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

m. Postal Address: Barvenkovo, Province of Kharkov (for insured correspondence). This affiliate was founded by “brethren” on privately purchased 536 THE MENNONITE BRETHREN CHURCH lands leased by the villages, Petrovka, Vassilievka, Ielenovka and others, and by several families of industrialists in the area of Barvenkovo near the railway station having the same name. An initial period of economic and industrial bloom was followed by a rapid temporary decline. This had a great weakening effect on the spiritual life of the church in that it paralyzed several workers involved in the spiritual ministries of the church. Br. Gerhard Siemens moved here from Nepliuievo (cf. above if 21 6, 6); from Ignatievo came the brethren Abram Paetkau and Johann Schellenberg; from Jasykovo, Br. Peter Peters (who withdrew from the work). Here Br. Peter Fast (Taschtschenak- Friedensfeld) lived for several years (after he had been landowner and teacher in the nearby Bessabotovka for several years) and passed away in old age. For some time, too, Br. Wilhelm Dyck (now at Millerovo in the Don territory) lived and worked here. Br. Gerhard Siemens, who had been active here for some 10 years as leading preacher, left the church in the year 1905 and labored in the M.B. churches of North America, but returned and entered into his former work. With the exception of those named, the following brethren were here (1905): Minister Jakob Wiebe and Benjamin Redekopp; the candidates for the minis try, since 1902, David Klassen, Jakob Martens, Abram Janzen and Jakob Thiessen. In Barvenkovo the following are active (1910): Minister Abraham Unruh (graduate of the Ohrloff Secondary School and the pedagogical course, formerly elementary school teacher, teacher of German language and religion at the Business School founded and supported in essence by Mennonites— cf. also below Spat-Krim) and Deacon Gerhard Froese. Both of these brethren were arrested and imprisoned for permitting a sermon in Russian by a Russian evangelical missionary in May of 1909. This arrest was perpetrated by an over-enthusiastic police official who made use of the tightened regulations for protection (against religious propaganda) in this area. Before the completion of the term (one month), an official dispatched from St. Petersburg declared the arrest illegal and the brethren were dismissed. The official, a provincial councillor Pavlov, gave clear and practical directives to the local preachers and to the representative of the Mennonite Brethren Conference, Minister Heinrich Braun, about the registration and (through this) the legalization of new Mennonite churches, regarding meetings. At the same time the annual meeting of the M.B. churches in Petrovka was to take place, but was prohibited by the local administration. Although central authorities in St. Petersburg gave permission for such a conference, this authorization arrived too late due to delays in government b