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

Sendbote, 28 May 1884, p. 170; Ekelmann, Gnadenwunder , p. 86, gives the date of 1856 of Plonus’s settlement. 12 See Quarterly Reporter, January 1865, pp. 73-79, on Oncken’s trip to St. Petersburg. 40 Journal of European Baptist Studies stability, serving until 1880. In the latter year the St. Petersburg work was constituted as an independent Baptist church. Although it was a German Baptist church, it was multicultural; its membership also included Latvians, Estonians and Swedes. The St. Petersburg church extended its outreach to neighbouring Estonian territory through the work of its pastor, Adam R. Schiewe (1843- 1930). Because of revival from Swedish missionaries, some individuals began to baptize believers by sprinkling. Upon hearing of Baptists in St. Petersburg, they invited Schiewe to visit them. In February 1864 Schiewe baptized twenty-nine candidates. For some years Schiewe undertook mission tours in northern Estonia and offshore islands. Also in 1884 Julius Herrmann (1852-1915), pastor of the German Baptist Church in Riga, travelled to Pamau in the south and in August baptized, at midnight, seven believers. Estonian Baptists began to form their own congregations and in 1896 an association. 13 Ukraine - German Believers With the migration of German Baptists from Poland, a strong German Baptist presence was established in northwest Ukraine in Volhynia. One of the leading missionaries here was Karl Ondra (1839-1887), born in Poland but who settled in Volhynia, where in 1863 he was baptized. After studying at the mission school in Hamburg, he returned to Volhynia where, at the age of twenty-six, he began a ministry not only in Volhynia where he resided but also throughout South Russia until 1877. In that year the authorities exiled him back to Poland, together exiling five others, all charged with mission activity among the Russian population, but charges they denied. Ukraine was open to further evangelical penetration, not only because of the activity of the Bonekempers, father and son, and Wiist, but also because of the Stundist movement. Stundists gathered in small groups in an hour or Stunde for Bible study and prayer. Stundism brought an evangelical quickening among German Lutherans, Reformed and Mennonites and, in turn, also spread among native Ukrainians. In 1860 the new evangelical currents produced a split in Mennonite ranks with the establishment of the Mennonite Brethren who stressed regeneration with the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper 13 For the work of Schiewe and Herrmann, see Der Wcihrheitszeuge, 15 April 1884, p. 85; 1 May 1884, p. 96; and Quarterly Reporter, July, 1885, pp. 9-10. Penetration of the Baptists into the Russian Empire of the Nineteenth Century 41 applicable only for the converted. 14 German Baptists had a significant influence on the development of the early Mennonite Brethren through correspondence and personal emissaries. Baptist