History of the Russian Mennonites

Gerhard Wiebe was elder of the Elbing-Ellerwalde (Polish-Prussia) Mennonite Church from 1778-1796, which includes the years of early immigration to Russia. His ministerial diary lists many names, and each comes with a story ( note 1 ). Wiebe’s accounts of church discipline are particularly revealing for helping us understand the first immigrant generation to New Russia. After preaching the gospel, the elder's most important duty was discipline, and this elder kept note of everything. Wiebe’s cases included: • regular incidences of drunkenness; • bar-tending at “The Kruge” [pitcher / name of inn], with music and all manner of “wicked things”; • leading an “immoral” lifestyle; • dancing in “The Lame Hand” pub [?], • stealing pigs; • licentiousness and leading a worldly life; • jeering and fist-fighting on the street; • excessive agitation and anger (mixed with alcohol); • forgery of payment records, non-payment of debts; • engagement/ marriage to a Lutheran, o...

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...