Mennonite Brethren Beginnings

By 1860, the mix of entrepreneurial individualism, exposure to new ideas and horizons, intellectually and emotionally compelling preaching of conversion by Eduard Wüst a university-trained Württemberg Pietist minister installed by the nearby Separatist Evangelical Brethren Church, community dysfunction and lack of common vision, growing social and economic disparities, rumours of restlessness and revolution among Russia’s serfs, authoritarian leadership and moral laxity—were all part of that context in which eighteen Mennonite men felt compelled to submit a “Document of Secession” to the Molotschna Elders, dated January 6, 1860.

They pointed to the “decay of the entire Mennonite brotherhood,” with examples of baptized brothers who at the annual fairs “serve the devil” in their public misdeeds, and of the ministers who watch and sit idly by (note 1). “It was very natural that with such a decay of church, faith and morals, a reaction set in,” with individuals demanding “an end to the eternal disputes” and to the “purging of doctrinal innovations,” e.g., around baptism, Lord’s Supper and ordination, as Busch had judged (note 2).

 “Fearing an inevitable judgement of God,” the separatists felt compelled to “completely disassociate” themselves “from these fallen churches” and their baptisms based on a “memorized” catechism—rather than the emotional shaking and arousal of the soul—and their “devil’s meal” shared with those who “lead satanic lives” (note 3). The rejection of the catechism was not because of theological deficits or disagreements, but because they went from the inner experience of God to confession of faith and baptism, rather than from confession to experience.

This shift was consistent with the Pietist texts available in the Molotschna library for decades (note 4); the denunciations of the large church’s Lord’s Supper are reminiscent of scenes from the Martyrs Mirror. The unequivocal either/or language of the secessionist’s document reflected the tone of Wüst’s evangelistic sermons, which the signatories took to its schismatic conclusion.

The secession document was politically aligned with Russia’s charter expectations of Mennonites—ostensibly they wished to be nothing but Mennonite; the accusation against the larger church as “carnal-minded” (Fleischlichgesinnten) was an unmistakable contrast to the longer Mennonite self-identity as “baptism-minded” (Taufgesinnten).

Sixteen scripture texts were bolstered by three references to Menno Simon’s Foundation of Christian Doctrine. The generous government Privilegium, they argued, was at risk where individuals fail to represent a model people, a “true brotherhood.” And though without ordained leaders, the movement should not be deemed a sect (and thus illegal) they argued, for in scripture some are “elected by the Lord alone and sent through his Spirit without any human cooperation, as it occurred with the prophets and apostles” (note 5).

No significant theological disagreements are stated; at question is the purity of the church and of its gate-keepers. However, a shift in emphasis from the community and its corporate call and mission, to the inner life of the person is evident. With regard to the Confession of Faith, the secessionists stated somewhat ambiguously: “we are in agreement with our dear Menno according to our conviction from the Holy Scripture.”

While community spiritual decay “naturally caused great dissatisfaction among the noble-minded” Busch reported, he also noted that the group also attracted those who simply “hoped to escape their economic troubles through any sort of upheaval of the status quo” (note 6).

Though at first diverse—millers and small industrialists, teachers, and many poorer landless Mennonites—and lacking unified vision or organization (note 7), over time at least their religious ideas and practices began to coalesce.

Under the threat of losing their privileges as Mennonites, the leaders of the disparate separatist factions were driven by circumstance and encouraged by sympathizers to organize into a more unified, formalized religious group acceptable to the otherwise religiously tolerant Russian authorities.

In 1863 the state granted Molotschna Brethren leaders their own separate settlement—thanks to a powerful old friend of the Mennonites and of separatist leader Johann Claassen, Senator Evgenii von Hahn (note 8)—with respective Mennonite privileges in the northern Caucasus. The Brethren’s June 1865 “reforms” curtailed wild excesses and channeled the chaos of the early years into evangelistic activity within the colonies with an emphasis on the joy of free grace, celebrated in baptism.
But the larger community remained polarized—revivalists were painted as prideful, and they in turn were outraged by the low level of spiritual commitment and vitality displayed by some in the old church. Yet the renewals did have a measurable impact on civil life generally. For example, the colony successfully petitioned the Guardianship Committee to direct tavern owners to “ban playing music and dancing at taverns to avoid beatings and crimes” (note 9).

The elders in the established congregations had been hard in their actions and recommendations to safeguard order in the community consistent with their regard for the Privilegium and their understanding of the responsibilities of an elder. But lacking church-historical training, they did not understand the movement as the inevitable reaction to orthodoxy that had become too rigid and increasingly secular, according to Benjamin H. Unruh (note 10). Or as David G. Rempel argued: “Had it not been for the extreme narrow-mindedness and intolerance of the rank and file of the Mennonite preachers this religious dissent could have easily been composed” (note 11).

Mennonite Brethren historian Harry Loewen concedes, however, that the early, broad condemnations and demands to establish a separate church may not have been “based primarily on well considered reasons, good-will and spiritual considerations. The breach was at least in part the result of impatience and rashness” (note 12).

Further, economic dynamics were also part of the mix; the majority of the clergy “were farmers themselves, for the most part well-to-do,” as Rempel argued, and the new “baptist teaching found in time a receptive ground among the landless and henceforth the land quarrel was often closely intertwined with the religious one” (note 13).

