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

and was forced to put the mayor, otherwise a thoroughly honorable man (only such men were elected to the position of mayor), in the ban for disobedience against and contempt for the duly authorized board of directors and the government itself in the form of the society’s compulsory orders, indeed of the imperial will [cf. Steinbach]! Thereupon T was physically punished!! The Agriculture Society never allowed a “brother” to suffer a disgraceful punishment: incorrigible laggards, vagabonds, drunkards and rude people were reported 108 to their respective congregations if it did not discover and punish its own sinners. These would then have to excommunicate such a person, either freely or under moral pressure and on the basis of the Word of God, in accordance with undisputed Mennonite teaching and church discipline. Then he would no longer be a brother, but a “heathen and a publican,” and he would be punished as such! 109 The same happened to T from F. But now he was to demonstrate what the old Dutch Mennonite blood was capable of doing (according to the family name of the unfortunate person, old Anabaptist-Mennonite martyr-blood flowed in his veins) : he lived more than thirty years after this and remained in the ban. He asserted that he had acted in the spirit and with the approval of his church brethren, who had then excommunicated him, and all private appeals by people close to him, that he should confess his fault to the congregation— every effort was made to make the confession 198 IN RUSSIA 1789-1860 easy for him— proved futile: he lived as one “banned” in his own home and village, he never ate with the “brethren,” nor did he attend the church services. His wife was buried— he attended as one set aside: he neither ate nor drank with the mourners. And as such he was also buried. May God judge him graciously! T. as well as Elder H. Wiens were each, in their own way, convinced and honest martyrs of an afflicted religious group which had arisen because of the impoverishment and stunted growth of the church of our fathers! The martyrdom of T. was far more difficult for a Mennonite to bear than that of H. Wiens. It needs to be said here again, however, that the Kleine Gemeinde, in spite of its unhealthy Mennonite narrowness and severity, never came into conflict with the Agricultural Society: in fact, the members of the society met the church half-way, allowing its members to paint the wood on their farm buildings blue (according to the Kleine Gemeinde, blue was the “duse” or God-pleasing color, which they also used to paint all of the wagons and furniture; even their clothes had to be quite dark in color)— instead of the more usual brighter colors, and replacing the gable of the house facing the street, which was supposed to be made of burned brick but appeared “too proud” to them, with wood gables painted blue. And just as our brethren in France of a hundred years ago were indulged by the fierce