CHURCH: History and Today May 5

Mennonites: Europe and Russian Migration

Good morning! Welcome back and I hope you had a good week. Last week we talked about the origins of the Hutterites and of the Amish in Europe. To quickly recap on the Hutterites, they originated in Austria and Moravia, as the Anabaptist continued to spread from Switzerland and south Germany. From Moravia many migrated to Russia and later to North America.

The Amish are direct descendants from the Swiss Mennonites of the 1600’s. They believed in a more strict adherence to the old confessions and traditional views of Biblical interpretation, and split off of the rest of the Anabaptists around them. In the early 1700’s the move to North America began. From what I found there are no longer any Amish in Europe. Either they migrated to North America or they united with other Mennonite congregations in Europe.

Today we want to take a look at Mennonites starting around 1650 and then following the movement into Russian, or more specifically, Ukraine. We will take a brief look at Mennonites in other areas of Europe as well, but our focus will be on the Russian migration, since the majority of the Mennonites in this area trace lineage from there.

The Netherlands 1650 ff

We already talked about Mennonites in South Germany and Switzerland last week, that was covered in the Amish section. To look at Mennonites in northern Europe we again turn to the Netherlands. Two weeks ago we left off here talking about the spiritual decline that took place during their physical success and growing wealth.

How is physical wealth bad for spiritual health? How is it good?

From that time there were several leaders who worked hard to bring about spiritual vitality to the Mennonite churches. Under the leadership of Galenus Abrahamsz de Haan the church he pastored came into contact with other streams of faith, including the Quakers.

What are some benefits of talking with people from other churches, such as Roman Catholics, Quakers, Baptists, Lutherans, and so on?

Economic Developments

However, over time there was another conflict in the Mennonite community. There were two large churches: The Lamb church and The Sun church.

“Those worshiping at The Lamb church, and led by Galenus, were inclined toward a more liberal interpretation of the authority confessions and stressed the importance of right Christian living under the leadership of the Holy Spirit. Those worshiping at The Sun church, the conservative wing, with the same intentions as the others, stressed the importance of right doctrine, calling for adherence to the old confessions and traditions of the past.” (Dyck, 155-157). There were some debates and some documents written from each side, but there didn’t seem to be a middle ground they agreed on.

However, there were other things happening as well. Due to persecution earlier, Mennonites were not allowed to hold positions in public offices or become teachers, many became businessmen. Over time they became quite wealthy. Because of this they were now more socially “acceptable” to society, and this opened the door for education. With a rise in education they wanted trained ministers for their churches. So in 1735, a seminary was opened. They built beautiful churches as well, and musical instruments were added to these new church buildings. They also developed a concern for mutual aid. They took care of the people in need in their own area, but also sent aid to the Mennonite churches farther south as well as those in Prussian and Poland to the east. “A society was founded to aid the families of men lost at sea…a Mennonite merchant, established a foundation in Haarlem in 1778 to support museums and scientific research. This foundation is still active.” (Dyck, 158).

However, here again is the decline we talked about several weeks ago. Nonresistance became less important, so some merchants armed their ships with guns in protection of pirates, and the churches did not object very much when nonresistance privileges were withdrawn by the government. Some left the Mennonite church to join the Reformed Church. “And so, while there had been some 160,000 Mennonites in the Netherlands in 1700, in 1808 there were only 26,953. One hundred congregations became extinct in those 108 years…a baptized membership of 25,589 in 1978 and 18,000 in 1990.” (Dyck, 158). Since then there have been several developments that have reversed this decline.

Do we consider Mennonites “lost” if they move to a different church, such as Reformed or Baptist? Why or why not?

Throughout northern Europe, Mennonites gained a reputation as honest, hospitable, and hard-working people. As a result, many who didn’t agree with them spoke well of them, even if they didn’t agree with what they believed. Many became very wealthy. In the city of Krefeld, the von der Leyen family operated a textile mill with over 3,000 employees. These and other successful Mennonites had a direct and positive impact on the cities and countries they lived in. In fact, the von der Leyen family was knighted because of their achievements and became part of the German nobility.