Already by 1866 when the young historian P. M. Friesen joined the secessionist brethren, the new church was institutionalized—“more like the Kleine Gemeinde (more puritanical in attitude, somewhat melancholic, and formalistically-ascetically pious) rather than like the Hüpfer [Leapers] … Mennonite to the core, in temperament” (note 14). But for those very reasons the new church was positioned not to fade after emotions settled, but to have a lasting place within and impact on Russian Mennonite life. In the end the Brethren movement was not simply an extreme Pietistic withdrawal into the inner life of the soul, nor “such a radical break with the social or religious world which had existed before 1860” (note 15).

After the Bolshevik Revolution and Stalinist repression, the division lost all meaning—as Benjamin Unruh argued vigorously in the closing years of WWII, as 35,000 traumatized refugees were extracted from Ukraine. North American Mennonites reignited and perpetuated differences in the new post-war refugee settlements in Paraguay, but not without inflicting unnecessary damage in communities and families looking to find new beginnings together.

Today the situation in North America is very different again in a collapsing “Christendom” context. Confessional agreement has been present from the beginning. Perhaps the time to end the formal separation is only a few conversations away.

            --- Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Note 1: The “Jahresmärkte” (markets or fairs) were organized primarily for the sale of agricultural goods and commodities. Nearby towns—Tokmak, Chernigovka and Prischib—and the cities of Melitopol and Berdjansk each had three markets per year; cf. Dmytro Myeshkov, Die Schawarzmeerdeutschen und ihre Welten: 1781–1871 (Essen: Klartext, 2008), Table 17, 102.

Note 2: E. H. Busch, ed., Ergänzungen der Materialien zur Geschichte und Statistik des Kirchen- und Schulwesens der Ev.-Luth. Gemeinden in Russland, vol. 1. (St. Petersburg: Gustav Haessel, 1867), 262. https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_V9IMAQAAMAAJ.

Note 3: §83, “Secession or Founding Document,” in Peter M. Friesen, The Mennonite Brotherhood in Russia 1789–1910 (Winnipeg, MB: Christian, 1978), 230f. (my translation). https://archive.org/details/TheMennoniteBrotherhoodInRussia17891910/; Jacob P. Bekker, Origin of the Mennonite Brethren Church. translated by D. E. Pauls and A. E. Janzen (Hillsboro, KS: Mennonite Brethren Historical Society of the Midwest, 1973), 31, https://archive.org/details/origin-of-the-mennonite-brethren-church-ocr/mode/2up.

Note 4: Cf. Johann Cornies, “Catalogue of Books—1841 [1845],” which included writings by Johann Arndt, Ludwig Hofacker, Gerhard Tersteegen, Johann Uhle, and a variety of Moravian texts (In Peter J. Braun Russian Mennonite Archive, file 797, reel 34, from Robarts Library, University of Toronto).

Note 5: P. Friesen, Mennonite Brotherhood in Russia, 400 (my translation). 

Note 6: Busch, Ergänzungen der Materialien zur Geschichte und Statistik, I, 263.

Note 7: Cf. James Urry, “The Mennonite Brethren Church and Russia’s Great Reforms in the 1870s,” Direction 46, no. 1 (2017), 10–25, https://directionjournal.org/46/1/mennonite-brethren-church-and-russias.html; Alexander Klaus, (Unsere Kolonien. Studien und Materialien zur Geschichte und Statistik der ausländischen Kolonisation in Rußland, trans. by J. Töws [Odessa: Odessaer Zeitung, 1887], 259-267, http://pbc.gda.pl/dlibra/doccontent?id=16863) sketches out how the rift between the landless and the farm-owners (and elders generally belonged to the latter group) was leveraged by the secessionists.

Note 8: P. Friesen, Mennonite Brotherhood in Russia 1789–1910, 246.

Note 9: “Guardianship Committee for Foreign Settlers in South Russia,” Inventory 5 (Part I), 189, 379, 1867, https://www.mennonitechurch.ca/programs/archives/holdings/organizations/OdessaArchiveF6/F6-5a.pdf.

Note 10: Benjamin H. Unruh to Jakob Siemens, October 19, 1935, 4, letter, from Mennonite Library and Archives – Bethel College, MS 416, https://mla.bethelks.edu/archives/ms_416/unruh_bh_writings_by/.

Note 11: David G. Rempel, “The Mennonite Colonies in New Russia. A study of their settlement and economic development from 1789–1914,” PhD dissertation, Stanford University, 1933, 187, https://archive.org/details/themennonitecoloniesinnewrussiaastudyoftheirsettlementandeconomicdevelopmentfrom1789to1914ocr.

Note 12: H. Loewen, “Echoes of Drumbeats,” 124f.

Note 13: D. Rempel, “Mennonite Colonies in New Russia,” 187.

Note 14: P. Friesen, The Mennonite Brotherhood in Russia, 438.

Note 15: James Urry, “The Social Background to the Emergence of the Mennonite Brethren Church in Nineteenth Century Russia,” Journal of Mennonite Studies 6 (1988), 32, https://jms.uwinnipeg.ca/index.php/jms/article/view/292.