History of the Russian Mennonites

In June 2023 St. Catharines Mennonites held their last German worship service. It is a congregation that has been shaped by German language and culture for decades. St. Catharines United Mennonite would eventually include many post-war immigrants, and by 1971 its Saturday morning German School enrolled 118 students--including me. German was the language in which I too first experienced worship ( note 1 ). But for the post-war immigrants born under Stalin or earlier, the journey to faith through the Nazi era was much more complex. Young adults came with a blank slate, and the older ones had to learn how to worship again--but as Germans.  Much of their worship and simple theology (without leaders) had to be unlearnt after the war. Below I try to piece together a part of that faith and cultural journey. With German occupation of Ukraine in Fall 1941, the public celebration of Christmas returned to the Molotschna for the first time in about a decade. Practices for a children’s progra...

This post begins with an apologies and shame towards Polish readers. Many Canadian and South American Mennonites have a family connection to the “Great Trek” story. 35,000 Mennonites were removed from Ukraine behind the retreating German military in the Fall of 1943 and early 1944. Nazi Germany’s goal: at war’s end Wartheland (annexed Poland) would have a majority racially-German population and remain part of greater Germany. Its Poles were disposed and tens of thousands deported; Jews were destroyed. Reichsführer SS Himmler boasted to one resettler group: Poles know that “if you bother just one hair of a German family, you and all your Polish men in your village will lose your lives” ( note 1 ). Catholic clergy had been largely executed or banished. Polish parish churches were repurposed--in some cases for Nazi Party offices ( note 2 ). The official representative of Soviet Mennonites, Benjamin H. Unruh—who had met Heinrich Himmler for multiple meetings a year earlier—had requested...