History of the Russian Mennonites

Arguably the most significant outside religious influence on Mennonite s in the 19th century was the revivalist preaching of Eduard Wüst, a university-trained Württemberg Pietist minister installed by the separatist Evangelical Brethren Church in New Russia in 1843 ( note 1 ). With the end-time prophesies of a previous generation of Pietists (and many Mennonites) coming to naught, Wüst introduced Germans in this area of New Russia to the “New Pietism” and its more individualistic, emotional conversion experience and sermons on the free grace of God centred on the cross of Christ ( note 2 ). Wüst’s 1851 Christmas sermon series give a good picture of what was changing ( note 3 ). His core agenda was to dispel gloom (which maybe could describe more traditional Mennonites) and induce Christian joy. This is the root impulse of the Mennonite Brethren beginnings years later in 1860. “Satan is not entitled to present his own as the most joyful.” His people “sing, jump, leap ( hüpfen )

By 1860, the mix of entrepreneurial individualism, exposure to new ideas and horizons, intellectually and emotionally compelling preaching of conversion by Eduard Wüst a university-trained Württemberg Pietist minister installed by the nearby Separatist Evangelical Brethren Church, community dysfunction and lack of common vision, growing social and economic disparities, rumours of restlessness and revolution among Russia’s serfs, authoritarian leadership and moral laxity—were all part of that context in which eighteen Mennonite men felt compelled to submit a “Document of Secession” to the Molotschna Elders, dated January 6, 1860. They pointed to the “decay of the entire Mennonite brotherhood,” with examples of baptized brothers who at the annual fairs “serve the devil” in their public misdeeds, and of the ministers who watch and sit idly by ( note 1 ). “It was very natural that with such a decay of church, faith and morals, a reaction set in,” with individuals demanding “an end to the

Russian Mennonites were not always kind to each other—and nowhere is this seen better than in the tensions between “old” Mennonites and the “separatist” Mennonite Brethren, who had their beginnings in Gnadenfeld, Molotschna in 1860. Heinrich Dirks (1842-1915) was the first Russian Mennonite overseas missionary and later long-time Gnadenfeld, Molotschna ( note 1 ). Everything about Dirks’ life suggests that he would have joined the Brethren in 1860. He too was influenced by the "powerful and gripping” conversionist ministry of Eduard Wüst in his youth. Dirks was a young adult in the Gnadenfeld congregation in South Russia where the Mennonite Brethren /separatist movement began. Shortly thereafter, he was trained in the German pietist Barmen Mission School (1863-67), and famously travelled to Sumatra (Indonesia) where he started a mission outpost and school. The Mennonite Brethren too would later connect the global mission imperative with the impending return of Christ as did Dirk

Heinrich Balzer (1800-1846) has been called "the philosopher” of the Molotschna. In a unique 1833 treatise Balzer provided “a possible philosophical foundation for the Mennonite faith as it was developed by the early Swiss Brethren and Menno Simons," as assessed by Anabaptist historian Robert Friedman. Its 10 pages appear to be "entirely in the spirit of early Anabaptism"( note 1 ). J. Denny Weaver—who like Friedmann is most at home with American Swiss Mennonite thought—summarized it as a “philosophical” argument for conservative Mennonitism and community maintenance ( note 2 ). Even James Urry, our best Russian Mennonite historian, does not strongly challenge this reading. Urry’s essay on Balzer however is important for understanding the social and religious world of the text in the 1820s and 1830s. Balzer’s distinctive contribution, according to Urry,  “... was to add a new dimension built on reaction to post-Reformation developments in theology and secular ph

After four decades in Russia, the president of the Guardianship Committee for Foreign Colonists, Andrei Fadeev, considered only eight of 116 Mennonite teachers in the two larger regions of Katerynoslav and Tauria—which included the Molotschna—fit to teach ( note 1 ). Jakob Bräul’s Rudnerweide schoolhouse was given the same status as Heinrich Heese’s Ohrloff Agricultural Society School with regard to policies and “especially for the teaching of Russian” ( note 2 ). Fadeev triggered great angst when by “imperial decree” he distributed a book to church elders written by German Mennonite Abraham Hunzinger on the modernization of Mennonite schools and church. It was a friendly gesture and poke. The Molotschna was already a tinderbox, and this spark introduced by a state official to strengthen the community ignited a fire in the colony. Fadeev wrote to Johann Cornies on January 12, 1832: “Most valued Cornies ... I advise you to acquire and read a booklet sent to your church leaders from

Chortitza was the first Mennonite settlement in "New Russia" (later Ukraine), est. 1789. The last Mennonites left in 1943 ( note 1 ). During the Stalin years in Ukraine (after 1928), marriage with Jewish neighbours—especially among better educated Mennonites in cities—had become somewhat more common. When the Germans arrived mid-August 1941, however, it meant certain death for the Jewish partner and usually for the children of those marriages. A family friend, Peter Harder, died in 2022 at age 96. Peter was born in Osterwick to a teacher and grew up in Chortitza. As a 16-year-old in 1942, Peter was compelled by occupying German forces to participate in the war effort. Ukrainians and Russians (prisoners of war?) were used by the Germans to rebuild the massive dam at Einlage near Zaporizhzhia, and Peter was engaged as a translator. In the next year he changed focus and started teachers college, which included significant Nazi indoctrination. In 2017 I interviewed Peter Ha

The following is a Holocaust-related story of the South German Mennonites and Kristallnacht , the Night of Broken Glass, November 9/10, 1938. The well-known leader Prof. Benjamin H. Unruh, the representative of Russian Mennonites in Germany, is a key figure in the German churches at this time and also in this story ( note 1 ). The Night of Broken Glass occurred a week before the German national and religious holiday for “Prayer and Repentance” ( Buß- und Bettag ). The Conference of South German Mennonites met annually on this holiday at their Bible and retreat centre Thomashof in Baden. They come closest to what we might call “evangelical” Mennonites today, with an emphasis on personal piety, small groups and Bible study. On the night of November 9, 91 Jews were murdered across Germany. Jewish homes, stores and offices were vandalized, and 170 synagogues set aflame, including the synagogue in nearby Karlsruhe—Benjamin Unruh’s place of residence ( note 2 ). Three days later a decr

In 1787 Mennonite interest for emigration was extremely strong outside the quasi independent City of Danzig in the Prussian annexed Marienwerder and Elbing regions. Even before the land scouts Johann Bartsch and Jacob Höppner had returned from Russia later that year, so many Mennonite exit applications had flooded offices that officials wrote Berlin in August 1787 for direction ( note 1a ). Initially officials did not see a problem: because Mennonites do not provide soldiers, the cantons lose nothing by their departure, and in fact benefit from the ten-percent tax imposed on financial assets leaving the state.  Ludwig von Baczko (1756-1823), Professor of History at the Artillery Academy in Königsberg, East Prussia, was the general editor of a series that included a travelogue through Prussia written by a certain Karl Ephraim Nanke. Nanke had no special love for Mennonites, but was generally balanced in his judgements and based his now almost forgotten account of Mennonites on personal