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

872/73: FROM THE “JUNE REFORM” TO THE FIRST GENERAL CONFERENCE 1. The Molotschna M.B. Church a) We have seen how the Molotschna Church, 256 which was §204 actually the mother church of the M.B. Church, overcame the excesses of the “over-joyous” and the "strong.” And we have discovered how all the non-partisan believers and non-partisan, Christ-oriented members of the South-Russian Mennonite Brotherhood in the Molotschna District, foremost among them the ministers of the Ohrloff-Halbstadt Church and a few leaders from the recently -established “Temple Church” which had not as yet departed from the confessional foundations of ecumenical Christianity nor from the character of sound, evangelical Pietism, received her (the Mennonite Brethren Church) with affection, sympathy, and highest espectations in consequence of this, her victory. Many of 468 THE MENNONITE BRETHREN CHURCH these good expectations were vindicated; and where, in this time of ours, were all hopes fulfilled? b) Supervisory Council. We have already listed and characterized the men who came to the side of the physically ailing first minister Huebert, in 1866/66, to support and encourage him (cf. above #184 and #188, “Growth in Sad Times,” etc.). In the fall of 1865, Christian Schmidt and Jakob Jantz were already appointed as Huebert’s assistant teacher and associate leader respectively. Johann J. Fast from Halbstadt, previously from Schoenau (passed away in Rueckenau), had previously been elected to the diaconate and, after Br. Jakob Jantz had moved to the Ekaterinoslav area as co-founder of the colony and of the Friedensfeld M.B. Church (46 versts from Nikopol) and Br. Christian Schmidt to the Kuban, Fast was named assistant minister and associate leader. Daniel Fast was Br. Huebert’s “baptizer” and general assistant until he too moved to the Kuban about the same time (or somewhat earlier) that J. Jantz went to Ekaterinoslav. Br. Philipp Isaak, who held no spiritual title, was always and everywhere Huebert’s co-worker, and he constantly remained an active member of the church. Everyone loved, sympathized with, and respected the quiet, tender, and deeply insightful elder. The stable character and sound Christian attitude of all these leading brethren who understood each other well, became the means, by God’s grace, by which the Molotschna congregation was able to maintain itself in good order and by which it could experience rich spiritual growth after 1865/66 (when the “Hermann Peters Brethren” made the final break with the church). The M.B. Church in the Molotschna was strengthened significantly by the appointment of the relatively very young but very sincere Br. Abraham Schellenberg as assistant mini ster in the summer of 1869. Brother Johann J. Fast and Abraham Schellenberg remained with the church when Heinrich Huebert was finally able to fulfill the desire he had had for ten years to move to the Kuban (1873), where the church