Journal of European Baptist Studies, Volume 9, Number 2, January 2009

ime. He pointedly wrote, ‘they were sent packing ( vyprovazhivali ) abroad, that is, o sent out without ceremony. He was right. In my research I have found only one German subject who stayed for any extended time, August Liebig. In his career in Russia his work was almost entirely among Germans, and even he was exiled twice from the country. Aside from Liebig, Germans who were born in the Russian Empire did most of the Baptist mission work among the German population in the country. The earliest of these men was Gottfried Alf (1831-1898), my great-great grand uncle, the first ordained Baptist minister in the Russian Empire. 8 9 Alf was born in Russian Poland and preached in both German and Polish. While a teacher and still a Lutheran, he had a religious experience that led him to preach the gospel. Opposition from the Lutheran authorities forced him out of his church. Although not knowing Baptists, he soon heard of them and decided to become a Baptist since they appeared to be in accord with Scripture. His immersion as a believer in 1858 began the Baptist movement in Poland, a movement that also spread into Volhynia in Ukraine. Although Alf went to Hamburg and received support from abroad, the Alf movement was indigenous, developing its own workers and churches. Such German-Russians as Karl Ondra, A.R. Schiewe, and Johann Prizkau also led the German Baptist work in Russia. German Baptists developed special ties with Mennonite Brethren, a pietistic revival movement that broke from other Mennonites in Ukraine. Without knowing Baptists but influenced by a Baptist tract, Mennonite 8 Arsenii Rozhdestvenskii, Yuzhnorusskii shtundizm (St. Petersburg, 1889), p. 101. 9 For the career of Gottfried Alf, see Albert W. Wardin, Jr., Gottfried F. Alf: Pioneer of the Baptist Movement in Poland (Brentwood, Tennessee: Baptist History and Heritage Society, 2003). 34 Journal of European Baptist Studies Brethren began to immerse believers in 1860. Oncken corresponded with Abraham Unger, a future Mennonite Brethren leader, possibly as early as 1859 and will send August Liebig in 1866 to visit Unger and other Mennonites. Both Johann Pritzkau of Alt-Danzig, who was immersed as early as 1864 by Mennonite Brethren, and Johann Wieler, a Mennonite Brethren, will both meet with Oncken in Hamburg at the end of the 1860s. In 1869 Oncken himself will travel to Russia and visit Mennonite Brethren, constitute the German Baptist church in Alt-Danzig, and even consult with Ukrainian believers. Baptist work in the Caucasus began with the migration in 1861 of Martin K. Kalweit (1833-1918) with his wife and two sisters to the area of Tiflis, today Tbilisi, in the country of Georgia. Kalweit was a German of Lithuanian extraction but bom a Russian subject living in Kovno Province near the Russian-German border. After his migration, Kalweit at first felt isolated and almost abandoned, even fearing the Russian people. He neverthel