THE MENNONITE BROTHERHOOD IN RUSSIA (1789 - 1910), P. M. Friesen, 1911

'20s and ’30s: since 1835-40 Gnadenfeld was more attractive. For a long time Pastor Wuest of Neu-Hoffnung had intimate fellowship with the ministers of Gnadenfeld 29 (Wuests’s influence and importance will be discussed more specifically in Chapter XII.) At this time we want merely to enumerate some of the more important “Wuest-brethren” in the Gnadenfeld congregation, and those who, although members of other congregations, had close ties to Gnadenfeld: Johann Claassen, Liebenau; his wife’s brother Jakob Reimer of Felsental, Gnadenfeld; Wilhelm Bartel, long resident in Berdiansk; Abram Comelsen, a teacher in Elizabethtal and member of the Rudnerweide congregation; Jakob Becker, Rudnerweide and member of that congregation; Heinrich Huebert, Liebenau, member of the Ohrloff congregation; and Abraham Peters, Ladekopp, member of the Petershagen congregation. These were the most important co-founders of the M.B. Church in 1860. Elder August Lenzmann, Gnadenfeld; Andreas Flaming, Schardau, minister of the Gnadenfeld Church; Heinrich Schmidt, Pastva, minister of the Gnadenfeld Church; Benjamin Jantz and Abraham Braun, Grossweide (in later years a “Felsentaler Friend”); Peter Siemens, Conteniusfeld, a prominent leader of the Bible study movement and later a well-known teacher who joined the Ohrloff and then the M.B. Church; Abram Matthies, Rudnerweide; Leonhard Sudermann, Berdiansk, a minister and then elder of the Berdiansk congregation first affiliated with Gnadenfeld, which later became independent, who died as an elder in America; Jakob Buhler, minister in Berdiansk, who died young, having served as Wuest’s “Jonathan”; Hermann Sudermann, Berdiansk, student in the “Rauhes Haus” near Hamburg; Wilhelm and Benjamin Lange, former ministers of the Gnadenfeld congregation (cf. above # 16 ) : Nicholas Schmidt, Gnadenfeld, minister at Steinbach; Johann Schmidt Gnadenfeld; Johannes Lange, Gnadenfeld; Hausknecht, a teacher in Gnadenfeld and probably a Swiss Mennonite; Abram Wiebe and Dietrich Dick, Rudnerweide; Peter Dick and his son Abram, Pordenau, were all Unrest and Reform 105 original co-founders of the “Church of the Temple” or "Friends of Jerusalem” (adherents of Christoph Hoffmann from Kirchenhardthof in Wuerttemberg), but not all of them stayed with the movement. Thus Minister Abram Dick— as many others who had originally joined the “temple” movement— later joined and then became minister of the Ohrloff congregation. Aside from Heinrich Huebert there were other outstanding believers in the Ohrloff congregation before and after 1860, though not as explicitly “brothers of Wuest” but more in line with Tobias Voth and his associates, such as: Peter Fast, teacher at Taschtschenak for 25 years, and his brother Daniel, teacher in Tiegenhagen and Blumenort, both ministers and elders later in the M.B. Church; Bernhard Harder, teacher in Halbstadt, B lumens tein and other places, since 1861 minister of the Halbs