A very public congregational dispute between artist Enoch Seemann and Flemish Elder Georg Hansen in Danzig in the 1690s set new limits for Mennonite cultural participation and cemented the central role of the elder. Renowned Canadian novelist Rudy Wiebe has put the story into a beautiful historical narrative in Sweeter than all the World, based largely on Harry Loewen’s historical tale of Seemann in Cities of Refuge . More recently we have a full text reconstruction of the key lost pamphlet and replies, by Hans Rudolf Lavater. Here is the gist of the story. Seemann was born in the Hansa city of Elbing (Poland) to a Mennonite minister and artist—a reminder of the sophisticated urban culture that some refugees brought east. Seemann travelled abroad and apprenticed in Holland, then settled in Danzig where he also married. As an accomplished portrait painter, he was disciplined by Elder Hansen and the congregation in 1697 for painting “graven images” and was barred from communion, footwash
Vignettes by Arnold Neufeldt-Fast