"Should Holy Baptism be offered to Deaf-Mutes (1886)?”

In 1886 the General Conference of the Mennonite Congregations in Russia (elders and ministers) adopted the following resolution: “A deaf-mute who desires Holy Baptism may be baptized, providing he is not an idiot (blödsinnig), and an understanding of baptism is first introduced to him as far as possible” (note 1).

A. G. Ambarzumov, a Protestant Armenian who had been trained in Germany and Switzerland for teaching the deaf, started a small initiative in the Mennonite “Molotschna Settlement” in Ukraine/South Russia in the 1870s. After a difficult start, benefactors in the Molotschna embraced the idea of a larger institution for the deaf—the first such institution in South Russia--especially because of the demonstrable results produced in the lives of students.

“After only four months, Herr Ambarzumov could demonstrate encouraging results; the students were able to pronounce almost all vowels and consonants and speak and write some words" (note 2).

The institution's name--"Mary School for the Deaf" (Marien-Taubstummenschule) was chosen to commemorate the silver anniversary of the reign of Alexander II, and as a demonstration of Mennonite loyalty and willingness to contribute to the state. Alexander's wife was the German-bashing, Danish-born Russian Empress Maria Fjodorowna.

Similar training schools for the deaf were established during this time in England, Germany and the USA. For those motivated by faith “it was justified as providing access to the New Testament, the path of salvation,” equivalent to the “education of the ‘savages’ of the New World” (note 3). The private initiative in Molotschna was officially transferred to the General Conference of the Mennonite Congregations in Russia in 1884 under the oversight of the Molotschna Mennonite School Board.

After a second, well-attended public examination of deaf students in the Ohrloff Mennonite Church in 1886, “those who to this point had doubted the possibility that deaf-mutes could learn anything, were now convinced on the basis of these achievements" (note 4).

That same month in 1886 the General Conference of the Mennonite Congregations in Russia (elders and ministers) adopted the resolution above.

In 1905, its director proudly reported on three graduates ready for faith and life, who “now understand wherefore they live and recognize their responsibilities to God and their neighbour, and that one day they too will have to give an account before God for all they do or leave undone” (note 5). That year the school prepared for a fourth class of ten students—almost all from the larger Mennonite community.

What was the thinking of the times?

If persons can understand the gospel and also understand the call to discipleship, then they are "accountable," and need to/can make a decision for faith and baptism, or not. Until then Mennonites would have assumed that "deaf-mutes" cannot hear the gospel, they cannot read the New Testament, they cannot articulate a confession of their faith in word or in writing, and so they are like children--under God's care, of course, but not accountable for a decision of faith, for which a request to be baptized is the sign.

Notably in traditional Mennonite inheritance practice, deaf-mutes, as well as epileptics, the intellectually disabled, physically handicapped and the blind traditionally received a double-inheritance (note 6).

Addendum

Fast forward some decades. Mennonites lost control of all social institutions after the 1918 Communist Revolution, but the school remained a school for the deaf. These children however were murdered during German occupation. Ben Stobbe writes in his travel blog (2017):

“On the way to Tiege in the Orlovo area, we passed the memorial monument to the 131 deaf and mute children who were killed by the Nazis in WWII. It is a tribute to Ukrainians in this area in that they wanted a monument to remember the children. At the top of this monument is a bell that rings in the wind. Etched around and near top of the monument are children's faces. The chiming bell reminds us of the children.” (Note 7)

This is consistent with what we know otherwise about the Nazi regime: those born deaf were categorized as “defective” and “biologically inferior human material” and typically sterilized. Schools for the deaf were considered a product of Christian sentimentality in which “the greater the degree of idiocy, feeblemindedness, blindness, deafness or other physical handicap was, the greater the public expenditure for these biologically inferior people” (note 8). The singular goal of the Nazi "genetic health policy" was “to give back and maintain the health, resilience, and performance capacity of the German Volk”—and “no clear and rationally thinking fellow German national has ever doubted the legitimacy of racial legislation,” according to a rationale published for the ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche) in the Nazi paper read by Mennonites in Ukraine. The policy “has resulted not only in an increased birth rate and a considerable decline in unsuitable elements, but has also impacted, among other things, the crime statistics,” according to the unnamed author (note 9).

But for at least four decades Mennonites in Russia had embraced these so-called weaknesses as important for them as an Anabaptist-Mennonite community. On her death bed in 1884, the unwed estate heiress Helene Schröder willed 6,000 rubles to help establish the Mary School for the Deaf, 6,000 rubles to secure the future of the Ohrlof High School Library, and 6,000 to overseas mission (note 10).

Follow the money: passion for education, charitable work (“inner mission”), and foreign mission were all connected, and marked the self-identity and sense of worth of the larger Mennonite community in this era—including the baptism of those formerly thought to be blödsinnig.

---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Note 1: Heinrich Ediger, ed., Beschlüsse der von den geistlichen und anderen Vertretern der Mennonitengemeinden Rußlands abgehaltenen Konferenzen für die Jahren 1879 bis 1913 (Berdjansk: Ediger, 1914), 21, https://media.chortitza.org/pdf/Buch/MJ/MK1.pdf.

