MENNONITE HISTORY

A Brief Overview

The roots of the Mennonite people grew out of the reformation of the sixteenth century, due to dissatisfaction with the Catholic Church of that time.

Adherents to this new religious movement, known as Anabaptists or re-baptizers, believed in salvation by faith through grace, and baptism upon confession of this faith. They held a personal commitment to Jesus Christ as opposed to a church or state legislated membership. They were non-resisters and did not hold political office. Theirs was a “voluntary fellowship of regenerated believers, a Christian brotherhood, a community of the redeemed.”

The Anabaptists were situated mostly in Moravia, South Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands.

The Dutch theologian from whom Mennonites take their name—Menno Simons—was born in 1496 in Witmarsum, Friesland, a province in the northern Netherlands. Simons, a former priest, was greatly influenced by the suffering of the Anabaptists for their beliefs, and eventually became a leader in the movement.

Due to severe and constant persecution, the Mennonites adopted a lifestyle of separation from the world, continuing to hold to their Dutch/German ethnic roots. In the latter part of the sixteenth century, many Dutch Mennonites fled to the free city of Danzig and settled in the Vistula Valley. This area was under Polish rule at the time, but was transferred to Prussian administration in 1772. The Mennonites were welcomed because of their knowledge of land drainage and general good farming practices, and were to remain until 1790, a total of 250 years.

The Mennonites experienced tolerance and relative freedom in Prussia, but in many cases, their original Christlike lifestyle began to give way to a religion of tradition and rules, even as their material and financial status improved.

In 1789 an edict disallowed any further purchase of land by Mennonites. The various changes brought about by Frederick the Great and his successor became increasingly difficult to accept. Therefore, when Catherine II of Russia invited the Mennonites to her country with the promise of economic, political and spiritual freedom, they accepted this offer as from the hand of God. Included in Russia’s “charter of privileges” was freedom of religion, 175 acres free land per family, exemption from military service for all eternity, and control of schools and religious and civil affairs.

The first 228 families migrated south to the lower Dneiper River in 1789 to establish the colony of Chortitza, and in 1804, 342 families settled on the banks of the Molotschnaya River to form the Molotschna colony. More migrations followed.

Problems began when the government refused subdivision of land in the colonies, and eventually there were many landless Mennonites. As a partial solution, crown lands formerly rented were distributed to the landless in 1865, and over the next fifty years, daughter colonies were established in the Ukraine, Crimea, Caucasus, South-central Asia and Siberia.

For the most part, the villages were run efficiently and uniformly. The colonies built and supported village schools, girls’ schools, secondary schools, and training institutions, homes for the elderly and schools for the deaf, nurses’ training schools and hospitals, and facilities for the mentally ill or handicapped. Agriculture was progressive, with much guidance from Johann Cornies in the early years.

The church, also orderly and efficient, eventually began to suffer spiritual decline. Disagreements and tensions over issues such as land ownership also caused friction and pride within the brotherhood. Another reason for spiritual decay was the stagnation of the closed society. Truly born again ministers were rare. Church membership often became a simple rite of passage into community life. Believers’ baptism, for which many of the early Anabaptists had given their lives, became merely “adult baptism.” The fruits of the Spirit were, in many cases, gradually replaced by the works of darkness, as alcohol, greed and immorality became more prevalent.

As a result of dissatisfaction with the established church, groups broke away to form new congregations. The Mennonite Brethren church was born on January 6, 1860 and the Evangelical Mennonite Brethren Church (also known as the Allianz Gemeinde)
was established in 1905.

A czarist shift from military exemption and self-government to conscription and general “Russianization” resulted in the migration of about one-third of the Mennonite population to North America between 1874 and 1880.

During World War I, the Mennonites were regarded as Germans, and were required to participate in alternate service. In 1917, the Russian Revolution spread terror across the land as Red and White armies fought each other, and groups of bandits fought for both factions or for themselves, killing, looting, raping and terrorizing. Drought and famine followed in 1921-22, to complete the devastation. Many starved. Many more would have died but for the saving relief of MCC (Mennonite Central Committee).

After the Revolution, the Russian government declared complete nationalization of all land and property, schools and churches. As a result, Mennonites exited en masse in search, again, of religious freedom. Between 1923 and 1930, 20,000 Mennonites came to Canada.

RUSSIAN HISTORY

A Brief Overview

 
RESOURCE LIST

(Beginning with my favorites. This is not an exhaustive list.)

    Mennonite Historical Atlas, William Schroeder and Helmut T. Huebert
    Events and People, Helmut T. Huebert
    With Courage to Spare, John B. Toews
    Czars, Soviets and Mennonites; John B. Toews
    The Mennonite Brotherhood in Russia 1789-1910, P.M. Friesen
    Diary of Anna Baerg 1916-1924, edited by Gerald Peters
    My Russia, Peter Ustinov
    Mennonite Foods and Folkways of South Russia, Volumes I u0026amp; II, Norma Jost Voth
    Mennonite Settlements in Crimea, H. Goerz
    A Russian Dance of Death, Dietrich Neufeld
    Storm Tossed, Gerhard Lohrenz
    Journey to Yalta, Sarah Klassen
    The Romanovs, Virginia Cowles
    Lenin and the Downfall of Tsarist Russia, Elizabeth M. Roberts
    Rasputin: Satyr, Saint or Satan, Douglas Myles
    Profiles of Mennonite Faith, General Conference of M.B. Churches, various authors
    Turning Life into Fiction, Robin Hemley
    Mennonites in Canada 1920-1940, Frank Epp
    The Russian Revolution, Ira Peck
    The Russians (7 volumes of historical fiction), Judith Pella
    Liberty in Confinement, Johannes Reimer
    Chariots in the Smoke, Margaret Epp
    Days of Terror, Barbara Classen Smucker
    Mysteries of Grace and Judgment (film)
    Lions of the Desert (three volumes of historical fiction), Linda Chaikin
    Nicholas and Alexandra (film, 1971), Robert K. Massie
    The Shadow of the Winter Palace-Drift to Revolution, Edward Crankshaw
    The Romanovs: The Final Chapter, Robert K. Massie
    An Introduction to Mennonite History, Cornelius Dyck
    The Idealists, Henry Carlisle and Olga Andreyev
    A Lifelong Passion-Nicholas and Alexandra, Andrei Maylunas and Sergei Mironenko
    The File on the Tsars, Anthony Summers and Tom Mangold
    Hippocrene Companion Guide to the Soviet Union, Lydle Brinkle
    Hippocrene UKRAINE Language and Travel Guide, Linda Hodges and George Chumak