Skip to main content

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 Dirks. Dirks was a passionate and evangelistic preacher of conversion. He remained a missionary at heart and tireless fundraiser for overseas missions until his death in 1915.

However Heinrich Dirks was genuinely disturbed or even spooked by the “generally unhealthy, sick symptoms” (his terms) that accompanied the early Mennonite Brethren movement which he witnessed first-hand (note 2). According to Dirks,

"… their gatherings degenerated quickly after this, for they would hear nothing about growth in grace and holiness, [or] the struggle against the lusts and desires of the heart … but instead claimed that they had become perfected children of God with their conversion, and could only rejoice and thank God for their blessed condition. They went so far as to arrange competitions in their gatherings to determine who could shout the loudest for joy and jump the highest in delight (Freudensprünge)—on account of which they were given the names “leapers” (Hüpfer) and “cheerful brethren” (lustige Brüder). And more: they fell so deep into their fanatacism, that in three locations—Rudnerweide, Liebenau and Einlage—they collected and burned edifying Christian literature that they had used up until their conversion." (Note 3)

Heinrich Dirks was in this regard a classic Russian Mennonite—it was important to keep a sober and balanced perspective in all things, including faith.

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,” according to Friesen (note 4). 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 5).

The Mennonite Brethren were not the only ones to receive sharp rebukes from Dirks. From Sumatra (Indonesia) where he was converting, baptizing and teaching in the 1870s, Dirks wrote a strongly worded letter counselling his fellow Russian Mennonites against a mass migration to the United States and Canada (this was over alternative service): Mennonites who wish to be separate from the world will soon discover that even in the most distant places—and he should know—the fallen world will one day find them out (note 6)! Also from Sumatra Dirks wrote in 1878:

“Our friends in Europe should not think that a missionary in a heathen country can establish a congregation without spot or wrinkle right away; influenced by the Gospel, only during the next generations will the Spirit and meaning of Christ become apparent in a purer form.” We are not yet at that point; therefore, “the merit and blood of Christ will have to cover up much in this respect. Anyway, where in the world does one find an absolutely pure congregation?” (Note 7)

Much later in 1910 when the state was imposing significant restrictions upon Mennonites and other Protestants, Elder Dirks was convinced that the “zealous but ignorant” proselytization by the Mennonite Brethren “where the Lord had not yet opened the door” (namely to nominally Orthodox Russians) was the cause of government harassment (note 8). Mission yes, but only where God opens a door.

In the 1890s, some thirty years after their beginnings, the Mennonite Brethren were experiencing strong growth in colonies. Heinrich Dirks’ 1892 book on Jesus’ parables of the Sower (Matthew 13) and of the Growing Seed (Mark 4:26-29) was written to give an account of the nature of the church and ultimately to address the “spiritual muddled-ness” of his context. Wholly representative of the bitter feelings Dirks used the book to deliver a stinging judgement of the Mennonite Brethren movement and the type of “morbid epidemic” they represent in the colonies!

"Whoever is not satisfied with the mixed- and external form of the Christian Church, whoever wants to have a church made up only of true believers and of those born again, a congregation in which everything is the best and most perfect, and therefore separates---he thereby gives evidence that he is animated by an over-the-top, pathological zeal, and that he rejects what the Lord Jesus calls the Kingdom of Heaven. Separation is not permitted where the Christian church still has the shape and structure provided for in the parables of the Lord, as is still the case, for example, with that part of the Christian church that is made up of our Mennonite congregations. This separation melee among our people, this obsession to separate yourself from the congregation which you first joined, this Christian sentimentalism, this silly playing with baptism and its external form, this propaganda-making for a certain type of congregation, this one-size-fits-all view of conversion, this judging-the-speck-in-your-brother's-eye, and so on: it is something very unhealthy and pathological and is the result of an incorrect understanding of what the Lord Jesus wanted to tell us in the parables. And in the long run, every congregation that has been so created--illegitimately through separation will not--at least in the long run--remain a completely pure community. It will also take on a mixed form and thus suffer shipwreck with its overly high expectations. Oh, that the right understanding of what the Lord Jesus wants to tell us in these parables, and the true knowledge of the Kingdom of God among our people would spread more! Because only then could the morbid desire for separation, which is spreading like an epidemic, be brought to a standstill." (Note 9)

Of course there is another side to this story as well (note 10). But this is enough to help us understand a key debate with which these Anabaptist-Mennonites were obsessed with for decades.

            ---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Note 1: Heinrich Dirks, Das Reich Gottes im Lichte der Gleichnisse in Ev. Matth. Kap. 13. und Ev. Marci Kap. 4, V. 26–29 (Gnadenfeld bei Halbstadt: P. Janzen, 1892), 102, https://books.google.ca/books?id=v3UTAAAAYAAJ&dq. On Dirks, cf. the newer biography by Hermann Heidebrecht, Unmögliches wagen! Heinrich Dirks, 1842–1915 (Bielefeld: Christlicher Missions-Verlag, 2019).