Note 2: Abraham Görz, “Kurzgefaßter Bericht über die Marienschule für Taubstumme in Blumenort in Südrußland,” in H. G. Mannhardt, ed., Jahrbuch der Altevangelischen Taufgesinnten oder Mennoniten-Gemeinden, 143–147 (Danzig, 1888), 145, https://books.google.ca/books?id=ok5FAQAAMAAJ&dq&fbclid. For more background information, cf. Margarita Dick, "'Marien- Taubstummenschule' in Tiege, Molotschna," https://chortitza.org/Buch/MDick.pdf.

Note 3: Jan Branson and Don Miller, Damned for their Difference. The Cultural Construction of Deaf People as ‘Disabled’ (Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press, 2002), 125f., https://books.google.ca/books?id=KBaFchM0dowC&dq.

Note 4: Görz, “Kurzgefaßter Bericht über die Marienschule für Taubstumme," 145.

Note 5: Johann Wiebe, “Werte Freunde!” Report, School for the Deaf, Tiege, July 1905. In Peter J. Braun Russian Mennonite Archive, file 3450, reel 75. From Robarts Library, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON.

Note 6: Peter M. Friesen, The Mennonite Brotherhood in Russia 1789–1910 (Winnipeg, MB: Christian, 1978), 809, https://archive.org/details/TheMennoniteBrotherhoodInRussia17891910/page/n845.

Note 7: From http://benstobbe.blogspot.com/2017/05/. One Mennonite doctor participated in the requested examination of these children before their killing; cf .Dmytro Myeshkov, “Mennonites in Ukraine before, during, and immediately after the Second World War,” in European Mennonites and the Holocaust, edited by Mark Jantzen and John D. Thiesen (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2020), 217f.

Note 8: Karl Lietz, “The Place of the School for the Deaf in the New Reich,” in Deaf People in Hitler’s Europe, edited by Donna F. Ryan and John S. Schuchman, 114–120 (Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press, 2002), 117, https://books.google.ca/books?id=8d56MtJWQ7sC&dq.

Note 9: “Schutz gegen Volkszerfall,” Ukraine Post, no. 8 (February 27, 1943), 4, https://libraria.ua/en/numbers/878/32422/.

Note 10: See editorial note (attached) to “Drei Landgüter mennonitischer Gutsbesitzer,” Mennonitische Rundschau (January 28, 1885), 2n., https://chortitza.org/kb/eklas114.pdf.

Comments

Russian and Prussian Mennonite Participants in “Racial-Science,” 1930

I n December 1929, some 3,885 Soviet Mennonites plus 1,260 Lutherans, 468 Catholics, 51 Baptists and seven Adventists were assisted by Germany to flee the Soviet Union. They entered German transit camps before resettlement in Canada, Brazil and Paraguay ( note 1 ) In the camps Russian Mennonites participated in a racial-biological study to measure their hereditary characteristics and “racial” composition and “blood purity” in comparison to Danzig-West Prussian, genetic cousins. In Germany in the last century, anthropological and medical research was horribly misused for the pseudo-scientific work referred to as “racial studies” (Rassenkunde). The discipline pre-dated Nazi Germany to describe apparent human differences and ultimately “to justify political, social and cultural inequality” ( note 2 ). But by 1935 a program of “racial hygiene” and eugenics was implemented with an “understanding that purity of the German Blood is the essential condition for the continued existence of the

“Operation Chortitza” – Resettler Camps in Danzig-West Prussia, 1943-44 (Part I)

In October 1943, some 3,900 Mennonite resettlers from “Operation Chortitza” entered the Gau of Danzig-West Prussia. They were transported by train via Litzmannstadt and brought to temporary camps in Neustadt (Danzig), Preußisch Stargard (Konradstein), Konitz, Kulm on the Vistula, Thorn and some smaller localities ( note 1 ). The Gau received over 11,000 resettlers from the German-occupied east zones in 1943. Before October some 3,000 were transferred from these temporary camps for permanent resettlement in order to make room for "Operation Chortitza" ( note 2 ). By January 1, 1944 there were 5,473 resettlers in the Danzig-West Prussian camps (majority Mennonite); one month later that number had almost doubled ( note 3 ). "Operation Chortitza" as it was dubbed was part of a much larger movement “welcoming” hundreds of thousands of ethnic Germans “back home” after generations in the east. Hitler’s larger plan was to reorganize peoples in Europe by race, to separate

Sesquicentennial: Proclamation of Universal Military Service Manifesto, January 1, 1874

One-hundred-and-fifty years ago Tsar Alexander II proclaimed a new universal military service requirement into law, which—despite the promises of his predecesors—included Russia’s Mennonites. This act fundamentally changed the course of the Russian Mennonite story, and resulted in the emigration of some 17,000 Mennonites. The Russian government’s intentions in this regard were first reported in newspapers in November 1870 ( note 1 ) and later confirmed by Senator Evgenii von Hahn, former President of the Guardianship Committee ( note 2 ). Some Russian Mennonite leaders were soon corresponding with American counterparts on the possibility of mass migration ( note 3 ). Despite painful internal differences in the Mennonite community, between 1871 and Fall 1873 they put up a united front with five joint delegations to St. Petersburg and Yalta to petition for a Mennonite exemption. While the delegations were well received and some options could be discussed with ministers of the Crown,

