History of the Russian Mennonites

Rudnerweide (Molotschna) Elder Franz Görz’s wife Maria gave birth to fifteen children in Prussia over twenty-two years, including two sets of twins. Only six children survived infancy, and two of these six died on the journey to Russia ( note 1 ). Maria Görz’s personal history of grief and loss is connected to the cycle of pregnancy, birth, nursing, childcare and death that continued throughout a Mennonite woman’s entire childbearing years—with an average of nine live births, and the premature death of four to five children each ( note 2 ). Each family   arrived to New Russia with its own personal history of loss. Diaries point to the vulnerability and danger of death for women in childbirth, but also to a strong network of community care amongst the women ( note 3 ). Since their childhood, the Confession of Faith and catechism defined the place and roles they would occupy as women in a pre-modern, unchanging time before “the end of time.” It is a time for testing and improveme...

Already in 1671, Mennonite Flemish Elder Georg Hansen in Danzig published his German-language catechism ( Glaubens-Bericht für die Jugend ) as preparation for youth seeking baptism. Though educational competencies varied, Hansen’s Glaubens-Bericht assumed that youth preparing for baptism had a stronger ability to read complex German than Dutch ( note 1 ). Popular Mennonite preacher Jacob Denner (1659–1746), originally from the Hamburg-Altona Mennonite Church, lived in Danzig for four years in the early 1700s. A first volume of his Dutch sermons was published in 1706 in Danzig and Amsterdam, and then in 1730 and 1751 he published two German collections. Untrained preachers would often read Denner’s sermons: “Those who preached German—which all Prussian preachers around 1750 did, with the exception of the Danzig preachers—had no sermons books from their co-religionists other than this one by Jacob Denner” ( note 2 ). In Danzig and the Vistula Delta region there were some differences...

No one developed and promoted the Frisian thesis more effectively than Prof. Benjamin H. Unruh’s one-time Halbstadt student, Heinrich “Hajo” Schröder—born in Molotschna, teacher in Germany, visitor to Paraguay, Nazi Party promoter, author and frequent letter writer to the Mennonite press across the Atlantic ( note 1 ). Schröder was a popular writer with a large influence in Germany, Paraguay and Canada. Schröder’s 1936 book on “Russian-German Frisians” places the Russian Mennonite sojourn into an essentially “Frisian” ethno-German narrative. He seeks to identify those innate characteristics of “true Frisians” in order to clarify their “racial ( völkische ) responsibility in the present,” and to connect kinship ( Stamm ) and nationality ( note 2 ). With pride and astonishment, he points back to Bruges in 1568 which had 7,000 [sic] distinctly self-confident Frisian Anabaptist members despite heavy persecution—misquoting his source tenfold ( note 3 ). Later migration to the “colonizatio...

When my friends and I were baptized in the late 1970s in a bilingual, immigrant Canadian Mennonite General Conference church, most of our mothers presented us with a white handkerchief for our first experience (and observance) of communion. Where did this tradition come from? A veneration of the bread? I chose not to use one. In his 1723 book on the Vistula Delta, its peoples and customs, Abraham Hartwich--a generally unsympathetic observer of the Mennonites--quotes a 1701 letter he received from an official in Tiegenhoff. He describes the unique Frisian Mennonite practice ( bey den groben Mannisten) of placing the communion bread in their clean handkerchief ( in ihr reines Schnupfftuch ) and eating with caution and respect ( note 1 ; pic). 280 years later, this was still the practice in my home congregation. In the period just prior immigration to Russia, the Danzig Mennonite (Flemish) church practiced communion twice a year—shortly after baptism in the spring, and then again o...

Just before Mennonite immigration to Russia, Prussian leaders were feverishly translating the tradition from Dutch to German. In addition to the translations, a few other key pieces were also written and together these texts shaped the Russian Mennonite tradition. 1. In 1765 certain core writings of Menno Simons were selected, edited for brevity and focus, and translated into a first German edition by Johannes Deknatel ( note 1 ). 2. Hymnals: In 1780, Danzig Flemish Elder Hans van Steen with supporting ministers published (translated): A Spiritual Hymnal for General Edification, in which, besides David’s Psalms, a collection of specially selected old and new songs can be found . The Flemish had “always” worshiped in Dutch and as late as 1752 they had ordered 3,000 Dutch hymnals from Amsterdam. Two-thirds of the hymns in the Danzig hymnal were adopted from the Lutheran and Reformed tradition This was the second unique Mennonite hymnal in “the language of the land”; in 1767 Elbing an...

Russian Mennonites have traditionally had a dim or mixed view of dancing. Below is a brief history. When it comes to moral infractions, the diaries or chronicles of Mennonite ministers are our best sources. In 1797 in Tiegenhagen, West Prussia—around the time that hundreds of Mennonite families left Prussia for Russia—the respected Frisian Elder Heinrich Donner noted that he would not baptize two young people because the one played a violin at a wedding, and the sister to the bride danced to this music together with Lutherans ( note 1 ). New disciplinary rules were confirmed by the congregation in 1805: “No Mennonite innkeeper shall allow music in his guesthouse.” And regarding dancing: “With a first offence, the person must come before the ministerial and apologize. The second time, they will be brought before the congregation. The third time, if there is no intention to amend behaviour, he will be excluded from the congregation” ( note 2 ). His Flemish colleague Gerhard Wiebe w...

B elow is one of the most important original Mennonite artifacts I have seen. It concerns January 19. The two land scouts Jacob Höppner and Johann Bartsch had returned to Danzig from Russia on November 10, 1787 with the Russian Immigration Agent, Georg von Trappe. Soon thereafter, Trappe had copies of the royal decree and agreement (Gnadenbrief) printed for distribution in the Flemish and Frisian Mennonite congregations in Danzig and other locations, dated December 29, 1787 ( see pic ; note 1 ). After the flyer was handed out to congregants in Danzig after worship on January 13, 1788, city councilors made the most bitter accusations against church elders for allowing Trappe and the Russian Consulate to do this; something similar had happened before ( note 2 ). In the flyer Trappe boasted that land scouts Höppner and Bartsch met not only with Gregory Potemkin, Catherine the Great’s vice-regent and administrator of New Russia, but also with “the Most Gracious Russian Monarch” herse...