Note 2: Heinrich Dirks, “Ein Abschnitt aus der Gnadenfelder Gemeindechronik mit Nekrologie des ‘alten Cornies,’” Mennonitisches Jahrbuch 1907 5 (1908), 52–65; 52, https://chortitza.org/kb/mj1907.pdf. On the Wüst movement after he death, cf. Jakob Prinz, Die Kolonien der Brüdergemeinde. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der deutschen Kolonien Südrußlands (Pjatigorsk, 1898) 84f., 90. http://digital.slub-dresden.de/id369529960. Cf. also Jacob P. Bekker, Origin of the Mennonite Brethren Church (Hillsboro, KS: Mennonite Brethren Historical Society of the Midwest, 1973), 29f., https://archive.org/details/origin-of-the-mennonite-brethren-church-ocr.

Note 3: Heinrich Dirks, “Abschnitt aus der Gnadenfelder Gemeindechronik,” 53; also 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), 258, https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_V9IMAQAAMAAJ. Books burned included Johann Starck’s Tägliches Handbuch, Halle Pietist Johann Arndt’s Wahres Christentum, and Ludwig Hofacker’s Predigten für alle Sonn-, Fest- u. Feier-Tage—and other Christian books other than the Bible with pictures. Cf. Heinrich Epp, Notizen aus dem Leben und Wirken des verstorbenen Ältesten Abraham Unger, dem Gründer der “Einlager-Mennoniten-Brüdergemeinde (Halbstadt, South Russia: Self-published, 1907), 4, https://chortitza.org/Buch/MJ/AU-01.htm. ET: “Historical Notes” (part 1), Direction (Fall 1990) 127–139; https://directionjournal.org/19/2/historical-endnotes.html. Dirks’ account is consistent with Elder A. Lenzmann’s 1862/1863 telling of these events: August Lenzmann, “An den Herausgeber: Die Separatistischen Bewegungen an der Molotschna betreffend,” March 16, 1863 [July 21, 1862], Mennonitische Blätter 10, no. 3 (May 1863), 31–35. https://mla.bethelks.edu/gmsources/newspapers/Mennonitische%20Blaetter/1854-1900/1863/DSCF0293.JPG.

Note 4Peter M. Friesen, The Mennonite Brotherhood in Russia 1789–1910 (Winnipeg, MB: Christian, 1978), 438, https://archive.org/details/TheMennoniteBrotherhoodInRussia17891910/.

Note 5: 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.

Note 6: Cf. George K. Epp, Geschichte der Mennoniten in Rußland, vol. II (Lage: Logos, 1997), 232.

Note 7: In Alle Hoekema, ed., Dutch Mennonite Mission in Indonesia: Historical Essays (Elkhart, IN: Institute of Mennonite Studies, 2001), 88, https://archive.org/details/dutchmennonitemi22alle/.

Note 8: Cf. H. Dirks, “Fortsetzung der Geschichte des Mennonitenvölkleins in Rußland im Jahre 1910,” Mennonitisches Jahrbuch 1910 8 (1911), 7–17; 9, https://chortitza.org/kb/mj1910.pdf. The phrase “open doors” is language used by the Apostle Paul (1 Cor. 16:18), but may also be a play on the name of a new missions periodical Offene Türen (1909–1913) from Barmen.

Note 9: Dirks, Das Reich Gottes im Lichte der Gleichnisse, 101f.

Note 10: See previous post (forthcoming).





Print Friendly and PDF



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

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...

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 ...

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...

1923 Mennonite immigrants "kept behind": Lechfeld (Bavaria) transit camp

An important part of the larger 1923 immigration story includes the chapter of the hundreds who were held back at Riga and Southampton and taken to the Lechfeld (Bavaria) transit camp for medical care. “Germany generously and magnanimously helped our organizations, on my intercession, to overcome the manifold difficulties connected with such a ( Volksbewegung ) movement of people in such critical times,” Benjamin H. Unruh wrote some years later ( note 1 ). Just as the first group of Russländer Mennonites set foot in Canada 100 years ago this month, the North American relief effort in the USSR was also winding down (August 1923). The famine relief work in 1921 and 1922 had found broad support in the North American Mennonite community. However excitement about a larger immigration of Russian Mennonites to North America was muted, and a new call to action could not forge the same level of cooperation across Mennonite groups. The plan required huge money guarantees. In USSR B.B. Janz h...

School Reports, 1890s

Mennonite memoirs typically paint a golden picture of schools in the so-called “golden era” of Mennonite life in Russia. The official “Reports on Molotschna Schools: 1895/96 and 1897/98,” however, give us a more lackluster and realistic picture ( note 1 ). What do we learn from these reports? Many schools had minor infractions—the furniture did not correspond to requirements, there were insufficient book cabinets, or the desks and benches were too old and in need of repair. The Mennonite schoolhouses in Halbstadt and Rudnerweide—once recognized as leading and exceptional—together with schools in Friedensruh, Fürstenwerder, Franzthal, and Blumstein were deemed to be “in an unsatisfactory state.” In other cases a new roof and new steps were needed, or the rooms too were too small, too dark, too cramped, or with moist walls. More seriously in some villages—Waldheim, Schönsee, Fabrikerwiese, and even Gnadenfeld, well-known for its educational past—inspectors recorded that pupils “do not ...

