Creating a Spiritual Tradition: Nine Core Texts

Just before Mennonite immigration to Russia, Prussian leaders were feverishly translating the tradition from Dutch to German. In addition to the translations, a few other key pieces were also written and together these texts shaped the Russian Mennonite tradition.

1. In 1765 certain core writings of Menno Simons were selected, edited for brevity and focus, and translated into a first German edition by Johannes Deknatel (note 1).

2. Hymnals: In 1780, Danzig Flemish Elder Hans van Steen with supporting ministers published (translated): A Spiritual Hymnal for General Edification, in which, besides David’s Psalms, a collection of specially selected old and new songs can be found. The Flemish had “always” worshiped in Dutch and as late as 1752 they had ordered 3,000 Dutch hymnals from Amsterdam. Two-thirds of the hymns in the Danzig hymnal were adopted from the Lutheran and Reformed tradition This was the second unique Mennonite hymnal in “the language of the land”; in 1767 Elbing and West Prussian congregations introduced a German hymnal with hymns that would remain in the Mennonite repertoire for more than two centuries (note 2).

3. In 1782, a condensed German version of the Martyrs Mirror was published in 1782, entitled The History of the Martyrs, or Short Historical Account of the Persecution of the Mennonites. Its editor Isaac van Dühren (1725–1800) was a Danzig clothmaker, dyer, and Frisian minister, whose original translation from Dutch sought to reclaim, renew, and preserve Mennonitism proper. The martyr stories were highly cherished by the previous Dutch-reading generations (note 3).

4. In 1790, a very popular Dutch Mennonite religious book (“approved” by Prussian Mennonite elders for reading since first published) was also translated into German: Pieter Pietersz’s Way to the City of Peace (note 4; original 1625)

5. Two decades earlier in 1770 another popular Dutch Mennonite religious booklet was translated and published in Basel: Jan P. Schabalie’s The Wandering Soul (note 5; original: 1635). This volume and Pieter Pietersz’s text were also brought to Russia later, read devotionally, and used in debate around what it means to be Mennonite.

Three other highly influential pieces were published during this time:

6. In 1779 Flemish Elder Gerhard Wiebe together with his Frisian colleague Elder Heinrich Donner published a common “small catechism” for both Mennonite bodies to replace the century-old Hansen catechism for youth. This catechism was reprinted frequently into the second half of the twentieth century, uniting Mennonite groups and shaping their thought and spirituality over many generations (note 6).

7. In 1792, a new confession of faith (German) was published by Elbing Mennonite Elder Gerhard Wiebe. Its twenty articles are a theological summary of the tradition developed over the Polish and early Prussian period. This confession was taken to Russia and reprinted in 1870 and 1874 (note 7).

8. Frisian Elder Heinrich Donner also published a type of Ministers Manual (German) for communion services. The service suggestions, prayers, and songs are beautifully written and theologically rich (note 8).

Also ...

9. When the first Mennonites arrived in Russia 1788/9 without an elder or ministers, untrained and inexperienced lay-persons were elected to organize worship. There is a note that settlers had to be content with sharing Bible reflections in Low German with each other, or a “service that consisted of singing one song and a sermon that was read from a book of sermons.” That volume was a collection of sermons by the East Prussian Mennonite Elder Isaac Kröker (note 9).

There was likely no German preaching in either the Flemish or Frisian Mennonite churches in Danzig and Prussia until the 1760s (note 10).

These Mennonite cultural artifacts shaped the worldview and spirituality of Mennonites in Russia. Mennonites came to Russia from Prussia with these books; they continued to order or reprint them, and they also took most of these books with them again when they emigrated at different points for different places. Nothing of their caliber or lasting influence was written by Mennonites during the 19th century in Russia, with exception perhaps of P. M. Friesen's Mennonite Brotherhood in Russia 1789–1910, published in 1911 (note 11).

---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Note---

Note 1: Johannes Deknatel, Auszug aus den merkwürdigsten Abhandlungen aus den Werken Menno Simons (Königsberg: Stöhr, 1765), https://digital.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/werkansicht?PPN=PPN657064149&PHYSID=PHYS_0005. [English of Menno Simons here: http://www.mennosimons.net/fulltext.html].

