Too lazy to go to church? You could be fined!

In New Russia church attendance for foreign colonists was obligatory.
Colonists were required to take the religious commandments and teachings of their tradition to heart, and to follow them scrupulously.
If a colonist was uninterested or “lazy” with regard to church attendance, there could be trouble. First they received a warning; after the third offence the colonist could be fined. After that, the fine is doubled, and the person would be required to do a full day of community service as punishment (note 1).

This policy for foreign settlers was enforced. The circular distributed to the German Lutheran and Catholic villages of the Sarata Colony, Bessarabia (near Crimea) in 1844 and 1845 is highly detailed (see below). The document contents are included in the historical collection of Mennonite leader Benjamin Unruh (note 2).

In the circular letter from the Sarata district mayor, the policy above is quoted with some angry words about how lazy and disobedient people had been in the past year (1845). Church attendance was sometimes very pitiful in Sarata, with only 3 to 6 adult worshipers. On one Sunday, 4 wagons passed the pastor going in the other direction! To address this, the district office chose to forbid anyone from entering or leaving the colony after 8 am on Sunday.

For the Mennonite colonies no similar document on church attendance has been identified yet; however we know that the Guardianship Committee for Foreign Colonists intervened in Mennonite church affairs on more than a few occasions. Under Johann Cornies, chairman of the powerful Agricultural Society, a church elder was disposed and his congregation dismantled (note 3).

In another case, Guardianship Committee President von Hahn and Cornies pressured three elders and fourteen ministers to sign a letter drafted by Cornies’ office declaring a new elder “unworthy of his office and demanding him not to officiate any longer.” The offending Elder Heinrich Wiens was to be removed for resettlement to Siberia, but managed to flee to Prussia after almost three months house arrest in the German village of Prischib (note 4).

   The state's expectation of the various non-Orthodox religious institutions was to instill moral behaviour and social discipline to their own people, which would in turn guarantee public order. The state sponsored these goals, for example, with generous financial assistance for the construction of the first Molotschna church buildings, as in Rudnerweide (10,000 Rubles Banko; note 5).
   Robert Crews’ analysis is correct, I think:
“Imperial confessional identities were reshaped through the pursuit of religious goals within the framework of tsarist laws and institutions. … Police intervention on behalf of the state and true religion bound … non-Orthodox [faiths] to the tsarist political order, transforming both.” (Note 6)
   The larger goal (of which the fines are only one part) was to guide the community (e.g., the Mennonite community) to faithfully remake itself and promote “new visions of religious orthodoxy” while—if we use Crews’ lens—“deepening their integration in, and subordination to, the expanding institutions of the empire” (note 7).
   It is helpful to see the actions of Johann Cornies from this perspective: his role was to implant Mennonitism successfully into the state; in turn, the state functioned as a guardian of Mennonite orthodoxy—e.g., as model people, as a light on a hill, etc., arguably consistent with the tradition.
   There are many examples of the state wanting Mennonites to become better, truer Mennonites (and the same for German Lutherans, for example). The “confessional, imperial state” understood itself as the protector of true religion, and when necessary addressed threats “from within the camp of believers themselves. Rather than disrupt imperial rule, the pursuit of [e.g., Mennonite, Lutheran or Islamic] orthodoxy formed an essential foundation of tsarist state-building on the southern frontiers of the empire” (note 8)—using Crews’ language.

Some extreme forms of discipline—Siberian exile—remained a punitive option for religious dissidents even after legal reforms in 1861 (note 9). The early Mennonite Brethren secessionists were threatened with this possibility. According to State Counsellor Busch “… when Molotschna Mennonites were asked what should be done with the sectarians [Mennonite Brethren], they answered” (consistent with Russian law and precedent) “that the only option is to banish the leaders from the Russian empire, and to send those ensnared by them to the outer regions of the empire, to settle them on the Amur River or in the Caucasus.” Some were imprisoned locally—a preferred strategy in Chortitza—and a few banished beyond the empire; those who returned were imprisoned in Siberia until they “opened their hearts to the voice of truth and recanted from their errors” (note 10).

In these examples it is not a stretch to speak of “imperial Mennonitism,” with the Tsar as patron and guardian.

