Shaky Beginings as a Faith Community

With basic physical needs addressed, in 1805 Chortitza pioneers were ready to recover their religious roots and to pass on a faith identity. They requested a copy of Menno Simons’ writings from the Danzig mother-church especially for the young adults, “who know only what they hear,” and because “occasionally we are asked about the founder whose name our religion bears” (note 1).

The Anabaptist identity of this generation—despite the strong Mennonite publications in Prussia in the late eighteenth century—was uninformed and very thin.

Settlers first arrived in Russia 1788-89 without ministers or elders. Settlers had to be content with sharing Bible reflections in Low German dialect or a “service that consisted of singing one song and a sermon that was read from a book of sermons” written by the recently deceased East Prussian Mennonite elder Isaac Kroeker (note 2).

In the first months of settlement, Chortitza Mennonites wrote church leaders in Prussia: 

“We cordially plead with you to help us as soon as possible—otherwise it looks like everyone will go astray, as the children of Israel did long ago when they turned from the Lord their God and had no leaders. So we too; we lack leaders and rulers, especially in spiritual matters.” (Note 3)

Multiple letters were sent to Prussian elders over the next years. Settlers expressed astonishment that they had been abandoned like “orphans” and “sheep in a foreign land,” in need of a “leader and ruler in spiritual matters” and a “physician” of the soul—especially for the “youth” (note 4).

In one letter, settlers reported that they had twelve couples waiting to be married—the young but also the newly widowed—and requested minimally “a wedding sermon, a sermon that would be suitable for a meeting at which church members were released or readmitted for disciplinary reasons, two [Bible] concordances, several song books and several copies of their confession of faith. They also requested that an elder be sent to them soon because they could not observe the Lord’s Supper without him” (note 5).

The Prussian ministerial was exceedingly slow to respond to correspondence from settlers and naïve about leadership possibilities—even thinking that perhaps the group never wanted an elder from outside their own settlement (note 6).

When the Frisian group appointed an elder, he was reported to be woefully inappropriate for the role and “provoked turbulence … just as he did [in Prussia],” according to the Prussian elder (note 7).

Before Prussian Mennonites left for Russia, land agent Georg Trappe confirmed that from his perspective everything was well prepared except that the clergy had not yet organized their strategy. Trappe pleaded with the Prussian group that they should make “every effort to organize good preachers (Lehrer) and shepherds of your souls, who will be concerned for the salvation of your souls and for the piety of your walk of life, so that you will also let your light shine in Russia before the people, that they may see your good works, and glorify your heavenly Father” (note 8).

The elders in Prussia had also assumed with Trappe that there would be “some mangy sheep in the herd, namely crude trouble-makers, where wisdom and faithful oversight in the service and work of the Lord would be necessary” (note 9). But this was precisely the role of the elder as articulated in the hymnal’s ordination liturgy:

"In order that the Lord’s commandments are kept holy and pure, [the elder must] eradicate the weeds that desolate the church; see that the flock is maintained in peace and unity at all times, prevent squabbles and quarrels, punish the despisers, remove all annoyances, and as an alert watchman, stand manly before the rift" (note 10).

David Cornelius Epp (1750-1802) arrived in Chortitza in 1792—three years after the first settlers—and “volunteered” to be elected elder, though he lacked the confidence of land scouts Höppner and Bartsch and of a significant minority in the community.

Epp’s first year as elder did not go well (note 11); it was detailed in a lengthy letter of formal complaint dated September 1793 to elders in Danzig and Prussia and endorsed by nineteen signatories. Epp was accused of exorbitant expenses, a lack of transparency and fraud with colony monies. Congregational members felt they had no other recourse than to issue a formal complaint to the governor regarding 1,129 rubles.

Epp had removed a preacher from office who dared challenge him, and “when matters are to be discerned in membership meetings, this seldom occurs in peace, but rather with so much fighting, quarrelling, noise, and yelling, that it is difficult to imagine if you have not seen it. … The Mennonite teachings have often been pushed far aside, actually most of the time,” according to the letter writers, including Höppner and Bartsch.

The elder’s leadership was responsible for “causing dissension, hate and strife and the like,” and the writers even compared Epp and his supporters with the militant, theocratic Anabaptist “Münsterites” of the 16th century! Not only was Epp a “fraudster” and a “liar,” who “seldom has as much money as he is able of spending,” he also drank heavily on the trek and was so intoxicated in Dubrovna that “he fell down the stairs,” according to the letter. The protesters also reminded the Prussian ministerial of Epp’s past, of having purchased stolen grain in Danzig and of not paying his debts before emigrating—even though he arrived with cash. In Mennonite tradition elders are chosen for life, but the Höppner group appealed to have Epp defrocked.

The letter of complaint to elders in Danzig and Prussia was both a cry of distress and statement of pious concern.

Epp was quick to respond and heightened the tension even more. “The colony also wants nothing to do with them,” Epp told church leadership in Prussia about Bartsch and Höppner, piling them in with those “quarrelling and divisive spirits” in the community, those “with disordered minds, disruptive, irreconcilable, and intent on wreaking havoc” (note 12).

