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

s in Witmarsum, Merino's birthplace, and Pingjum, his first pastorate. Of special interest to us is the congregation 36 DUTCH-PRUSSIAN ANABAPTISTS in Zaandam or Saardam (with over 1,000 members) where Peter the Great learned the shipbuilding trade. The smallest congregation, located in Oudorp with some 12 members!— 26 persons all told— (ca. 1888), has its own theologically educated and salaried pastor, church building and parsonage, an excellent example of the way in which the Dutch Mennonites provide for one another! Nevertheless, the religious persuasion of most of the congregations and their pastors is not what we would consider evangelical orthodoxy nor piety. A typical re- presentative of this majority Dutch Mennonite theological position is the pastor of the North German congregation of Emden, Dr. theol. Appeldoom (Dutch by birth and training), who has become' famous in the last two years as a consequence of the so-called “Appeldoom controversy.” This controversy was the occasion for an energetic protest against Dr. Appeldoom’s opinions as well as a testimonial in favor of the faith in the spirit of Menno and the Apostles by the West Prussian, South German, Swiss and American Mennonites. Our good colleague and editor of the Mennonitische Blaetter, P. H. v.d. Smissen, has also taken a clear and decisive stand in this matter. Even the Amsterdam Missionary Society (cf. below 0/300 & 307) has openly criticized Dr. Appeldoom and sought to calm our Russian missionary friends. But there are also a goodly number of truly pious and Bible-believing Mennonites in Holland who cling to the old faith and who are our spiritual brothers in the fullest sense of the word, not only our brothers according to the flesh. The “Anabaptist Missionary Society” (cf. 0 300 etc.) and its executive committee: Bierens de Haan and Pastor Leendertz, among others, are from this group. It is common knowledge that many of the young men from our Russian Mennonite congregations are active as missionaries in this organization, a fact clearly apparent in the missionary report (cf. 0 300 etc.) of the former missionary, Elder H. Dirks— Gnadenfeld, in which we also meet the senior Anabaptist missionary of the Netherlands, Peter Jansz, and other Dutch mis- sionaries. Periodical publications of the Dutch Anabaptists are: Doopsgezinde Bijdragen (a scholarly quarterly), Zondagsbode and Kleine Mededeeler (a missionary publication), etc. b) The Dutch have developed their church organization in a unique way (something that is also true of the North German city congregations of Hamburg-Altona, Emden, Neuwied, Krefeld etc., as well as of Danzig and Elbing in West Prussia); in contrast to the West and East Prussian congregations which derive from them, as well as those of South Germany, Switzerland and France, who generally, with the exception of those in the Palatinate and a few others, employ unsalaried ministers and elders with any kin