Frisian or Flemish, sprinkling or pouring?

In Russia, there were two groups of Mennonite settlers—the Flemish and the Frisians. Land scout Jacob Höppner was Flemish, and his partner Johann Bartsch was Frisian—that flipped later.

If you looked closely, the Frisian men in the 1820s wore long beards and their clothing had buttons; the Flemish were more conservative and only used hooks (note 1).

In church the differences were more pronounced. When baptizing, the Frisians sprinkled, whereas the Flemish poured. The latter required two character witnesses before baptism (note 2).

Before the first settlers left for Russia in 1788, the Frisian and Flemish Mennonite elders still had not settled the issue of intermarriage—in some cases requiring rebaptism.

The Flemish received communion from the elders sitting; the Frisians standing, followed with footwashing (note 3). The Frisians received the communion bread from the elder on a clean handkerchief and ate with caution and respect; the Flemish did not have that practice (note 4).

In both the Frisian and Flemish congregations “all knelt down in mental [silent] prayer” at the start of worship (note 5). The Flemish ministers sat and read a sermon; the Frisian ministers stood and were more free when preaching (note 6).

We know that in Prussia the Flemish did not sing at the communion service but sat quietly until the sermon began and departed “unsung” as well. Frisian Mennonites however sang “psalms and other Lutheran hymns,” Abraham Hartwich described in the early 1700s (note 7).

Relationships were hardly friendly between the Mennonite groups. Hartwich—a generally unsympathetic observer—noted that the Flemish found the Frisians to be too loose and referred to them as dirt- or manure-carts (Dreckwagen). Why? Because they accepted any kind of Mennonite.

Not to be undone, the Frisians referred disparagingly to their more rigorous Flemish brethren as “Münsterites,” for their rigorous and frequent application of the ban (note 8).

In 1819, a significant group from the newly created (1808) Prussian “United Frisian and Flemish Mennonite Church” arrived in Russia and established the Rudnerweide congregation on the eastern edge of the Molotschna.

The others in Molotschna deemed the group as Frisian; their push for ecumenical renewal, mission networks was foreign. The Flemish viewed their materials as innovations which were ultimately destructive to the fabric of Mennonite faith and life.

The rift came to a head in 1826 when Frisian Rudnerweide Elder Görz was asked by the elder-elect of the large Molotschna Flemish Church, Bernhard Fast, to preside over his ordination—by-passing the Flemish elder in Chortitza, and signaling a more united Flemish-Frisian Mennonite vision. In reaction, four ministers and three-quarters of the Flemish congregation left the newly ordained elder and church in Ohrloff to form the “Pure Flemish Church” (Reinflämische Gemeinde) or “Large Church,” led by Jacob Warkentin (note 9).

In the Flemish tradition, only the elder—not the preachers—were ordained with the laying on of hands (note 10).

The divisions and misunderstandings between the Flemish and Frisian Mennonites in Russia were largely healed by 1853 with the republishing of the 1660 “United Flemish, Frisian, and High German Anabaptist-Mennonite Confession” (“Rudnerweide Confession”)—just in time for the new divide between the secessionist Mennonite Brethren and the now “old church.”

The differences between the Flemish and Frisians ceased to be geographical or ethnic descriptors already in the 1580s. Even then the terms described two different parties in the church with a mix of ethnic backgrounds (note 11).

---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Illustration: Dirk Philips (1504-1568), the first elder of the Danzig Mennonites. Philips’ strong views on church discipline and the ban for the creation of a pure church contributed to the growing differences between Flemish and Frisian factions. His efforts to mend differences proved to be unsuccessful. Picture source: https://hdl.handle.net/11245/3.19322.

Note 1: Tobias Voth report copied in The New Evangelical Magazine, and Theological Review [London], 10 (March 1824) 91-92. https://books.google.ca/books?id=szoEAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA91#v=onepage&q&f=false. The earlier traditions around beards and clothing changed over time in Prussia; cf. Hermann G. Mannhardt, Die Danziger Mennonitengemeinde. Ihre Entstehung und ihre Geschichte von 1569–1919 (Danzig, 1919), 111, https://archive.org/details/diedanzigermenno00mannuoft/page/n129/mode/2up?q=1808.

Note 2: "Ein alter Brauch," Mennonitische Blätter 59, no. 1 (1912), 5, https://mla.bethelks.edu/gmsources/newspapers/Mennonitische%20Blaetter/1912/1912-01d.JPG.

Note 3: Ibid., and also Voth, The New Evangelical Magazine.

Note 4: Abraham Hartwich, Geographisch-Historische Landes-Beschribung [sic] derer dreyen im Pohlnischen Preußen liegenden Werdern (Königsberg, 1723), 291, http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/resolve/display/bsb10000874.html. See previous post, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/01/communion-and-white-handkerchief.html.

Note 5: William Allen, Life of William Allen: With Selections from His Correspondence, vol. 1. (Philadelphia: Longstreth, 1847), 402, https://books.google.ca/books?id=bLUmXra1oWcC.

