Skip to main content

On Becoming the Quiet in the Land

They are fair questions: “What happened to the firebrands of the Reformation? How did the movement become so withdrawn--even "dour and unexciting,” according to one historian?

Mennonites originally referred to themselves as the “quiet in the land” in contrast to the militant--definitely more exciting--militant revolutionaries of Münster (note 1), and identification with Psalm 35:19f.: “Let not my enemies gloat over me … For they do not speak peace, but they devise deceitful schemes against those who live quietly in the land.”

How did Mennonites become the “quiet in the land” in Royal Prussia?

Minority non-citizen groups in Poland like Jews, Scots, Huguenots or the much smaller body of Mennonites did not enjoy full political or economic rights as citizens. Ecclesial and civil laws left linguistic or religious minorities vulnerable to extortion. Such groups sought to negotiate a Privilegium or charter with the king, which set out a legal basis for some protections of life and property, defined limited civil, economic, religious parameters and rights, and also stipulated the group’s obligations (e.g., militia substitutes, payments) to the state (note 2).

In 1642, King Wladislaus IV awarded Mennonites in the Vistula Delta a first major Privilegium, which affirmed that their forebears were “invited,” had contributed economically to the kingdom, were obedient in paying fees, etc., as a basis for renewing and extending privileges including military exemption.

“We are all well aware of the manner in which the ancestors of the Mennonite inhabitants of the Marienburg islands (Werder), both large and small, were invited here with the knowledge and by the will of the gracious King Sigismund Augustus, to areas that were barren, swampy and unusable places in those islands. With great effort and at very high cost, they made these lands fertile and productive. They cleared out the brush, and, in order to drain the water from these flooded and marshy lands, they built mills and constructed dams to guard against flooding by the Vistula, Nogat, Haff, Tiege, and other streams.” (Note 3)

Despite charter privileges granted by a sovereign, minority groups were often challenged by the local gentry or local religious powers who might also demand a significant payment of protection fees; moreover, the charters would need to be renegotiated with each successive king (note 4). The collection of fees (drainage associations) and the need for regular negotiations kept divided Mennonite groups united on the legal and political margins with a sense of common identity.

Some serious local repressions and threats of dispossession against Mennonites in Royal Prussia are also documented. For example, upon hearing that Mennonites attracted some Catholics through “persuasion and advice,” even the same Wladislaus IV decreed three years after granting the Mennonite Privilegium that “it must not occur” that “sectarians of the Mennonite- or Anabaptist faith … draw any Christ-believing Catholic … into their sect, be counted among their faith and admitted into their confession.” Such acts would be punishable by “death (Strafe des Halses), confiscation of goods and the immediate deportation of the entire sect from all royal lands.” This was reinforced by his successor in 1660, and consequently “monies were collected in all the congregations in the Netherlands for the oppressed Brethren in Danzig” (note 5).

The restrictions placed upon Mennonites, combined with strict Mennonite cultural boundaries, contributed to a regular loss of members, especially in the urban context of Danzig where sworn citizenship and Protestant baptism were prerequisites for certain professions and guilds.

In 1660 the Mennonite water engineer Abraham Wiebe of Letzkau (near Danzig), for example, was rebaptized as a Lutheran at the age of 40, and he chose a Danzig City Councillor as his godfather (note 6). Wiebe is thought to be the son of the Dutch-born Danzig city engineer and inventor Adam Wybe, who was permitted to build three houses near the city gate (note 7).

Repressions increased after back-to-back epidemics, war and natural disasters in mid-century. After a natural disaster caused dams to break and the lands to flood in 1667, a powerful government official for Pomerelia (near Danzig) argued that God was now punishing Poland and Danzig for its tolerance of Anabaptists. The official found broad support among the nobles in parliament for a plan to deport all Mennonites, which however did not come to pass (note 8).

