History of the Russian Mennonites

For most Canadians, Queen Elizabeth II had been omnipresent their entire lives: on our coins, bills and stamps. In school in the 1960s and early -70s, my generation sang "God Save the Queen" every other day in class, and "O Canada" on the other days. A portrait of the Queen was in every classroom. I vividly remember lining Niagara Street in St. Catharines as a school child in 1973 when the Queen came whizzing through in a black limo in the rain to get to Niagara-on-the-Lake, the first capital of Upper Canada, now full of Mennonite farms. That black limo was owned by a wealthy Mennonite fruit farmer—my relative Isbrand Boese! It is not outside the tradition for Mennonites to sing “God save the Queen/King”. On Sunday, September 20, 1937, 700 people gathered in the Coaldale Mennonite Church (Alberta), and the service concluded with the singing of national anthem ["God save the King”] ( note 1 ). Mennonites organized this celebration to give thanks and to honour

In February 1904, Russia declared war on Japan and Mennonite congregations sent the Tsar messages of loyalty, love and prayers. The large Lichtenau-Petershagen-Schönsee congregation in the Mennonite Molotschna Colony in today’s Ukraine led by 80-year-old Elder (Bishop) Jakob Töws expressed its “deep loyalty and love for the throne and the Fatherland” ( note 1 ). Similarly, the Mennonite Chortitza congregation declared that Mennonites bow “humbly before the Imperial Majesty with most faithful love and devotion,” and “together with all faithful subjects send their most passionate prayers and supplications to the Most High, that He may extend his mighty hand over the beloved Tsar and the Russian people, and that peace may soon be returned” ( note 2 ). The Einlage Mennonite Brethren congregation offered a similar statement, “inspired by feelings of boundless dedication to the Sovereign Fatherland,” with “passionate prayers” for the Tsar and Fatherland, based on 1 Timothy 2:1–4 ( note 3

Thousands of Mennonites arrived as colonists in the underpopulated frontier lands of “New Russia” (aka Ukraine) in the years after 1789. Roaming Nogai peoples were moved and removed as necessary. As we might write a history of “American Mennonites,” Mennonites whose ancestors settled in Ukraine have typically written about the “Russian Mennonite” experience. Like the USA, Greater Russia had its own “manifest destiny,” and within that colonial context Mennonites flourished. What would that mean to rewrite that story as a Ukrainian story, within a Ukrainian historical frame of reference? What eyes would that give us for the illegal invasion of Ukraine, for example? Typically historical accounts of Ukrainian experience have been “appendages” to the larger, more encompassing history of Russia--so Paul Magosci, Chair of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Toronto. I continue to learn much from his magisterial History of Ukraine: The Land and its People now in its second edition ( no

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 program “s

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

I have yet to visit the former Mennonite congregations in Poland; it is on my bucket list. And when I do it will done with great humility. Poles suffered greatly because of Nazi Germany. Prussian Mennonites sided firmly and enthusiastically with the racial politics of the Reich and its goals for a reorganized Europe under German leadership. Here is the Sunday program for the 1941 Rosenort Mennonite Heldengedenktag : Day of Commemoration for Heroes , March 1941 (Third Sunday of Lent). In addition, the file has other write-ups and photos of fallen congregational members for the denominational paper (below). The congregation's lead pastor (Elder) Ernst Regehr had been a Nazi Party member since 1931. This was not unusual for Prussian Mennonite congregations, and there was nothing in a decade to temper their enthusiasm. In 1941 the Rosenort cemetery had a large memorial stone for twenty-one fallen congregational soldiers in World War 1 (see pic ); likely that was destroyed in Worl

The Naked Anabaptist : this title recommended by the editors of Stuart Murray’s book certainly helped sales for a text certainly worth reading ( note 1 ). Early Anabaptist beginnings have resonated with many twenty-first century Christians in the global north who seek new post-Christendom expressions of church. Here is Murray’s summary of those sixteenth-century convictions: to follow Christ in life whatever the consequences; to regard the Bible as authoritative not only in debate, but also in living and with ethical issues; to hold to the separation of church and state; to live in mutual accountability with other baptized members of the community, which includes using church discipline to maintain distinctiveness; to share resources; to live non-violently and to tell the truth; and to expect that suffering is normal for faithful disciples and is a mark of the true church ( note 2 ). Indeed, most of those themes can be found clustered together in some early Anabaptist communiti

Biographies, memoirs, interviews, and diaries inevitably include and often exaggerate those parts of the life-story that support the claim of the storyteller, and omit or flatten other parts assumed to be irrelevant or in contradiction to the preferred storyline. In 1848, the Guardianship Committee for Foreign Colonists President Eugen von Hahn tasked each village administration to work with the schoolteacher to produce an exact historical description of its settlement and key events in its history ( note 1 ). Notably most village histories are silent or say very little about their engagements with their Nogai neighbours whom they had displaced. Mennonites were fully aware that their colony on the Molotschna River was on lands of the nomadic Nogai, and that the Nogai had been forcibly displaced for Greater Russia’s colonizing program. This earlier history of the land is noted in a few village reports. “In this location there used to be a large Nogai village. By order of authorities