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

the saints, I Cor. 14:33, 40. According to this divine order, our Lord and Savior has, as Head of the Christian church and at His glorious ascension, ordained or dedicated the twelve apostles to their high and important office by the power of his high-priestly blessing, ten days later completing their preparation for this service through the gift of His Holy Spirit, Luke 24:50, 51; Matt. 28:20. By virtue of this office which they had received, these apostles, ordained by the Lord Himself, then from time to time founded congregations by ordaining elders and bishops, etc., etc., for the believers of a given place, installing them in their offices by the laying on of hands and command in the name of Christ, that they might, as the servants of Christ and not in their own willfulness, act as the servants and stewards of the divine mysteries and administer the institutions founded by Christ as He instituted them. 256 THE MENNONITE BRETHREN CHURCH Mark 3:14; Acts 1:15-26; and 14:23; I Cor. 4:1; Titus l:5ff.; II Tim. 1:6. Since those who have seceded from us have quite arbitrarily— that is, in contradiction to the regulations of our church based upon the foregoing— appointed their leaders 57 without ecclesiastical ordination and with equal arbitrariness [?] depose them from their offices, we cannot recognize them as a Mennonite congregation allied with us. Second: According to our apostolic church order, only the ordained elders are authorized to administer the holy sacraments; marriages can also be legally performed only by properly appointed ministers [in most congregations of the time not ordained by the laying on of hands]. Since the secessionists have neither a church-ordained elder nor a properly appointed minister, and since they absolutely refuse to tie the teaching ministry of the church and the administration of the sacraments to an ecclesiastical office, but on the contrary have every member who feels called to do so administer these ordinances [? why, then, did they elect teachers and ministers?],— indeed, even the female members speak in their meetings [but only in intimate home gatherings!] and pray aloud— obviously in contradiction to I Cor. 12; II Cor. 5:18-20; James 3:1; I Cor. 14:34, 35 and I Tim. 2:12— therefore, according to the rules of our church, we can neither condone nor recognize as legal such unauthorized practices of theirs as baptism, communion and marriage. Thirdly: Finally, the secessionists have demonstrated sufficiently both by the disorderly and tumultuous manner in which they conduct their so-called devotional meetings, their abuse of holy baptism— in that they rebaptize, and that indeed even several times [?], persons who have already been baptized upon their own request and confession of faith, as though the Lord God could perjure Himself— as well as in the burning of recognized Christian books of sermons and devotional literature that they have nothing in common with