The most critical incident however occurred when Polish King John III Sobieski ordered Mennonites to appear before Bishop Stanislao Sarnowsky and a commission of Papal theologians on charges of doctrinal unsoundness. The cobbler and Flemish minister Georg Hansen—“a man of great reading, skillful both in word and pen” (note 9)—presented his account of Mennonite doctrine at the bishop’s residence on January 20, 1678, followed by a three-hour oral examination before the bishop, a professor of Church history, two Dominicans, two Franciscans, two Jesuits, and two Carmelites. Hansen was preceded by his Frisian colleague Hendrick van Dühren, who assured the examining committee that Mennonites did think that many Catholics were “‘holy people’ who shared in God’s salvation,” and certainly did not believe that the Pope was the Antichrist (note 10). Hansen answered the key doctrinal questions on the Trinity, the two natures of Christ, the incarnation, the impassibility of God, and the Apostles Creed with sufficient adequacy that Mennonites were pronounced free of the worst heresies—Arianism and Socinianism, that is, a denial of Christ’s divinity and of the Trinity (note 11). A substantial financial contribution was also required by the bishop in order to free Mennonites from any further suspicion; it “was very hard for us to raise, but God helped us overcome everything” (note 12).

Localized hardships for Mennonites were not unusual. As late as 1719, one visiting Old Flemish elder from The Netherlands reported that a certain nobleman in the vicinity of Mennonites in Thorn believed that a drought that year was caused by witchcraft, and consequently punished local women repeatedly. Another had ordered several women burned and “also imprisoned several, which were to be burned within a few days.” Some women—“especially the older women”—had “their breasts burned off” and “fire stoked under their feet” until they confessed and named “others who are also capable of witchcraft and ought to be burned.” Two Mennonite women were forced to flee Thorn because of this danger (note 13).

But these were exceptions in a context that offered Mennonites sufficient securities and freedoms to remain and to develop a tradition. While smaller repressions and threats continued into the 18th century (note 14), “no anti-Mennonite pogroms were launched; none were imprisoned for their convictions.” By all accounts, they were stable, diligent and cooperative, complying with orders not to engage in missionary activities, and generally aroused little attention, positive or negative. In the assessment of Edmund Kizik, Mennonites began to pull back from society physically and psychologically; they became a “rather dour,” “unexciting religious community” (note 15).

In this retreat from the public square Mennonites became or remained the “quiet in the land,” and a little boring. But in this context they also continued with many practices that Anabaptists sought to recover for the church, including: meeting regularly, praying and trusting that God holds all things securely, memorizing scripture, contributing voluntarily to the poor fund, declaring that the old and sick have dignity and are to be cared for, discerning cultural participation carefully, being truthful and refusing to swear oaths, being willing to lose out rather than litigate, allowing people to leave the church rather than compelling belief, living boldly and experimentally, and refusing to retaliate or kill (note 16). 

By recovering this “lost bequest” of the church, their intention was to create a visible body of witness—admittedly different, odd and alien—stubbornly committed to each other and patient in all things until the Final Days.

            ---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Pic: "Pachtvertrag," from Mennonite Library and Archives, Bethel College, https://mla.bethelks.edu/archives/elecrec586/PetershagenPachtvertrag1635GdanskFond779DSygn137/IMG_3285.JPG,

Note 1: Cf. Benjamin Unruh, “Die Wehrlosigkeit.” Vortrag, gehalten auf der Allgemeinen Mennonitischen Konferenz am 7. Juni 1917, 16, 17, https://mla.bethelks.edu/gmsources/books/1917,%20Unruh,%20Wehrlosigkeit/..

Note 2: For this entire subject see James Urry, Mennonites, Politics, and Peoplehood: Europe—Russia—Canada, 1525 to 1980 (Winnipeg, MB: University of Manitoba Press, 2006), ch. 2.

Note 3: Cited in Peter J. Klassen, A Homeland for Strangers. An Introduction to Mennonites in Poland and Prussia, rev’d ed. (Fresno, CA: Centre for Mennonite Brethren Studies, 1989), 1f., https://archive.org/details/ahomeland-for-strangers-an-introduction-to-mennonites-in-poland-and-prussia-revised-ocr.

Note 4: Cf. J. Friesen, “Mennonites in Poland: An Expanded Historical View,” Journal of Mennonite Studies 4 (1986), 102f., https://jms.uwinnipeg.ca/index.php/jms/article/view/235; Samuel Myovich, Review Essay of Mennonites in Danzig, Elbing and the Vistula Lowlands, by Edmund Kizik, Mennonite Quarterly Review 70, no. 2 (1996), 227f.