Queen Elizabeth II and Aunt Adina Neufeld Bräul

This month (April 2023) we celebrated my aunt’s 97th birthday—Adina Neufeld Bräul. Queen Elizabeth II and Aunt Adina were born within hours of each other, April 20-21, 1926. She once told me—in somewhat different words—that this makes her wonder about God’s providence … In 1944 in German-annexed Poland, my 16-year-old uncle Walter Bräul was required to report for military service. His first thought: no good soldier should be without a girlfriend! Before leaving for training, he asked one of the girls from "the trek" on a date to see a movie in Exin. Seven years later they would marry in Paraguay. Adina and her mother and sister were on the same trek or group (Gnadenfeld/ Molotschna) out of Ukraine as Walter and my mother (in the 2023 photo). Adina’s most terrible memory of the trek was when their wagon almost tipped over into a deep ravine. She was 17—a year older than Walter—and it was Walter’s 17-year-old brother Peter who literally jumped from his wagon to physically stop ...

A Traveler's Impressions of the Molotschna, 1927

In November 1927, Susanna Toews of Ohrloff, Molotschna wrote to her brother Gerhard in Canada, "Father is sleeping and the sisters are reading, even though they have read the stuff ten times. . .. Twice a week we get Das Neue Dorf . We read the most important material the first evening and then father reads the rest of it the next day" ( note 1 ). A youth in Friedensruh, Molotschna reported to the communist youth paper Die Saat in 1928, that their village receives 13 copies of Das Neue Dorf , 6 copies of Die Saat , one of the Moscow-based Deutsche Zentral-Zeitung , 16 copies of Die Trompete, 2 copies of Neuland , and some Russian papers as well. On average, 2 papers per household--all communist papers. A Mennonite-based monthly agricultural journal, “The Practical Agriculturalist” ( Der praktische Landwirt ) had been approved for publication in Ukraine in 1924 but was shut down in December 1926. Government authorities in Ukraine were exasperated to see a “significant a...

What does it cost to settle a Refugee? Basic without Medical Care (1930)

In January 1930, the Mennonite Central Committee was scrambling to get 3,885 Mennonites out of Germany and settled somewhere fast. These refugees had fled via Moscow in December 1929, and Germany was willing only to serve as first transit stop ( note 1 ). Canada was very reluctant to take any German-speaking Mennonites—the Great Depression had begun and a negative memory of war resistance still lingered. In the end Canada took 1,344 Mennonites and the USA took none born in Russia. Paraguay was the next best option ( note 2 ). The German government preferred Brazil, but Brazil would not guarantee freedom from military service, which was a problem for American Mennonite financiers. There were already some conservative "cousins" from Manitoba in Paraguay who had negotiated with the government and learned through trial and error how to survive in the "Green Hell" of the Paraguayan Chaco. MCC with the assistance of a German aid organization purchased and distribute...

Stalin’s Purge (1937-38) and Mennonite Suffering: 8 theses

1. Millions died under Stalin One of the more recent studies on the Stalin-era estimates that more than 28.7 million people suffered in the northern prisons and slave camps of the Gulag and 2.75 million people died there during Stalin’s reign ( note 1 ). To this number must be added the “close to a million political executions, the millions who died in transit to the Gulag, and some six to seven million who died of starvation during the early 1930s” ( note 2 ). The mass deportation of workers and peasants provided millions of forced labourers in the Arctic and Siberia. George K. Epp calculated that approximately one-third of Mennonites in the Soviet Union—at least 30,000—died due to exposure, beatings, overwork, disease, starvation or shootings ( note 3 ). 2. Mennonites in Ukraine suffered together with their Ukrainian neighbours Moscow was fearful of “losing Ukraine” ( note 4 ) and specifically targeted it with a “lengthy schooling” designed to ruthlessly break the threat of U...

Flemish Anabaptists and Witch Hunts

Political leaders have long used the term "witch hunt"--and there is an historical connection to Mennonites. Anabaptists and so-called “witches” were arrested and tried for related reasons in the Low Countries in the 1500s: namely, as a means to divert God’s wrath. The late-Medievals feared that heresy—in this case ana-baptism and the challenge to other sacraments—invited the wrath of God, and was an instrument for the devil’s own hellish apocalyptic assault. The assumption: the devil's tactics to destroy Christendom included the use of both heretics and sorcerers. Gary Waite writes convincingly that both were seen as “polluting” the community and thus both had to be "excised." "This fear of pollution, or scandalizing God or the saints, also explains why small numbers of peaceable Mennonites were so harshly treated during the second half of the sixteenth century. Plagues, fires, and economic and social crises were often blamed on the presence of even a smal...