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

Ohrloff Church, which in no wise overlooks the disorder in connection with the Lord’s Supper and other offenses (Peccata). m Regarding the dissolution of this society, the council [of the five elders, March 11] declared that it had employed all means available (from the point of view of church polity) to influence the erring ones, and this in all love and earnestness. (Can the above be true when Claassen submitted his document, signed by 17 associates, to the elders on January 6, and already on January 18 it was turned over to the Area Administrative Office so that the latter might do whatever it could in the matter? Can it be true when the last resort, the ban, had not yet been exercised against the erring ones?) Regarding the further treatment and punishment of them by the civil authorities, they ‘do not want to offer any suggestions.’ I have obviously given vent to my feelings about this document on a broad scale, but considered it necessary to do so in order to contribute to a proper understanding of the whole, for against the background of such an interpretation on the part of those who are to judge spiritual things spiritually, secession indeed became a serious matter of conscience for Claassen and his followers, m) On the other hand, one ought not to overlook that which was obvious error in the Claassen movement, its excessive zeal, which precipitated sin. If the declaration of February 10, 1860, which Johann Claassen, Abraham Comelssen and Isaak Koop had signed at the inspectorate, contained more than they could, would, or wanted to admit, ‘that we will not separate ourselves from the Mennonite Church and not undertake any religious actions whatever, take no steps of a religious character which are prohibited by Documentary Supplements 391 our church elders,’ then they were certainly at liberty to refuse to sign it. In the event of transgression the government could rightly consider them to be disobedient, as people whom one cannot trust even if they had given their word. Did they not themselves call forth the punishing arm of the government when already on March 21 it was reported that Isaak Koop, disregarding the signature (referred to above) and against the will of the church elders conducted meetings with like-minded Mennonites, not only in his own home but also in the Rudnerweide Colony, and when the secessionists elected H. Huebert of Liebenau and Jakob Becker of Rudnerweide as ministers by majority vote in Gnadenfeld on the 29th [30!] of May in the home of Jakob Reimer? And when in plain insubordination to their government— the Area Administrative Office— which, reminding them of the February 10 document, prohibited any religious actions and any speaking or preaching at meetings, they replied through the village mayor’s office: ‘we will not obey the order of the Area Administrative Office,’ what accountability did they then draw upon themselves? It makes one wonder to see ministe