"Anti-Menno" Communist: David J. Penner (1904-1993)

The most outspoken early “Mennonite communist”—or better, “Anti-Menno” communist—was David Johann Penner, b. 1904. Penner was the son of a Chortitza teacher and had grown up Mennonite Brethren in Millerovo, with five religious services per week ( note 1 )! In 1930 with Stalin firmly in power, Penner pseudonymously penned the booklet entitled Anti-Menno ( note 2 ). While his attack was bitter, his criticisms offer a well-informed, plausible window on Mennonite life—albeit biased and with no intention for reform. He is a ethnic Mennonite writing to other Mennonites. Penner offers multiple examples of how the Mennonite clergy in particular—but also deacons, choir conductors, Sunday School teachers, leaders of youth or women’s circles—aligned themselves with the exploitative interests of industry and wealth. Extreme prosperity for Mennonite industrialists and large landowners was achieved with low wages and the poverty of their Russian /Ukrainian workers, according to Penner. Though t

High Crimes and Misdemeanors: Mennonite Murders, Infanticide, Rapes and more

To outsiders, the Mennonite reality in South Russia appeared almost utopian—with their “mild and peaceful ethos.” While it is easy to find examples of all the "holy virtues" of the Mennonite community, only when we are honest about both good deeds and misdemeanors does the Russian Mennonite tradition have something authentic to offer—or not. Rudnerweide was one of a few Molotschna villages with a Mennonite brewery and tavern , which in turn brought with it life-style lapses that would burden the local elder. For example, on January 21, 1835, the Rudnerweide Village Office reported that Johann Cornies’s sheep farm manager Heinrich Reimer, as well as Peter Friesen and an employed Russian shepherd, came into the village “under the influence of brandy,” and: "…at the tavern kept by Aron Wiens, they ordered half a quart of brandy and shouted loudly as they drank, banged their glasses on the table. The tavern keeper objected asking them to settle down, but they refused and

Mennonite Heritage Week in Canada and the Russländer Centenary (2023)

In 2019, the Canadian Parliament declared the second week in September as “Mennonite Heritage Week.” The bill and statements of support recognized the contributions of Mennonites to Canadian society ( note 1 ). 2019 also marked the centenary of a Canadian Order in Council which, at their time of greatest need, classified Mennonites as an “undesirable” immigrant group: “… because, owing to their peculiar customs, habits, modes of living and methods of holding property, they are not likely to become readily assimilated or to assume the duties and responsibilities of Canadian citizenship within a reasonable time.” ( Pic ) With a change of government, this order was rescinded in 1922 and the doors opened for some 23,000 Mennonites to immigrate from the Soviet Union to Canada. The attached archival image of the Order in Council hangs on the office wall of Canadian Senator Peter Harder—a Russländer descendant. 2023 marks the centennial of the arrival of the first Russländer immigrant groups

Turning Weapons into Waffle Irons!

Turning Weapons into Waffle Irons: Heart-Shaped Waffles and a smooth talking General In 1874 with Mennonite immigration to North America in full swing, the Tsar sent General Eduard von Totleben to the colonies to talk the remaining Mennonites out of leaving ( note 1 ). He came with the now legendary offer of alternative service. Totleben made presentations in Mennonite churches and had many conversations in Mennonite homes. Decades later the women still recalled how fond Totleben was of Mennonite heart-shaped waffles. He complemented the women saying, “How beautiful are the hearts of Mennonites!,” and he joked about how “much Mennonites love waffles ( Waffeln ), but not weapons ( Waffen )” ( note 2 )! His visit resulted in an extensive reversal of opinion and the offer was welcomed officially by the Molotschna and Chortitza Colony ministerials. And upon leaving, the general was gifted with a poem by Bernhard Harder ( note 3 ) and a waffle iron ( note 4 ). Harder was an influen

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

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

Blessed are the Shoe-Makers: Brief History of Lost Soles

A collection of simple artefacts like shoes can open windows onto the life and story of a people. Below are a few observations about shoes and boots, or the lack thereof, and their connection to the social and cultural history of Russian Mennonites. Curiously Mennonites arrived in New Russia shoe poor in 1789, and were evacuated as shoe poor in 1943 as when their ancestors arrived--and there are many stories in between. The poverty of the first Flemish elder in Chortitza Bernhard Penner was so great that he had only his home-made Bastelschuhe in which to serve the Lord’s Supper. “[Consequently] four of the participating brethren banded together to buy him a pair of boots which one of the [Land] delegates, Bartsch, made for him. The poor community desired with all its heart to partake of the holy sacrament, but when they remembered the solemnity of these occasions in their former homeland, where they dressed in their Sunday best, there was loud sobbing.” ( Note 1 ) In the 1802 C

History of the Russian Mennonites

Search This Blog