The neglect of call and office by the Prussian ministerial to prepare, identify, mentor, ordain and send a fitting elder for the overwhelming needs of their daughter church in Russia was a direct and major cause of the near collapse of the Chortitza colony in its first decade.

Finally in 1794, six years after the first group left for Russia, an elder and minister were sent from Prussia to bring order in the community (note 13).

            ---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

--- Notes---

Note 1: Jacob Wienss, “Ein Chortitzer Brief aus dem Jahre 1805. Zur Frühgeschichte der Ansiedlung altpreußischer Mennoniten in Südrußland,” Mitteilungen des Sippenverbandes der Danziger Mennoniten Familien Epp-Kauenhowen-Zimmermann, no. 3 (1940) 68–71; 71. https://mla.bethelks.edu/gmsources/newspapers/Mitteilunge%20des%20Sippenverbandes%20der%20Danziger%20Mennoniten-Familien/1940-1941/.

Note 2: Cf. Walther Mitzka, “Die Sprache der deutschen Mennoniten,” Heimatblätter des Deutschen Heimatbundes Danzig 8, no. 1 (1930) 2–23; 9, http://pbc.gda.pl/dlibra/doccontent?id=12078; Johannes van der Smissen, The History of the Church in Chortitza. Towards an Understanding of the History of the Church in the Mennonite Colonies in South Russia (1856), translated and edited by William Schroeder, in Preservings, no. 15 (1999), 4, https://www.plettfoundation.org/preservings/archive/15/. George K. Epp, Geschichte der Mennoniten, vol. 1 (Lage: Logos, 1997) 84f.; Isaac Kröcker, Zwanzig Predigten über verschiedene Texte der heiligen Schrift (Königsberg, 1788).

Note 3: Letter to the Danzig Flemish congregation, December 18, 1789, signed by Peter Dyck, Cornelius Friesen, Jacob Wienß, Gerhard Neufeldt, Bernhard Penner, David Giesbrecht, reprinted in Franz Harder, “Die Auswanderung aus der Danziger Mennoniten-Gemeinde nach Rußland,” Mitteilungen des Sippenverbandes der Danziger Mennoniten Familien Epp-Kauenhowen-Zimmermann, no. 6 (1937) 184–197; 186f., https://media.chortitza.org/pdf/Pis/K01.pdf.

Note 4: Letter in Gerhard Wiebe, “Verzeichniß der gehaltenen Predigten samt andern vorgefallenen Merkwürdigkeiten in der Gemeine Gottes in Elbing und Ellerwald von Anno 1778 d. 1. Januar,” transcriptions from the original by Willi Risto, https://media.chortitza.org/pdf/Buch/Risto1.pdf; also Ingrid Lamp: https://mla.bethelks.edu/Prussian Polish Mennonite sources/wiebe.html.

Note 5: Van der Smissen, "History of the Church in Chortitza," 4.

Note 6: Wiebe, “Verzeichniß,” 196; David H. Epp, Die Chortitzer Mennoniten. Versuch einer Darstellung des Entwicklungsganges derselben (Odessa, 1889) 55. https://media.chortitza.org/pdf/Dok/Epp.pdf.

Note 7: Heinrich Donner and Johann Donner, Orlofferfelde Chronik, transcribed by Werner Janzen, 2010, 46; 43. From Mennonite Library and Archives-Bethel College, Prussian-Polish sources (online). https://mla.bethelks.edu/archives/cong_303/ok63/orlofferfeldechronik.html; English translation; https://www.mharchives.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Heinrich-Donner-Diary-12-Feb-2023.pdf.

Note 8: In D. Epp, Chortitzer Mennoniten, 46.

Note 9: Georg Trappe, in D. Epp, Chortitzer Mennoniten, 32.

Note 10: Hymn to be sung immediately after the ordination of a new elder: “Auf, jauchze! Lob’ und singe du Volk,” in Geistreiches Gesangbuch, zur öffentlichen und besondern Erbauung der Mennonitischen Gemeine in und vor der Stadt Danzig (Marienwerder, West Preußen, 1780), no. 298, v. 4 (p. 321), http://pbc.gda.pl/dlibra/doccontent?id=8000.

Note 11: For the following, cf. G. Wiebe, “Verzeichniß der gehaltenen Predigten.” Bartsch had quietly joined the Flemish by this point; cf. George K. Epp, Geschichte der Mennoniten, vol. I (Lage: Logos, 1997), 91. According to Henry Schapansky, Epp had embroiled himself “in a financial dispute with another Lehrer [preacher] and had arranged for this (unknown) Lehrer to be dismissed from office” (Schapansky, Old Colony (Chortitza) of Russia [Rosenort, MB: Self-published, 2001], 110).

Note 12: G. Wiebe, “Verzeichniß,” 228, 255.

Note 13: See previous post, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2022/09/the-future-of-mennonite-church-is-not.html.

---

To cite this page: Arnold Neufeldt-Fast, "Shaky Beginings as a Faith Community," History of the Russian Mennonites (blog), November 18, 2023, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/11/shaky-beginings-as-faith-community.html.