1843: London Bible Society, revival and School reform

In 1843 the Russian Mennonite colonies received a visitation from the London Bible Society. It was the same year that Charles Dickens published "A Christmas Carol" about the miser Ebenezer Scrooge and his conversion after the visitation of three Christmas ghosts! Dickens was not happy that the Church’s overseas mission budget was so large, while in his view they neglected the poor on their own doorsteps in London.

Ebenezer was in fact a common British name of the era. A few years earlier the Molotschna was visited by a delegation from the British and Foreign Bible Society. The British agent, Reverend Ebeneezer Henderson, convinced Molotschna elders and Johann Cornies to establish their own Bible Society. "As they live on habits of friendship and intimacy with their Tatar neighbours, and one of their principal men [Cornies] speaks the Tatar with fluency, we furnished him with a good supply of New Testaments, and other portions of Scripture, in that language, that they might commence their operations without delay” (note 1).

After the 1843 visit of the London Bible Society to Russia, a report was published in the Boston-based Baptist paper Christian Watchman about the Mennonites (pic). Neither the editor nor the delegate were well-informed or well-disposed towards Mennonites. The editor prefaced the report with the following: “The state of the people [Russian Mennonites] seems lamentable enough, but we know they are not quite so bad as they are here described [in the report]. There is a considerable number of Mennonites also in Canada [Waterloo; Swiss], who are, we fear, in a state bordering on heathen darkness” (note 2).

The delegate’s impressions of the Chortitza Colony were downright dismal.

“I was very sorry to observe the total want of religious instruction in the schools; and as far as I could learn, it is almost totally neglected in the family circle. When the children come to a certain age, it is considered as a mere matter of course, that they must be immersed, and be added to the church; till that time they are seldom to be found in the House of Prayer. What a cold-hearted Christianity prevails throughout these colonies, though the people are otherwise kind, even to a proverb, in this part of the country.”

The same visitor found that the Molotschna was "in no better a state, as it regards religion." However he was very much impressed with the spiritual leadership of a few church leaders and Cornies.

“In the Moloskna, however, there are a few zealous for the glory of God; who maintain spiritual worship, both in public and private; who labor for the spiritual welfare of their children, both in their schools and in the family circle. Religion prospers under the care of these devoted servants of the Lord. They have one very able man among them, by whose labors, partly, this pleasing state of things has been brought about. They have their missionary meetings regularly; at which two or more of their preachers address the meeting and read extracts from missionary intelligence, which they endeavour regularly to receive. I was present at one of their missionary meetings; it was opened by prayer and praise, and was concluded in a like manner. They have also a Temperance Society among them, which is doing good. Among these good friends, I found the preachers most willing to forward the work of Scripture distribution; and I was happy to be able to give them a supply, of which they were greatly in want. May the Lord bless the labors of these good men, for the benefit of all the surrounding colonies.”

Were the differences so stark? 1843 also marks the arrival of Eduard Wüst in the region--a university-trained Württemberg Pietist minister installed by the separatist Evangelical Brethren Church in New Russia. Wüst was invited regularly to the Molotschna as guest speaker. “Revivals broke out” in multiple Molotschna villages, including Rudnerweide and Gnadenfeld on the eastern edge of the colony (note 3).

In 1843 the Guardianship Committee for Foreign Settlers in New Russia also placed all Molotschna village schools under the jurisdiction of the Agricultural Society and Johann Cornies, its appointed chairman-for-life. This impacted the ethos and direction of the colony. Despite some opposition, Cornies was given full responsibility and control of implementing school reforms. In his trademark style, Cornies briskly released less competent and less diligent teachers, introduced village level school boards to promote improved supervision, management, administration and leadership in local schools; defined parental obligations and imposed fines for truancy; standardized the curriculum; organized conferences as requested by some progressive teachers; and mandated standard large-sized school buildings with appropriate equipment.

Cornies worked closely with Heinrich Heese, head of the Agricultural Society School, to formalize school constitution or “rule” in which the school together with the home have the key formational responsibilities towards the realms of both “church and state.” Viewed from the one side, the school is “situated between living room and church (Kirche), as a supporting institution (Hilfs-Anstalt) of training in the home for the preliminary introduction into the community (Gemeine) of the Lord.” Viewed from the other side, the school is “situated between living room and state as a supporting institution of training in the home for the preliminary introduction into civil society” (note 4). School boards were to be composed of “secular members as well as well as spiritual (geistliche) members, since schools are institutions of the church and the state” (note 5).

When the elders and ministers were informed that they were to have oversight of religion classes alone, as was the case in Prussia, “one of the elders, apparently completely distraught, shouted out: ‘everything is being taken from out of our hands’” (note 6). Yet in the view of one senior, “until now the elders could have had—should have had—control over the schools, but never actually had it in hand. Not only did they not concern themselves about it, but they actively worked against and were hostile toward every private initiative in support of schools” (note 7).

Schools were now explicitly recast as “institutes of spiritual salvation and healing for all peoples,” and the teacher’s “costly and sacred duty [was] to model a spiritual walk not only before his schoolchildren, but also before the whole community,” and “to keep his profession holy” (note 8).

What was the impact of these three “visitations” of 1843, i.e., London Bible Society, Eduard Wüst and the Guardianship Committee with its new mandate? Was there a Dickens-like "conversion“ in the Mennonite soul taking place? I will not make that judgement, nor argue that 1843 is a particularly important anniversary year for Russian Mennonites. These visitations however offer a colourful picture of the social, cultural and religious evolution of Russian Mennonite life some forty years after the now aging generation of settlers first arrived on the east bank of the Molotschna River.

---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Note 1: Ebeneezer Henderson, Biblical Researches and Travels in Russia (James Nisbet, 1826), 386, https://books.google.ca/books?id=8yFaAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA386#v=onepage&q&f=false. See previous post (forthcoming).

Note 2/pic: “Mennonites in Russia,” Christian Watchman 24, no. 27 (July 7, 1843), 1 (Dickens photo: Wikipedia)

Note 3: Abraham Kröker, Pfarrer Eduard Wüst. Der große Erweckungsprediger in den deutschen Kolonien Südrußlands (Spat, Crimea: Self-published, ca. 1903), 77; 80, https://chortitza.org/Pis/Kroeker.pdf. See also previous post, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/01/eduard-wust-second-menno.html.

Note 4: Johann Cornies, “Schulgesetz: von der Einrichtung des Schulwesens, oder von der Schulordnung, oder Schulverfassung,” 1842? [1843 -ANF], 3.1 (emphasis in original), in Peter J. Braun Russian Mennonite Archive, 1803-1920, reel 32, file 742, Robarts Library, University of Toronto.

Note 5: “Schulgesetz,” par. 2.3.

Note 6: In D. H. Epp, Johann Cornies: Züge aus seinem Leben und Wirken [1909] (Rosthern, SK: Echo, 1946), 57, https://media.chortitza.org/pdf/?file=1dok15.pdf.

Note 7: Franz Isaac, Die Molotschnaer Mennoniten. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte derselben (Halbstadt, Taurien: H. J. Braun, 1908), 278, https://archive.org/details/die-molotschnaer-mennoniten-editablea; ET: https://www.mharchives.ca/download/3573/.

Note 8: “Schulgesetz,” par. 3.1,3.

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