominent Mennonites of his generation who had noted the same pointed an “extreme spirit of individualism” among Mennonites in Russia; the absence of Mennonite “authoritative voices,” both in and outside the church; the “relative indifference” of Mennonites to the past; “intellectual laziness” among many who do not wish to be distu...

Eduard Wüst: A “Second Menno”?

Arguably the most significant outside religious influence on Mennonite s in the 19th century was the revivalist preaching of Eduard Wüst, a university-trained Württemberg Pietist minister installed by the separatist Evangelical Brethren Church in New Russia in 1843 ( note 1 ). With the end-time prophesies of a previous generation of Pietists (and many Mennonites) coming to naught, Wüst introduced Germans in this area of New Russia to the “New Pietism” and its more individualistic, emotional conversion experience and sermons on the free grace of God centred on the cross of Christ ( note 2 ). Wüst’s 1851 Christmas sermon series give a good picture of what was changing ( note 3 ). His core agenda was to dispel gloom (which maybe could describe more traditional Mennonites) and induce Christian joy. This is the root impulse of the Mennonite Brethren beginnings years later in 1860. “Satan is not entitled to present his own as the most joyful.” His people “sing, jump, leap ( hüpfen ) ...

Ukrainian Famine and Genocide (Holodomor), 1932-1933

In 2008 the Canadian Parliament passed an act declaring the fourth Saturday in November as “Ukrainian Famine and Genocide (‘Holodomor’) Memorial Day” ( note 1 ). Southern Ukraine was arguably the worst affected region of the famine of 1932–33, where 30,000 to 40,000 Mennonites lived ( note 2 ). The number of famine-related deaths in Ukraine during this period are conservatively estimated at 3.5 million ( note 3 ). In the early 1930s Stalin feared growing “Ukrainian nationalism” and the possibility of “losing Ukraine” ( note 4 ). He was also suspicious of ethnic Poles and Germans—like Mennonites—in Ukraine, convinced of the “existence of an organized counter-revolutionary insurgent underground” in support of Ukrainian national independence ( note 5 ). Ukraine was targeted with a “lengthy schooling” designed to ruthlessly break the threat of Ukrainian nationalism and resistance, and this included Ukraine’s Mennonites (viewed simply as “Germans”). Various causes combined to bring on w...

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 Ju...

History of the Russian Mennonites

Search This Blog