---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Note 1: “Extract from Domestic Adjustment Administration of New-Russian Foreign Colonies, Sec. 1.1: On the Religious Duties of the Colonists,” Konrad Keller, The German Colonies in South Russia: 1804 to 1904: Volume I and Volume II, trans. A. Becker (Lincoln, NB: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 1968; 1973), 52; GER: Die deutschen Kolonien in Südrussland, vol. 1 (Odessa: Stadelmeier, 1905), 61, https://books.google.com/books?id=YwvvjnJOENUC&pg=PR1#v=onepage&q&f=false.
Note 2: “An die Schulzengerichte des Sarataer Gebietsamtes von Sarataer Gebietsamt, July 31, 1846 [?],” in Benjamin H. Unruh Collection, Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace. From Mennonite Library and Archives--Bethel College, B. H. Unruh Collection MS. 295, Folder 14. https://mla.bethelks.edu/archives/ms_295/folder_14/SKMBT_C35107061313230_0030.jpg.
Note 3: See previous posts, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/01/religious-toleration-in-new-russia-and.html.
Note 4: H. Neufeld, “Report Regarding the Exile of Jakob Warkentin, Altona, Molotschna,” translated by Ben Hoeppner. 13, 14, 15 [15; 17] https://mla.bethelks.edu/archives/sa_2_1171/; Tagebuch von Jakob Wall 1824–1859. Part II. Jacob Wall fonds vol. 1086, file 5a. From Mennonite Heritage Centre, Winnipeg, MB, Part II, June 3, 1847, https://chortitza.org/Eich/WallOr2.htm. Further details in Peter M. Friesen, The Mennonite Brotherhood in Russia 1789–1910 (Winnipeg, MB: Christian, 1978), https://archive.org/details/TheMennoniteBrotherhoodInRussia17891910/.

Note 5: "Rudnerweide," in Margarete Woltner, ed., Die Gemeindeberichte von 1848 der deutschen Siedlungen am Schwarzen Meer (Leipzig: Hirzel, 1941), 138, https://media.chortitza.org/pdf/kb/woltner.pdf.

Note 6: Robert D. Crews, “Empire and the Confessional State: Islam and Religious Politics in Nineteenth-Century Russia,” American Historical Review 108, no. 1 (2003), 50–83; 83. See also Crews, For Prophet and Tsar: Islam and Empire in Russia and Central Asia (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009). Also: Paul Werth, The Tsar’s foreign faiths. Toleration and the fate of religious freedom in imperial Russia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).
Note 7: Crews, “Empire and Confessional State,” 54.
Note 8: Crews, “Empire and Confessional State,” 57.

Note 9: Cf. A. Rasin, editer and translator, Sammlung der Gesetze und Verordnungen der Staatsregierung bezüglich der Organisation der Lebensverhältnisse der auf Kronsländereien angesiedelten Landbesitzer (bisherigen Kolonisten) (St. Petersburg, 1871), par. 54.5, 37, 39, https://media.chortitza.org/pdf/vpetk232.pdf. Cf. also D. Myeshkov, Die Schawarzmeerdeutschen und ihre Welten: 1781–1871 (Essen: Klartext, 2008) 426–435. Further details in Friesen, Mennonite Brotherhood in Russia.

Note 10: E. H. Busch, ed., Ergänzungen der Materialien zur Geschichte und Statistik des Kirchen- und Schulwesens der Ev.-Luth. Gemeinden in Russland, vol. 1 (St. Petersburg: Gustav Haessel, 1867), 259f., https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_V9IMAQAAMAAJ.

---

To cite this post: Arnold Neufeldt-Fast, “Too lazy to go to church? You could be fined!,” History of the Russian Mennonites (blog), June 15, 2023, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/06/too-lazy-to-go-to-church-you-could-be.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...

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...

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...

School Reports, 1890s

Mennonite memoirs typically paint a golden picture of schools in the so-called “golden era” of Mennonite life in Russia. The official “Reports on Molotschna Schools: 1895/96 and 1897/98,” however, give us a more lackluster and realistic picture ( note 1 ). What do we learn from these reports? Many schools had minor infractions—the furniture did not correspond to requirements, there were insufficient book cabinets, or the desks and benches were too old and in need of repair. The Mennonite schoolhouses in Halbstadt and Rudnerweide—once recognized as leading and exceptional—together with schools in Friedensruh, Fürstenwerder, Franzthal, and Blumstein were deemed to be “in an unsatisfactory state.” In other cases a new roof and new steps were needed, or the rooms too were too small, too dark, too cramped, or with moist walls. More seriously in some villages—Waldheim, Schönsee, Fabrikerwiese, and even Gnadenfeld, well-known for its educational past—inspectors recorded that pupils “do not ...

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...

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 ...

What does it cost to settle a Refugee? Basic without Medical Care (1930)

In January 1930, the Mennonite Central Committee was scrambling to get 3,885 Mennonites out of Germany and settled somewhere fast. These refugees had fled via Moscow in December 1929, and Germany was willing only to serve as first transit stop ( note 1 ). Canada was very reluctant to take any German-speaking Mennonites—the Great Depression had begun and a negative memory of war resistance still lingered. In the end Canada took 1,344 Mennonites and the USA took none born in Russia. Paraguay was the next best option ( note 2 ). The German government preferred Brazil, but Brazil would not guarantee freedom from military service, which was a problem for American Mennonite financiers. There were already some conservative "cousins" from Manitoba in Paraguay who had negotiated with the government and learned through trial and error how to survive in the "Green Hell" of the Paraguayan Chaco. MCC with the assistance of a German aid organization purchased and distribute...

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 ...

History of the Russian Mennonites

Search This Blog