Learning from the Mennonites in Ukraine

The war in Ukraine has been the top news story for ten days now. This article, though, is primarily about the nineteenth-century Ukrainian Mennonites and their descendants—and about what Christians can (and should) learn from them. 

Menno Simons (1496~1561)

The Background of the Mennonites

The small Christian denomination known as Mennonites (and there are several church organizations who use that name) grew out of the Anabaptist movement that began in Switzerland in 1525.

It was 495 years ago, on February 24, 1527, during an assembly of Anabaptists in the northern Swiss village of Schleitheim that a statement of the basic principles of the Anabaptists was adopted.

That statement, usually called the Schleitheim Confession, was the first Protestant confession of faith. The more widely-known Augsburg Confession of the Lutherans dates back to 1530.

Menno Simons was a Roman Catholic priest who left the Catholics and joined the Anabaptists in 1536. Simons, who was from the northmost part of the Netherlands, became such a strong leader that the name of the more than two million Mennonites in the world today comes from him.

For quite some time now, most Mennonites have not affirmed or followed all seven of the articles of the Schleitheim Confession.

The first and sixth articles, though, are still followed by most Mennonites today: the affirmation of believer’s baptism (i.e., the rejection of infant baptism) and the affirmation of pacifism or non-resistance (i.e., the rejection of “the sword.”

The Movement of the Mennonites to, and from, Ukraine

The early Anabaptists/Mennonites were regularly persecuted in western Europe, so even in the 17th century some migrated to what was to become the USA, and many others moved east to Prussia, largely to what is Poland today.

Catherine the Great became the Empress of Russia in 1762, and most of Ukraine fell under Russian rule during her reign. She soon invited people from Prussia (and elsewhere) to move to the Ukrainian area of Russia and to farm the unoccupied lands there.

Two of the incentives the Empress offered the Mennonites for settling in Ukraine were self-government and exemption from military service. Since they were pacifists, the latter was especially appealing to them. The largest colonies formed were Chortitza and Molotschna, founded in 1789 and 1803.

When a change in the Russian government threatened to end their military exemption, a Mennonite delegation traveled to St. Petersburg in 1871 to plead their case. When their appeals failed, a third of the Mennonite population—some 18,000 people—emigrated to the U.S. and Canada.

(Although it was first published in 1986, here is the link to “Mennonites Ingrained in Kansas,” an informative article in the Los Angeles Times.) *

Learning from the Mennonites

So, what can we learn from the Ukrainian Mennonites?

Obviously, right now, following their example and moving to other parts of the world where they will not have to fight is not a viable option for most Ukrainians—although, tragically, during these past ten days there have been more than 1,200,000 Ukrainians who have fled their homeland as refugees.

Still, the Ukrainian Mennonites of the past are a good example of the importance of some Christians being leaven in the world. The Anabaptists’ consistent advocacy for pacifism, often resulting in their considerable suffering, has not been widely followed but has often caused others to question violence/war.

There are few Mennonites in Ukraine today, just over 500 adherents in 11 congregations. But they are active advocates of peace and justice.**

And, who knows, perhaps they have had some influence on the Ukrainians who recently befriended a Russian soldier as seen in the following picture from the March 3 issue of Metro, the British newspaper. 

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* More details of the Mennonites in Ukraine and in North America are found in my 5/5/14 blog post titled “In Praise of Ukrainian Mennonites.” In that article, I relate how many of my current church friends, as well as my daughter-in-law, have close ancestors from Ukraine.

** Here is the link to an informative article about Mennonites in Ukraine, past and present, in the 2/22/22 online article in Anabaptist World.

In Praise of Ukrainian Mennonites

The beleaguered country of Ukraine continues to be much in the news, and no one knows what is going to happen there.

In March I wrote an article titled “What about Crimea?” Of course, Ukraine was mentioned several times in that article. But this time I am writing about events in Ukraine in the 18^th and 19^th centuries and not about the current turmoil there.

In the article about Crimea, I mentioned Catherine the Great, who was the Empress of Russia from 1762 to 1796. (I mentioned her because she annexed Crimea to Russia in 1783.)

Soon after becoming Empress, Catherine issued a manifesto in 1763 inviting Europeans to move to the Ukrainian area of Russia and to farm the unoccupied agricultural lands there.

Many Europeans moved east to do just that, including many Mennonite Christians from the country we now know as Poland.

In 1787 two Mennonites from Prussia (Poland) visited Russia and were even able to meet with the Empress.

Catherine promised that if they moved to Ukraine, each family would be given 175 acres of free land and they all would be given special privileges, including religious freedom, exemption from military service, and the right to establish their own schools and teach in their own language (Low German).

That sounded good to them, so their migration to Ukraine began. In 1789, 228 families formed the first colony there, about 125 miles north of Crimea.

The second wave of migration was in 1803-04, two years after Alexander, Catherine’s grandson, had become Emperor of Russia. That colony, Molotschna, was less than 100 miles from Crimea. It became the largest Mennonite colony in Ukraine.

By 1806 there were 365 families living in Molotschna. In the years that followed, others families from Prussia joined them. During their journey there in 1820-21, one group met Emperor Alexander, who wished them well (wohl in German). Consequently, they decided to name their new village Alexanderwohl.

In 1870, the Russian government issued a proclamation stating its intention to end by 1880 all special privileges granted to the Mennonites. Alarmed at the possibility of losing those privileges, especially their military exemption, many of them decided to migrate to the United States.

Among them was the entire congregation of the Alexanderwohl church, who in 1874 migrated to Marion County, Kansas.

A couple of years ago, as June and I were driving south from Abilene to Newton, Kansas, we came upon the largest open country church building we had ever seen. It turned out to be the building of the Alexanderwohl Mennonite Church, which was constructed in 1886. (It has been remodeled and added on to at various times through the years.)

As you know, a lot of winter wheat is grown in Kansas. But you may not know that it was the Ukrainian Mennonites who first began to grow wheat there, having carried wheat seed with them when they migrated to Kansas in the 1870s.

Many of our church friends now are descendants of those Mennonites who came to Kansas from Ukraine.

Also, some of you know our oldest son Keith and his wife Brenda. Brenda’s mother was from a Mennonite family, and all eight of her great-grandparents lived in the Molotschna colony in Ukraine, although their families migrated to Minnesota rather than to Kansas.

Largely because of the strong desire to maintain their pacifistic beliefs, many Mennonites migrated to Ukraine and then later from Ukraine to the United States and elsewhere. For that reason, among others, it seems to me that the Ukrainian Mennonites are praiseworthy indeed.