Mennonites in Prussia/Poland 1640 ff

Many Mennonites moved to Prussia/Poland from the Netherlands because of persecution. Here they received some favor from the government. They turned much of the surrounding swampland into usable farmland, although many died of swamp fever during this period of land engineering and draining the swamps. However, there was persecution here too. There were many false charges laid, “usually initiated by those who were envious of their economic successes.” (Dyck, 165). During the 1700’s there was more toleration. There was a migration of Mennonites farther into east Prussia after a famine wiped out a large part of the population there. Throughout their time in Prussia, which later became part of Poland, they thrived and excelled in their work and lives. There was a large Mennonite population there until the end of World War 2 in 1945. After this, all Mennonites left with the retreating German forces, eventually settling in Germany or Canada.

To Russia: 1780ff

In 1762-63 Catharine II invited Europeans to settle the land in Southern Russia that had been won in war from the Turks. Many people went over the next few decades, including Mennonites.

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Was it OK for Mennonites to settle in lands that were taken from others through war? Why or why not?

There were several reasons that many Mennonites migrated from Prussia to Russia. First, there was a lot of military movement and preparations throughout Europe, which made the Mennonites in those areas nervous due to their nonviolent stance. Another major reason was that they were running out of land. “The problem arose from the fact that both military and church taxes were based on land ownership, and Mennonites would pay neither for support of the military nor of the state church. The more land they owned, the more difficult it became for the state to finance military and church activities; they already owned approximately 300,000 acres. Consequently, government controls prevented Mennonites from buying more land. But they had large families to support and what should young couples do for a living?” (Dyck, 169).

There were many factors involved in the decision to move to Russia. How do we balance perseverance in difficulty and finding new growth and freedom opportunities?

As a result, when the invitation to Russia came, there were many open ears. So they appointed two men, Johann Bartsch and Jacob Hoeppner to visit Russia and bring back a report. So they left in 1786 and came back just over a year later. “Russian colonial policy at the time aimed at a complete separation of all foreigners from the native population, with the result that colonies were quite independent in their affairs. This pattern appealed to the Mennonites, who cherished the right to control their own religion, educational, and civic affairs as they had done in Prussia. Among the privileges was the guarantee of complete religious freedom and exemption from military service for all time. There was also an interesting provision granting the Mennonites special permission to brew beer and vinegar and distill brandy, a trade for which they had already been famous in Danzig and Prussia.” (Dyck, 169-170).

The first families made their way to the area they had selected in the spring of 1789. “The new colony, which by now consisted of 400 families, finally located on the banks of the Chortitza River, a tributary of the Dniepr River. The entire settlement came to be known as the Chortitza Colony, or also Old Colony since it was the first Mennonite colony in Ukraine.” (Dyck, 172).

Life was not easy for the first few years. Construction materials were slow in coming, promised government funds didn’t come until years later, disease and death took many lives. Horses were stolen or went missing. The people were very poor. Education and pastoral care were very low. Even so, 10 years later these families had 15 settled villages and were farming almost 90,000 acres.

Jacob Hoeppner had other problems to deal with. Because of the difficulties the settlers faced, many started blaming Hoeppner of with-holding funds and using his prior knowledge of the land to his own advantage. “He became the scapegoat of their frustrations, eventually being excommunicated from the church and denounced to the Russian authorities, who imprisoned him...” (Dyck, 172-73). He was released, and joined the Frisian immigrants to Russia, although he was Flemish. (Here is that old Frisian-Flemish rivalry we mentioned several weeks ago). His lands had been sold while he was in prison. Several years after his death, a monument was erected in his honor on an island in the Dniepr river, and in 1973 this monument was moved the the Mennonite Heritage Village Museum in Steinbach, Manitoba.

