Perilous Journey: The Mennonite Brethren in Russia 1860-1910, John B. Toews, 1988

ise, Baptists like Carl Benzier and August Liebig imposed record keeping and correct procedure upon the early, rather chaotic business meetings. Thanks to Liebig's year long residence in Andreasfeld (1871-72) the Brethren also learned about Sunday School and introduced a time of public prayer during the worship service. 5 He not only ended factionalism, but also respected their traditions, since he "left the distinctly Mennonite confession of the Brethren untouched." 6 In 1872-73 the cooperation went even further: two Baptists, Eduard Leppke 56 and Wilhelm Schutz, were appointed to the Brethren itinerant ministry. 7 Another scenario involved the brothers Gerhard and Johann Wieler. Extremely gifted yet very different in temperament, the two played diverse roles in the early history of the Brethren. Gerhard, inclined to the ecstatic and emotional, became a leading advocate of the exuberance movement. Johann, restrained and reflective, steadily opposed the excesses of his older brother and at one point was excommunicated by him. Together the brothers nevertheless made substantial contributions in two areas. Fluent in Russian, both functioned as civil rights advocates for the hard- pressed, fledgling movement. Both were also deeply committed to evangelism and were partially responsible for the birth of the German and Russian Baptist movement in the southern Ukraine. Johann not only attended the first Convention of the Russian Baptists held in Novo-Vasilevka in 1884 but was elected as its president. Its agenda manifested Brethren overtones: the election of itinerant ministers for evangelism; the question of open communion; the issue of footwashing. 8 The Baptist connection had its problems from the very outset. The first Brethren Confession of Faith drafted in 1873 carefully specified that the two groups were distinct from one another, yet the document itself borrowed heavily from Baptist sources. It seemed the Baptist liaison compromised the Brethren search for identity from the start. When the secessionists tried to clarify their relationship with the Baptists at their 1876 conference the item had to be postponed because it was too contentious. On one occasion before the government recognition of the Baptists in 1879, Brethren elders and ministers faced the unenviable task of trying to convince a czarist official that they were different from both the Old Church and the Baptists. 9 Brethren-Baptist contacts were sustained by visiting speakers and the flow of Baptist theological and devotional materials during the 1880s and 1890s. Baptists frequently spoke at mission and thanksgiving festivals or served as key resource persons at Bible courses. 10 Problems continued to plague their love affair. Russian authorities frequently confused the Brethren with the Baptists and appropriate petitions clarifying the relationship were periodically drawn up. Sometimes this resulted from the ongoing fraterni