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 How did the movement become so withdrawn--even "dour and unexciting,” according to one historian?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]).