Note 6: "Ein alter Brauch," 5.

Note 7: Hartwich, Landes-Beschribung, 290.

Note 8: Cf. Hartwich, Landes-Beschribung, 279. See previous post: https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/01/munsterite-ultimate-mennonite-insult.html.

Note 9: Cf. letter from Molotschna elders and teacher Tobias Voth to Prussian church leaders, in Peter M. Friesen, Mennonite Brotherhood in Russia, 1789–1910 (Winnipeg, MB: Christian, 1978), 135-141; esp. 137, https://archive.org/details/TheMennoniteBrotherhoodInRussia17891910/.

Note 10: Friesen, Mennonite Brotherhood in Russia, 50f.

Note 11: For more on the early beginnings of both groups, see GAMEO https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Flemish_Mennonites, and https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Frisian_mennonites.

---

To cite this post: Arnold Neufeldt-Fast, "Frisian or Flemish, sprinkling or pouring?," History of the Russian Mennonites (blog), May 29, 2023, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/05/frisian-or-flemish-sprinkling-or-pouring.html.

Comments

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 ...

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...

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...

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...

More Royal News! Mennonites give gifts of “Oxen, Butter, Ducks, Hens & Cheese” to new King (1772)

What do Mennonites offer a new king? The ritual ceremonies of homage to a new European king—as we see on TV these days--are ancient. Exactly 250 years yesterday, Frederick the Great became king over Mennonites in the Vistula River Delta where most of our ancestors lived. Here is how that played out. On May 31, 1772, Heinrich Donner was elected elder of the Orlofferfelde Mennonite Church, 25 km north of Marienburg Castle in Polish-Prussia; thankfully he kept a diary ( note 1 ). Only a few months later the weak Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth collapsed and was partitioned by powerful, land-hungry neighbours: Austria, Prussia and Catherine the Great’s empire. In the preceding decades Mennonites had lived with significant autonomy, felt secure under the Polish crown and could appeal to the king for protection . Now some 2,638 Mennonite families were under Prussian rule. Frederick II took possession of his new lands on September 13, and then invited four persons of nobility plus clergy from ...

Vaccinations in Chortitza and Molotschna, beginning in 1804

Vaccination lists for Chortitza Mennonite children in 1809 and 1814 were published prior to the COVID-19 pandemic with little curiosity ( note 1 ). However during the 2020-22 pandemic and in a context in which some refused to vaccinate for religious belief, the historic data took on new significance. Ancestors of some of the more conservative Russian Mennonite groups—like the Reinländer or the Bergthalers or the adult children of land delegate Jacob Höppner—were in fact vaccinating their infants and toddlers against small pox over two hundred years ago ( note 2 ). Also before the current pandemic Ukrainian historian Dmytro Myeshkov brought to light other archival materials on Mennonites and vaccination. The material below is my summary and translation of the relevant pages of Myeshkov’s massive 2008 volume on Black Sea German and their Worlds, 1781 to 1871 (German only; note 3 ). Myeshkov confirms that Chortitza was already immunizing its children in 1804 when their District Offic...

Molotschna: The final months, Summer 1943

These photos are from German propaganda material filmed in Molotschna (called "Halbstadt") in 1943—just a few months before the evacuation from Ukraine and trek to German-annexed Poland (Warthegau). Not all of the film is of the Mennonite settlement, however, but much of it is. Below are some frames from the film. The edited shorter version is of higher quality and designed as propaganda to be consumed by Germans in the Reich and to secure their approval . The scenes are marked by cleanliness, orderliness and discipline. There is economic activity, a model Kindergarten, and always happy ethnic German people in the newly occupied territories. A predominantly Mennonite Cavalry Regiment (Waffen-SS) guarding Ukrainian and Russian workers is also highlighted. This hard to see and disturbing. Anything that may have been good here for Mennonites meant enslavement, hunger and death for untold numbers of others. Two versions of the film are available: Shorter (edited for l...

German Village on the Dnieper: Occupation Propaganda Photos. Chortitza, 1943

The following propaganda photos are of the Mennonites community in Chortitz, Ukraine during German occupation in World War II. German armies reached the Mennonite villages on the west bank of the Dnieper River on August 17, 1941. The photos below were taken almost two years later. However the war was already turning, and within two months the trek out of Ukraine would begin. The photographs are accompanied by an article about the Low-German speakers of Chortitza for a readership in the Reich ( note 1 ). The author repeatedly draws on the myth of one-sided German pioneer accomplishments abroad: “The first settlers found the land desolate and empty,” the reader is told, and were “left to fend for themselves in a foreign environment” where with German diligence, order and cleanliness they thrived. The article correctly recognizes the great losses of the ethnic Germans under Bolshevism--as if to convince readers that the war is a shared burden of all Germans, and which is now payin...

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...

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 ...

History of the Russian Mennonites

Search This Blog