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

ven “church convocation,” and “church system.” The "brotherhood,” however, is the final authority, the real sovereign law-making body, and is called according as need arises, usually by the elder or his representative, and consists of all the mature male members of the individual congregations under the leadership of the church council. By majority vote the “brotherhood” decides, in the final analysis, all important financial matters, the excommunication of erring and readmission of penitent members, matters of dogma and church governance, and the acceptance or rejection of the church council’s resolutions or those adopted by a conference of the various church councils and representatives of the conference congregations. The brotherhood elects its elders, teachers and deacons (usually through secret ballot given to the appropriate preachers in the “preacher’s room” or “Ohmstube”). The candidates are either recommended by the council or else the congregation votes without any previous slate of candidates. The elder— and the others nearly without exception— is invariably elected from the ranks of the preachers, who are essentially candidates for the position of elder and substitutes without full power. 32 b) The “minister” (“teacher") of the “old” Mennonite Church congregations in Russia, by a general conference resolution of 1898, was, in principle, granted the right to perform all official functions at the desire of the congregation. In contrast, the M.B. Church, from the very beginning of its existence, ordained its “teachers” as well as deacons, and thus all the deacons as well as the ministers are enabled, in the case of need and by special appointment, to perform all official functions. The "elder” in the Mennonite Brethren Church, even though very influential and honored, is set off from the rest of the ministers only by the fact that he is the permanent presiding officer at all functions and has the power to ordain, while the other ministers perform these two functions only at the behest of the elder and the congregation. The differentiation between the "elder” and the “teachers” or the "ministers” in the M.B. Church is merely a practical matter with regard to church order: all ministers are co-elders, 33 while the elder is the presiding, that is, leading minister. 52 DUTCH-PRUSSIAN ANABAPTISTS This arrangement, as well as the practice of ordination, is not a matter of faith, as some Protestants (Anglicans) would have us believe. In this way the ancient Anabaptist-evangelical practice has been reinstituted by us. The “Frisian” confession of faith makes no distinction between “elder” and “teacher,” and in the article dealing with deacons Romans 12:7-9 is quoted verbatim, thereby establishing that deacons play a role in the teaching function of the church. The Gnadenfeld and Alexander- wohl congregations of Russia still ordain the ministers (assistants to the elders) through the laying on of