Note 2: Geistreiches Gesangbuch, zur öffentlichen und besondern Erbauung der Mennonitischen Gemeine in und vor der Stadt Danzig (Marienwerder, West Preußen, 1780), http://pbc.gda.pl/dlibra/doccontent?id=8000; also Geistreiches Gesangbuch, worin nebst denen Psalmen Davids eine Samlung auserlesener alter und neuer Lieder zu finden ist, zur allgemenen Erbauung herausgegeben, edited by Gerhard Wiebe (Königsberg: Kanter, 1767/1775), https://mla.bethelks.edu/books/783_952_G279_1775_c3/. See Hans-Jürgen Goertz, Pieter Post and Peter Letkemann, “Gemeindegesang und Gesangbücher der Mennoniten (Europa),” in Mennonitisches Lexikon (MennLex), volume V, http://mennlex.de/doku.php?id=top:gemeindegesang.

Note 3: Geschichte der Märtyrer, oder kurze historische Nachricht von den Verfolgungen der Mennonisten (Königsberg: Hartung 1782 / 1788]), https://gdz.sub.uni-goettingen.de/id/PPN660141337.

Note 4: Pieter Pietersz, Ausgewählte Schriften von Peter Peters (Elkhart, IN: Mennonitische Verlagshandlung, 1901), https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100436203. ENGLISH: “Way to the City of Peace,” in Spiritual Life in Anabaptism, edited by C. J. Dyck, 231–283 (Scottdale, PA: Herald, 1996).

Note 5: Schabalie, The Wandering Soul: Or, Dialogues between the Wandering Soul and Adam, Noah, and Simon Cleophas, translated and edited by C. J. Dyck, 231–283 (Scottdale, PA: Herald, 1996), http://www.archive.org/stream/wanderingsoulord00scha#page/n8/mode/2up.

Note 6: Katechismus, oder kurze und einfältige Unterweisung aus der heiligen Schrift, in Frage und Antwort, fur die Kinder zum Gebrauch in den Schulen. Ausgegeben durch die christliche taufgesinnte Gemeine in Rußland, welche Mennoniten genennet werden (including the 1837 foreword of the eighth Prussian edition) (Berdjansk: Kylius, 1874; reprint), https://books.google.ca/books?id=zMY8AAAAcAAJm.

Note 7: Glaubensbekenntniß der Mennoniten in Preußen und Rußland (Berdjansk, 1874), https://chortitza.org/kb/bekent74.pdf.

Note 8: 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 9: Isaac Kröker, Zwanzig Predigten über verschiedene Texte der heiligen Schrift (Königsberg, 1788).

Note 10: See previous post, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/01/the-shift-from-dutch-to-german-1700s.html.

Note 11: Peter M. Friesen, The Mennonite Brotherhood in Russia 1789–1910 (Winnipeg, MB: Christian, 1978), https://archive.org/details/TheMennoniteBrotherhoodInRussia17891910/. German, 1911, vol. 1: https://books.google.ca/books?id=e5RQAQAAMAAJ&lpg=; OR vol. 1a: https://chortitza.org/pdf/pmfries1.pdf; vol. 1b: https://chortitza.org/pdf/pmfries2.pdf, vol. 2: https://chortitza.org/pdf/pmfries3.pdf.

Comments

The End of Schardau (and other Molotschna villages), 1941

My grandmother was four-years old when her parents moved from Petershagen, Molotschna to Schardau in 1908. This story is larger than that of Schardau, but tells how this village and many others in Molotschna were evacuated by Stalin days before the arrival of German troops in 1941. -ANF The bridge across the Dnieper at Chortitza was destroyed by retreating Soviet troops on August 18, 1941 and the hydroelectric dam completed near Einlage in 1932 was also dynamited by NKVD personnel—killing at least 20,000 locals downstream, and forcing the Germans to cross further south at Nikopol. For the next six-and-a-half weeks, the old Mennonite settlement area of Chortitza was continuously shelled by Soviet troops from Zaporozhje on the east side of the river ( note 1 ). The majority of Russian Germans in Crimea and Ukraine paid dearly for Germany’s Blitzkrieg and plans for racially-based population resettlements. As early as August 3, 1941, the Supreme Command of the Soviet Forces received noti...