Note 5: Anna Brons, Ursprung, Entwickelung und Schicksale der Taufgesinnten oder Mennoniten in kurzen Zügen (Norden, 1884), 146, https://archive.org/details/ursprungentwick00brongoog; Hans Maercker, “Geschichte des Schwetzer Kreises,” Zeitschrift der Westpreussischen Geschichtsvereins, Anhang B, no. 1 (June 10, 1647), and “Anhang B, no. 4,” (April 20, 1660) 369, 371, https://dlibra.bibliotekaelblaska.pl/dlibra/publication/52346/edition/49705#structure.

Note 6: See archival report by Hermann Thiessen, “Gelegenheitsfunde,” Ostdeutsche Famielienkunde 10, no. 3 (1985), 417.

Note 7: Reinhold Curicken, Der Stadt Dantzig: Historische Beschreibung (Amsterdam/ Dantzigk: Janssons, 1687), 348, https://pbc.gda.pl/dlibra/publication/61987/edition/55645/content; Georg Cuny, Danzigs Kunst und Kultur im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert (Frankfurt a. Main: Keller, 1910), 56, 58, https://archive.org/details/danzigskunstundk01cunyuoft/. Wybe’s son-in-law Abraham Jantzen was also granted special trading rights in an “unusual gesture of appreciation” by the Danzig City Council (Peter J. Klassen, Mennonites in Early Modern Poland and Prussia (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009), 61, 105.

Note 8: Cf. Brons, Ursprung, 258f.

Note 9: Hermann G. Mannhardt, Die Danziger Mennonitengemeinde. Ihre Entstehung und ihre Geschichte von 1569–1919 (Danzig, 1919), 72, https://archive.org/details/diedanzigermenno00mannuoft.

Note 10: Van Dühren, cited in Peter J. Klassen, A Homeland for Strangers. An Introduction to Mennonites in Poland and Prussia, Rev’d ed. (Fresno, CA: Centre for Mennonite Brethren Studies, 1989), 144, https://archive.org/details/ahomeland-for-strangers-an-introduction-to-mennonites-in-poland-and-prussia-revised-ocr.

Note 11: Socinians or “Polish Brethren” made advances to merge with the Danzig Waterlander-Frisian Mennonite group ca. 1610, and called for debate with Frisian elder Jan Gerrits.

Note 12: Report by Hansen, cited by H. Mannhardt, Danziger Mennonitengemeinde, 78.,

Note 13: “From the Travel Diary Hendrik Berents Hulshoff: Przechowka, West Prussia, Membership Lists from 1715 and 1733,” translated by Glenn Penner. From Mennonite Library and Archives-Bethel College, Cong. 15, https://mla.bethelks.edu/archives/cong_15/.

Note 14: D. Wilhelm Crichton (Zur Geschichte der Mennoniten [Königsberg, 1786], https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:bvb:384-uba003137-1) documents threats of repressions against Mennonites by civil or religious authorities in Danzig, Elbing, Royal Poland, or East or West Prussia for the following years: 1568, 1571, 1572, 1573, 1559, 1579, 1608, 1611, 1612, 1615, 1625, 1641, 1647, 1648, 1661, 1676, 1678, 1679, 1696, 1697, 1699, 1700, 1708, 1728, 1732. Christoph Hartknoch (Preussische Kirchen-Historia [Frankfurt a.M., 1686], 1087, http://www.mdz-nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn=urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb10004718-3) also adds episodes from 1620, 1633, 1682.

Note 15: Edmund Kizik, “Religious freedom and the limits of social assimilation. The History of the Mennonites in Danzig and the Vistula Delta until their tragic end after World War II,” in From Martyr to Muppy (Mennonite Urban Professionals), edited by A. Hamilton et al., 48–64 (Amsterdam, NL: Amsterdam University Press, 1994), 51, https://archive.org/details/frommartyrtomupp0000unse.

