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

tadt-Ohrloff congregation, to date the most influential Mennonite minister and most prominent Mennonite poet in Russia, who died as an itinerant minister in Neu-Halbstadt in 1883; Kroeker, teacher in Muensterberg, who died as a minister in Sagradovka; Johann Fast, teacher in Schoenau, and later in the Crimea, who died in America as a member of the “Krimmer M.B. Church” if we are not mistaken; Joh ann Harder, minister in Blumenstein, later elder of the Ohrloff congregation; Jakob Martens of Tiegenhagen, minister and assistant elder of the Halbstadt-Ohrloff congregation and not a few others. 18. a) The brethren Johann Claassen of Liebenau, Jakob Reimer of Gnadenfeld, Heinrich Huebert of Liebenau, Abram Wiebe and Abram Matthies of Rudnerweide, Nicholas Schmidt of Steinbach, Elder August Lenzmann of Gnadenfeld, Johann Schmidt of Gnadenfeld, Peter and Abram Dick of Pordenau, along with many others, founded the so-called “Brethren School” in Gnadenfeld. For the conditions of the time, it received remarkable financial and other support: contributions ranged from 25 to 1,000 rubles in silver (a bank-note of 3,500 from Abram Wiebe of Rudnerweide). To support this venture, the group invested in a brick factory and a lumber yard, which brought substantial returns. Even the Wuerttemberg brethren in Neu-Hoffnung participated with a donation of 400 rubles, and their brethren in Kharkov and Moscow took an interest in the school: A Moscow brother, Maibom, the owner of a factory, donated a piano, and believers from St. Petersburg and Reval hoped that the school would produce workers for home missions s imil ar to what the "Rauhes Haus” was doing for the Protestant churches. b) Johann Claassen of Liebenau stood in the forefront of this venture, giving freely of his time, money, inspiration and strength. Better education, a strongly Christian training based on the principles of Pietism, especially for their own children, the practicing of philanthropy for the common good (that is why the school was sometimes called a 106 IN RUSSIA 1789-1860 “school for orphans,” since talented orphans and the children of impoverished parents were to be given preference in it), or “home missions” were to be the goals of the school as far as Claassen and his associates were concerned. They patterned the school after the Moravian institutions and Wichem’s rescue missions, specifically the “Rauhes Haus” of Hamburg. This Gnadenfeld school, along with the Ohrloff Association School, was accredited in 1859 (?) by the Supervisory Commission in Odessa as a teacher-training institute. c) Twice Claassen travelled to St. Petersburg and Reval on matters relating to the school, stopping en route in Kharkov and Moscow to establish intimate relations with the “brethren” in these areas, gaining access to their very highest circles, especially in St. Petersburg and Reval. Pastor Landesen and the merchant Heymann were two especially close friend