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

est reverence and childlike submission, the under- signed, commissioned by his fellow-believers, dares to approach you, O Hardships at Einlage 319 Lord find Tsar, on their behalf, and humbly pray for your gracious answer to our united plea. b) “The reason is oppression, mistreatment (and constant persecution) because of our faith. Already for some years, a number of persons in the Chortitza and Kronsweide Mennonite Church in the province and district of Ekaterinoslav were awakened by God’s Spirit through intensive reading of the Scriptures to a better life and conduct. Recently, after they were fully convinced of the moral and religious decay of their fellow Mennonites, they began to order their lives in strict accordance with the Word of God and the teaching of the reformer Menno Simons, at the same time keeping in mind the rights and privileges granted to the Mennonites in South Russia by the most gracious rulers of Russia. c) ‘‘But our church elders, instead of promoting this work of the Lord, in spite of their being fully convinced that only the Word of God and true fear of the Lord can make citizens faithful and obedient, began to arouse an irreconcilable hatred against us in their congregations. This hatred and the unrighteous acts stemming from it, provoked us to use the rights due us according to God’s Word and Menno Simons’ teaching, which consist herein: Every Mennonite not only has the liberty, but rather, in the case at hand, the unalterable obligation to leave a Mennonite church that does not conform to his convictions and his conscience, and to join another, or to help organize a new Mennonite church, to which the Russian state law makes no reference whatever. And thus a new Mennonite church, consisting of 91 persons was established, which, according to the custom of their forefathers (who came to their new fatherland with the reputation of being a pious, God-fearing people), now conducted its worship services under the leadership of its ministers, Heinrich Neufeld and Abraham Unger. Now we began to experience severe persecution by our own local Mennonite authorities (the Chortitza Area Administrative Office) in that they oppressed and mistreated us, as the facts in the attached Promemoria prove. “In our distress, wherein we anxiously look for speedy help, webring our united plea before your exalted throne, O Lord and Tsar, and pray for your most gracious protection in the practice of our evangelical worship and for the cessation of the severe persecutions on the part of the local government administration, in order to be able to live a peaceful and quiet life in all godliness and sobriety. The original signed: Mennonite of the Chortitza Colony, Gerhard Wieler, Province and District of Ekaterinoslav, Chortitza Mennonite District. St. Petersburg, June 4, 1862.” e) “ Promemoria regarding the persecutions in the province and district of Ekaterinoslav, of the Mennonites in the Chort