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

s provided other services (ordination, etc.). It should be noted that after the first disillusionment, a fair number of families of the M.B. fellowship (also from the ranks of other settlers) emigrated to America. It is one of these brethren who emigrated, Minister Janzen, minister of the M.B. Church who has provided us with a valuable account of the origin and the organization of that church. §259 This special section of the book about the M.B. Church has come to be exceptionally long. We want to conclude it in order to take up the thread of the story of the larger Mennonite brotherhood in Russia, which for quite some time now has been popularity referred to as the Mennonite Church. We also want to shed some more light upon the reciprocal relationships which the two ecclesiastical organizations presently (1910) have to each other. Then each one of them is to be evaluated according to its strengths or weaknesses, plus or minus. Even as we saw in this completed section D that the story of the development of both groups was continually one of mutual interaction, so we shall also find it in section E (especially in chapter 32, in the issue of military service). This is so because both are really inseparable parts of one collective living organism. Special emphasis will later be given to the development, within the M.B. Church, of missionary activity among pagan peoples. 574 THE MENNONITE BRETHREN CHURCH E. MILITARY SERVICE AND THE ATTITUDE OF THE RUSSIAN MENNONITES TOWARD THE STATE AND THE PEOPLE OF RUSSIA. EMIGRATION TO AMERICA XXXII. PREAMBLE: IS THE “NONRESISTANT” MENNONITE UNPATRIOTIC? 1. The Mennonite’s Attitude Towards Fatherland and Fellow Citizens a) Already in chapter VI, “Mennonite Customs and Characteristics,” we have recorded a variety of opinions from non-Mennonite authors concerning the Mennonites’ position with regard to the fatherland as well as their relationship with fellow citizens of another faith. While, for literary reasons, we are dealing with this question prior to the major issue of this section (E) — that is, the military involvement question— we will follow our method again of allowing a non-Mennonite to speak. We cite from a publication by the current president of the Commission on Religious Affairs, Mr. P.V. Kamensky: “A Question or a Misunderstand- ing.” 1 Mr. Kamensky refutes Mr. A. A. Velizyn, 2 a well-known leading voice of his time, in the energetic literary attack which was levelled against the German colonists in general and the Mennonites in particular during the 90s of the previous century. Mr. Velizyn accuses the colonists and the Mennonites not only of a lack of patriotism but even of traitorous views and conspiracy with the German “fatherland." On page 13 of Mr. Velizyn’s book: Die Deutschen in Russland (The Germans in Russia), he laments: “It is painful to see how the Germans, who have been honored with the privilege of being called Russia