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

rge Hamburg- Altona Church] declared itself willing to be reconciled if (1) the [Dompelaars] would declare baptism as performed by the elders of the Flemish a Christian baptism, (2) those baptized by the Flemish, but afterwards rebaptized by immersion, would admit that they had been too zealous in their arguments regarding the external mode of baptism and that henceforth they would not act in such a manner, and, finally, also ask that they might be forgiven with regard to those things in which they had offended others; and that (3) they would declare the teachings and practices of the Flemish Church to be in accordance with the will of God and that henceforth they would relate peaceably towards it. However, this attempt [at reconciliation] miscarried, as might have been expected .... It should be mentioned, briefly, that the Dompelaars, on the fifth of November, 1670, were granted the right to 298 THE MENNONITE BRETHREN CHURCH worship according to their convictions by King Christian V [of Denmark], Meanwhile the church now gradually began to dissolve, the more so since after 1673, due to the lack of ministers, separatists were often employed to fill this position .... The Dompelaars received one of their own, and an outstanding minister at that, in the person of the above-mentioned Jakob Denner [1684-1746], 98 In 1708 a separate church was built for him .... The latter was often visited by nobility [even by a princess]. By that time the hostility of the Flemish toward the rest of the Dompelaar Church had already ceased and so Denner preached in the Flemish Church on a number of occasions. Indeed, he would have been elected pastor of the latter church, something Gerhard Roosen [minister, formerly deacon among the Flemish, at first an incredibly bitter opponent of the Dompelaars ) urgently desired, had Denner been willing to put aside his deviant practices.” Thus far Pastor Roosen. We see that even under the Mennonite sun there is little that is new! The wonderment, as to how the idea of immersion came to the Dompelaars of 1648 seems strange to us. What about the Baptists among the Old Flemish of the day? Wherein lies the reason for the dissolution of this congregation when it had such an eminent and convinced minister as Denner, such a large church, such a large audience and such a royal privilege? Was it the influence of ‘‘separatist ministers” who held different views on baptism and the Lord’s Supper, or the influence of the Quakers who discarded baptism and communion altogether, of whom P. Roosen writes elsewhere that they disquieted the Mennonites very much at the time? n) In the Glaubenslehre der Mennoniten oder Taufgesinnten (Doctrinal Teachings of the Mennonites or Anabaptists) by Comelis Ris, minister of the Mennonite congregation at Hoorn (Holland), approved in 1773 by the Mennonite congregation ‘‘Zur Sonne” [the Sunites] in Amsterdam and the rest of the congregations associated with it