Several years later there were more immigrants coming. Things kept getting worse for the Mennonites in Prussia, so in 1803 more refugees came to Chortitza. These newcomers had found a tract of land about 100 miles from the Chortitza Colony. In spring of 1804 until 1806, about 365 families moved to the new Malotschna Settlement. By 1835 there were about 1,200 families in Molotschna colony, with 58 villages and farming 324,000 acres. “Because this second movement included teachers, ministers, and other community leaders, as well as being more prosperous than the 1788 movement, progress was rapid and the colony was soon thriving in every respect.” (Dyck, 174). Two more settlements were started before the flow of refugees stopped, the Am Trakt in 1853 and Alexandertal in 1859. One thing to note is that it was close to this time that the first migration of Mennonites came from Russia to North America. The first of these migrations happened from 1873-1884 to the Midwest and Manitoba.

But anyway, back to Russia. After the first few pioneering years the challenges gave way to great success. Soon they were not only famous for their agriculture, but were trading across the Black Sea and silkworm industries. With this financial success they could start focusing on other areas, so soon trained and able leaders were educated… “and the economy was better able to support the increasing cultural and socio-religious activities.” (Dyck, 176).

Because most Mennonite families in these colonies were quite large, the populations in the original settlements started running out of available land after only a few decades. The original 10,000 settlers had more than tripled the population without adding much more land. so they started some “daughter colonies.” So over the next 100 years more than 45 more colonies were started in Ukraine, Crimea, south central Asia, and Siberia among others. By the end of World War I there were approximately 120,000 Mennonites in Russia, with most of them being farmers. Schools and curriculum were developed, hospitals and care homes were built, orphanages, and so on were built and maintained all through the donation and support of the colonies, without the use of government programs or taxes.

Other Developments

It was largely during this time that the Mennonite identity firmly developed. Because of the original deal with the Russian authorities there was little or no overlap with the Russian people close by. The colonies had become independent, self-sustaining with little contact with the outside world, and so did not feel any impact from the Russian language or culture. “Continued intermarriage within the group led to a unique self and group consciousness. To be a Mennonite meant not primarily religious but ethnic relations.” (Dyck, 178).

As is often the case with physical success, spiritual decline set in. Also at this time certain churches had little to do in terms of helping the poor or other social causes within the Mennonite communities. This led to dissatisfaction among the church memberships.

As early as 1814 there was a break in the church unity. A minister named Klaas Reimer came to the Molotschna colony and disapproved of the low spiritual state he found there. He disagreed with several of the things they practiced and promoted a restoration to the “authentic New Testament and Anabaptist Christianity.” He started meeting separately with like-minded people, although it was a small number at first. Some people mockingly started calling them the Kleine Gemeinde, which they soon fully accepted. This is the church conference that today is known as the Evangelical Mennonite Conference (or EMC). There are still Kleine Gemeinde churches today in Canada, Central and South America, but the EMC also finds its origins here.

How have these developments affected the Mennonite churches even today? What effects are visible in terms of church denominations, conferences and so on?

There was another division in 1860. Among some villages, through outside guest speakers and a call to renewed faith, changes started happening. House visitations and small Bible study groups started occuring, where unbelievers could also partake. Saturday evening Bible studies happened so that it wouldn’t conflict with Sunday services. However, when some of the other churches didn’t share their same vision, they charged these other churches with unspirituality. They started becoming more separate, and through a host of other developments, things turned bad. The new visionaries accused the other churches and the spiritual leadership board of the colonies of turning the whole fiasco into a state-church issue, something the Mennonites had tried their whole existence to avoid! The rest of the churches and the colonies actually persecuted them for a while, including threats, imprisonments, hard labor and starvation. Legal documents were not given to them by the administration, so they couldn’t leave even though they wanted to.

However, strong leaders were soon elected and ordained within the new movement, and this is considered the start of the Mennonite Brethren Church in 1860. Through a host of political and local interactions, the long and short of it is that in 1864 they were still considered Mennonites but there were sharp divisions with the rest of the Mennonite communities. Another split within the MB was that of the Allianz Gemeinde in 1905.

Mennonites have a history of excluding and excommunicating even other Mennonites that they disagree with. Does that continue today or have things changed?

To close I want to read 1 Corinthians 12:12.