Journal of European Baptist Studies, Volume 7, No. 3, 2007

lished at Neu-Danzig in Ukraine on 5 May 1864 (o.s.), two days before the Horczik Church, but it was soon broken up by the authorities. 10 For material on the mission work of the Memel Church in the Russian Empire, see. Mission der Gemeinde in Russland’, in Otto Ekelmann, Gnadenwunder: Geschichte der Ersten Ostpreussischen Baptist-gemeinde in Memel und Hirer Missionsfelder in Ostpreussen und Russland, 1841-1928 (Memel: Author, 1928), pp. 49-100. Penetration of the Baptists into the Russian Empire of the Nineteenth Century 39 returned to his home in Libau (today Liepaja). With the ending of the Crimean War, German members of the Memel Church settled in Latvian territory, drawn there for economic opportunity. A couple of them learned the Lettish language and began to witness to the native population. In 1859 the pastor of the church in Memel, Ferdinand Niemetz (1814-1873), accompanied by a Lettish interpreter, bravely held meetings in spite of threats and police surveillance. In 1858 and 1859 the Memel Church baptized limited numbers of individuals from Courland. In 1860 eleven Latvians from Courland crossed the border in a farmer’s cart to be baptized; in 1861 two other groups arrived by sea to avoid the border crossing. In 1861 the church commissioned two men to serve in Latvian territory, Daniel Juraschka to minister among Germans and Adam Gertners (Gaertner) (1829-1875) - one of the Latvian converts, age thirty-two - to minister among the Latvians. The latter held his first baptism on Latvian soil in September 1861, baptizing seventy-two candidates. In spite of severe persecution from 1860 to 1865, the Baptist work grew. Congregations were established as mission stations of the Memel Church. In 1875 the church, with its twenty-seven stations, numbered 2,780 members with the majority living in a foreign land. In 1876 and the years following, the Memel Church granted independence to its Latvian stations. In 1879 the Prussian Association granted permission to Latvian Baptists to form a Baltic Association, which in 1881 had almost 4,000 members. In October 1855 the Memel Church was able to extend its influence even further up the Baltic coast to St. Petersburg, then the capital of the Russian Empire, with the settlement in the city of one of its members, Ch. Plonus, a tailor. 11 Plonus distributed tracts, which he had brought with him, and gathered a group that furthered this activity. After 1857 a circle gathered with Plonus for meetings on Sunday morning and Monday evening. In 1864 Oncken with Niemetz travelled to St. Petersburg where the former baptized seven candidates between midnight and one in the morning, the first Baptist baptism in the imperial city, which brought the membership there to eleven. The St. Petersburg mission continued, although beset with inner conflict. In 1874 Johann G. Kargel (1849-1937), later noted as an outstanding evangelical theologian, helped to bring 11 Der