1929 Flight of Mennonites to Moscow and Reception in Germany

At the core of the attached video are some thirty photos of Mennonite refugees arriving from Moscow in 1929 which are new archival finds. While some 13,000 had gathered in outskirts of Moscow, with many more attempting the same journey, the Soviet Union only released 3,885 Mennonite "German farmers," together with 1,260 Lutherans, 468 Catholics, 51 Baptists, and 7 Adventists. Some of new photographs are from the first group of 323 refugees who left Moscow on October 29, arriving in Kiel on November 3, 1929. A second group of photos are from the so-called “Swinemünde group,” which left Moscow only a day later. This group however could not be accommodated in the first transport and departed from a different station on October 31. They were however held up in Leningrad for one month as intense diplomatic negotiations between the Soviet Union, Germany and also Canada took place. This second group arrived at the Prussian sea port of Swinemünde on December 2. In the next ten ...

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...

What were Molotschna Mennonites reading in the early 1840s?

Johann Cornies expanded his Agricultural Society School library in Ohrloff to become a lending library “for the instruction and better enlightenment of every adult resident.” The library was overseen by the Agricultural Society; in 1845, patrons across the colony paid 1 ruble annually to access its growing collection of 355 volumes (see note 1 ). The great majority of the volumes were in German, but the library included Russian and some French volumes, with a large selection of handbooks and periodicals on agronomy and agriculture—even a medical handbook ( note 2 ). Philosophical texts included a German translation of George Combe’s The Constitution of Man ( note 3 ) and its controversial theory of phrenology, and the political economist Johann H. G. Justi’s Ergetzungen der vernünftigen Seele —which give example of the high level of reading and reflection amongst some colonists. The library’s teaching and reference resources included a history of science and technology with an accomp...

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...

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...

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...

Penmanship: School Exercise Samples, 1869 and 1883

Johann Cornies recommended “penmanship as the pedagogical means for [developing] a sense of beauty” ( note 1 ). Schönschreiben --calligraphy or penmanship--appears in the handwritten school plans and manuals of Tobias Voth (Ohrloff, 1820), Jakob Bräul (Rudnerweide, 1830), and Heinrich Heese (Ohrloff, 1842). Heese had a list of related supplies required for each pupil, including “a Bible, slate, slate pencil, paper, straight edge, lead pencil, quill pen, quill knife, ink bottle, three candlesticks, three snuffers, and a container to keep supplies; the teacher will provide water color ( Tusche ) and ink” ( note 2 ). The standard school schedule at this time included ten subject areas: Bible; reading; writing; recitation and composition; arithmetic; geography; singing; recitation and memory work; and preparation of the scripture for the following Sunday worship—and penmanship ( note 3 ). Below are penmanship samples first from the Molotschna village school of Tiege, 1869. This student...

A Mennonite Pandemic Spirituality, 1830-1831

Asiatic Cholera broke out across Russia in 1829 and ‘30, and further into Europe in 1831. It began with an infected battalion in Orenburg ( note 1 ), and by early Fall 1830 the disease had reached Moscow and the capital. Russia imposed drastic quarantine measures. Much like today, infected regions were cut off and domestic trade was restricted. The disease reached the Molotschna River district in Fall 1830, and by mid-December hundreds of Nogai deaths were recorded in the villages adjacent to the Mennonite colony, leading state authorities to impose a strict quarantine. When the Mennonite Johann Cornies—a state-appointed agricultural supervisor and civic leader—first became aware of the nearby cholera-related deaths, he recommended to the Mennonite District Office on December 6, 1830 to stop traffic and prevent random contacts with Nogai. For Cornies it was important that the Mennonite community do all it can keep from carrying the disease into the community, though “only God knows...

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 ...

History of the Russian Mennonites

Search This Blog