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

company of ministers came to stand alone over against the combined ministers of all the other congregations, an especially important circumstance in the creation of the new M.B. Church (cf. XI-XVIII). However much each side may have erred, around 1860 Ohrloff was still regarded by the more progressive— the “brethren,” “the Friends of Jerusalem,” and the “landless”— as the wise and upright church, the more so since it contained more spiritually alive and gifted ministers, as well as members, than the Mennonite Church at large; and the place vacated by those who went to Lichtenau because of the strife was quickly filled by those from other congregations, especially by such who had become disillusioned in the M.B. Church and the Templers during the first two turbulent years of their existence, as well as by families from the dissolving Kleine Gemeinde, so that by 1863 Ohrloff was able to establish a new congregation, Neukirch. X. DOCUMENTARY SUPPLEMENT TO THE HISTORY OF THE SETTLEMENT AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE MENNONITE BROTHERHOOD IN SOUTH RUSSIA TO 1860 In the following we submit a series of contemporary documents, or excerpts from them, for the purpose of verification, expansion and illustration of the foregoing brief account. 1. “Brief [ manuscript ] History of our Mennonite Brethren, ” by Heinrich Heese, Sr. (Supplement to #32). Heinrich Heese, who had been active (first as secretary of the §53 Chortitza governmental district and part-time teacher, then for c. 15 years as teacher in the Ohrloff Association School as the successor of 110 IN RUSSIA 1789-1860 Tobias Voth, and finally as founder of and teacher in the Chortitza Secondary School and, in his ripe old age, as a private school teacher in Einlage) in the Chortitza and Molotschna colonies since 1818, had been bom a Lutheran, but early in his youth had become a Mennonite and married a Mennonite girl. His history of the earlier period was drawn exclusively from the information imparted to him by the “old folks’’ and is interesting because it is a kind of self-examination by these people of their role as contemporaries or transmitters of the opinions and recollections of their forefathers. His information regarding the later period is drawn from his own involvement and experiences. He ended his short account in the '60s, well advanced in years. Being a traditional churchman, he was an impassioned, indeed bitter opponent of the emerging M.B. Church, 35 and consequently biased in his opinions. Heese’s use of the expression “Mennonite brethren” refers to the Mennonites in general. We will delete such items as have already been mentioned in connection with him. Heese begins: a) In Times Past “Not even our enemies could deny that our original Mennonite community was characterized by a quiet life, a sincere brotherly love and a simple faith in the Holy Gospel. [The emigration from the Netherlands to North Germany and Prussia, the accom