Note 16: Cf. the distinctive Anabaptist behavioural acts listed by Allan Kreider, Patient Ferment of the Early Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2016), 122f. See also Mark Jantzen's list: "Key developments with lasting impact on Mennonites included the regular practice of starting new settlements in response to expanding demographics instead of fleeing persecution, extensive self-organization of congregational structures, communal economic development, the practice of mutual aid, and a tradition of theological reflection in tune with both the local setting and developments among other Anabaptist communities in the Netherlands." (Jantzen, “Anabaptists in Prussia,” in T & T Clark Handbook of Anabaptism, edited by Brian C. Brewer, 169-184 [London: T&T Clark, 2022]).






Print Friendly and PDF
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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...
1 comment
Read more

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 ...
1 comment
Read more

Shaky Beginings as a Faith Community

With basic physical needs addressed, in 1805 Chortitza pioneers were ready to recover their religious roots and to pass on a faith identity. They requested a copy of Menno Simons’ writings from the Danzig mother-church especially for the young adults, “who know only what they hear,” and because “occasionally we are asked about the founder whose name our religion bears” ( note 1 ). The Anabaptist identity of this generation—despite the strong Mennonite publications in Prussia in the late eighteenth century—was uninformed and very thin. Settlers first arrived in Russia 1788-89 without ministers or elders. Settlers had to be content with sharing Bible reflections in Low German dialect or a “service that consisted of singing one song and a sermon that was read from a book of sermons” written by the recently deceased East Prussian Mennonite elder Isaac Kroeker ( note 2 ). In the first months of settlement, Chortitza Mennonites wrote church leaders in Prussia:  “We cordially plead ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Beginnings: Some Basics

The sixteenth-century ancestors of Russian Mennonites were largely Anabaptists from the Low Countries. Because their new vision of church called for voluntary membership marked by adult baptism upon confession of faith, they became one of the most persecuted groups of the Protestant Reformation ( note 1 ). For a millennium re-baptism ( a na -baptism) had been considered a heresy punishable by death ( note 2 ), and again in 1529 the Imperial Diet of Speyer called for the “brutal” punishment for those who did not recognize infant baptism. Many of the earliest Anabaptist cells were found in Belgium and The Netherlands--part of the larger Habsburg Empire ruled after 1555 by “the Most Catholic of Kings,” Philip II of Spain. The North Sea port cities of the Low Countries had some limited freedoms and were places for both commercial and cultural exchange; ships arrived daily not only from other Hanseatic League like Danzig, but also from Florence, Venice and Genoa, the Americas and the Far Ea...
Post a Comment
Read more

“We have no poor among us”: From "Blue Bag" to e-Transfer

Through not unique or original to Menno Simons, the idea of watching and caring for fellow travellers on the journey of faith “where no one is allowed to beg” ( note 1 ) was a pillar of his teaching, and forms one of the most consistent threads in the Anabaptist–Mennonite story. In the decades before Mennonites settled in Russia they used the “Blue-Bag” to collect for the poor in Prussia. In 1723 Abraham Hartwich—an otherwise unsympathetic observer of Mennonites—noted that Mennonites in Prussia “do not allow their co-religionists to suffer want, but rather help them in their poverty from the so-called blue-bag, their fund for the poor” ( note 2 ). It is unclear when the “blue-bag tradition” changed? Similarly, in the early 1800s, two Lutheran observers—Georg Reiswitz and Friedrich Wadzeck—noted that the Mennonite care for their poor through annual free-will contributions was “exemplary” ( note 3 ). Moreover Reiswitz and Wadzeck describe a community stubbornly committed to each ot...
Post a Comment
Read more

Formidable Fräulein Marga Bräul (1919–2011)

Fräulein Bräul left an indelible mark on two generations of high school students in the Mennonite Colony of Fernheim, Paraguay. Former students and acquaintances recall that Marga Bräul demanded the highest effort and achievements of her students, colleagues and of herself—the kind of teacher you either love or hate but will never forget! In March 1947, Marga was offered a position at the Fernheim Secondary School ( Zentralschule ). A recent refugee to Paraguay from war-torn Europe, she taught mathematics, physics, and chemistry. In 1952, she was the only female faculty member ( note 1 ). Marga wedded a strong commitment to academics with a passion for quality arts and crafts. She provided extensive extra-curricular instruction to students in handiwork and was especially renowned for her artwork—which included painting and woodworking— end of year art exhibits with students, theatre sets, and festival decorations. Marga’s pedagogical philosophy was holistic; she told Mennonite ed...
Post a Comment
Read more

