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

owever, this new element or attitude could just as well be designated “big-church” with respect to its confessional base in that Klaas Reimer, an elder from the “small-church” and Heinrich Wiens, an elder from the “big-church” were of one mind and disposition in this direction, i) The first real impetus toward an organized Mennonite Brethren Church came from the “Wuest” Mennonite Brethren, k) To these were added, along with Herman Peters, Johann Martins and their followers from 1861 and later, people from the “big church” who had neither theological training nor any practical experience of brotherly living. In this group we must also place Gerhard Wieler, in spite of his many talents and good education. (Johann Wieler had brotherhood experience in and around Odessa amongst the Lutherans and Reformed “brethren.”) One must also list the brethren J. and B. Becker and Bernhard Penner with Gerhard Wieler, even though they had been partly influenced by the school of Wuest, but had not fully attained the patterns of thought of that leader (influenced by the unwholesome period of Kappes). All these people, who brought with them this new element or attitude were indescribably narrow and intolerant, as one gathers from their many letters of semi-official (congregational) character (especially those of the Becker brothers); these people never seemed to harbor a thought about church history that went beyond the borders of a co mm on Mennonite framework (although they talked of spreading their ideas throughout the whole world), nor had they ever read a serious book on theology. But they did have warm blood and healthy nerves. These people brought into the M.B. Church the strangling orthodoxy of the “exuberant movement” and the “mad year” during the winters of 1861/62 and 1864/66 respectively. To overcome this false emphasis God sent Daniel Fast and men of similar caliber from the Ohrloff District, where a broader vision and a healthier emotional attitude prevailed. 1) After the cleansing of the 1865 episode was completed, there came, as already indicated, those 458 THE MENNONITE BRETHREN CHURCH elements from the “big church” which hungered and thirsted after a new spiritual life, but which nevertheless brought with them their inherited ecclesiastical narrowness and exclusiveness, learned in their former church and now superimposed with some changes upon the new M.B. Church. Because of their large numbers and the outstanding abilities of individuals amongst them, who had come from the Molotschna and Chortitza districts, their influence was carried over into the M.B. Church, m) Abraham Unger (rather out of character) introduced the notion of the “strict baptismal doctrine” which forbade communion together with non-immersed believers to the extreme brethren Becker, G. Wieler and others like them. (See the special account of the Einlage M.B. Church in Chapter XIXff.) This idea soon gained supremacy in both churc