Catherine the Great’s 1763 Manifesto

“We must swarm our vast wastelands with people. I do not think that in order to achieve this it would be useful to compel our non-Christians to accept our faith--polygamy for example, is even more useful for the multiplication of the population. … "Russia does not have enough inhabitants, …but still possesses a large expanse of land, which is neither inhabited nor cultivated. … The fields that could nourish the whole nation, barely feeds one family..." – Catherine II (Note 1 ) “We perceive, among other things, that a considerable number of regions are still uncultivated which could easily and advantageously be made available for productive use of population and settlement. Most of the lands hold hidden in their depth an inexhaustible wealth of all kinds of precious ores and metals, and because they are well provided with forests, rivers and lakes, and located close to the sea for purpose of trade, they are also most convenient for the development and growth of many kinds ...
Post a Comment
Read more

“The way is finally open”—Russian Mennonite Immigration, 1922-23

In a highly secretive meeting in Ohrloff, Molotschna on February 7, 1922, leaders took a decision to work to remove the entire Mennonite population of some 100,000 people out of the USSR—if at all possible ( note 1 ). B.B. Janz (Ohrloff) and Bishop David Toews (Rosthern, SK) are remembered as the immigration leaders who made it possible to bring some 20,000 Mennonites from the Soviet Union to Canada in the 1920s ( note 2 ). But behind those final numbers were multiple problems. In August 1922, an appeal was made by leaders to churches in Canada and the USA: “The way is finally open, for at least 3,000 persons who have received permission to leave Russia … Two ships of the Canadian Pacific Railway are ready to sail from England to Odessa as soon as the cholera quarantine is lifted. These Russian [Mennonite] refugees are practically without clothing … .” ( Note 3 ) Notably at this point B. B. Janz was also writing Toews, saying that he was utterly exhausted and was preparing to ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ukraine Independence--Russian Aggression--German Interests (1918)

The semi-autonomous Ukrainian People's Republic was established shortly after Russia's February Revolution in 1917. Much was still fluid, however. After the October Bolshevik Revolution the Central Rada of Ukraine in Kyiv declared full state independence from the Russian Republic on January 22, 1918. The Ukrainian People's Republic negotiated an end to its participation in Great War, and on February 9, 1918 signed a protectorate treaty in Brest-Litovsk. On February 17, Ukraine appealed to Germany and Austria-Hungary for assistance to repel Russian Bolshevik “invaders,” to detach Ukraine from Russia, and to establish conditions of stability. The World War had not yet ended. Imperialist Germany was desperate for grain and natural resources from Ukraine, eager to end the war in the east while containing Russia, and determined to establish post-war markets for German goods, technologies and influence ( note 1 ). For its part the Russian Bolshevik regime was eager to save ...
Post a Comment
Read more

"In the Case of Extreme Danger" - Menno Pass and Refugee crisis, 1945-46

"In the Case of Extreme Danger 1. We are Russian-Mennonite refugees who are returning to Holland, the place of origin. The language is Low German. 2. The Dutch Mennonites there, Doopsgezinde , will take in all fellow-believing Mennonites from Russia who are in danger of compulsory repatriation. 3. The first stage of the journey is to Gronau in Westphalia. 4. As a precaution, purchase a ticket to an intermediate stop first. The last connecting station is Rheine. 5. Opposite Gronau is the Dutch city of Enschede, where you will cross the border. 6. On the border ask for Peter Dyck (Piter Daik), Mennonite Central Committee, Amsterdam, Singel 452. Peter Dyck (or his people) will distribute the relevant papers—“Menno Passes”--and provide further information. 7. Any other border points may also be crossed, with the necessary explanations (who, where to, Mennonites from Russia, Peter Dyck, M.C.C., etc.). The Dutch border Patrol is informed. 8. Here the whole matter must be h...
Post a Comment
Read more