The Mennonite Brethren Church is an

evangelical Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide interdenominational movement within Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being " born again", in which an individual expe ...

Mennonite Anabaptist movement with congregations.

History

The conference was established among Plautdietsch-speaking Russian Mennonites in 1860. During the 1850s, some Mennonites were influenced by

Radical Pietism Radical Pietism are those Christian churches who decided to break with denominational Lutheranism in order to emphasize certain teachings regarding holy living. Radical Pietists contrast with Church Pietists, who chose to remain within their Lut ...

, which found its way into the Mennonite colonies of the southern

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

now known as Ukraine. Mennonite immigrants from West Prussia who had been influenced by pietistic leaders transplanted those ideas to the large

Molotschna Molotschna Colony or Molochna Colony was a Russian Mennonite settlement in what is now Zaporizhzhia Oblast in Ukraine. Today, the central village, known as Molochansk, has a population less than 10,000. The settlement is named after the Molochna ...

colony. The pastor of a neighboring congregation, Eduard Wüst, reinforced this pietism. Wüst was a revivalist who stressed repentance and Christ as a personal savior, influencing Catholics,

Lutherans Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched ...

and Mennonites in the area. He associated with many Mennonite leaders, including Leonhard Sudermann. In 1859, Joseph Höttmann, a former associate of Wüst met with a group of Mennonites to discuss problems within the main Mennonite body. Their discussion centered on participating in communion with church members who were living in a way that seemed unholy or were not converted, and

baptism Baptism (from grc-x-koine, βάπτισμα, váptisma) is a form of ritual purification—a characteristic of many religions throughout time and geography. In Christianity, it is a Christian sacrament of initiation and adoption, almost ...

of adults by immersion, which was distinct from other Mennonite churches who primarily baptized by pouring. On January 6, 1860, this growing group of Mennonites influenced by a combination of Prussian Mennonite pietism, contacts with

Moravian Brethren , image = AgnusDeiWindow.jpg , imagewidth = 250px , caption = Church emblem featuring the Agnus Dei.Stained glass at the Rights Chapel of Trinity Moravian Church, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, United States , main_classification = Proto-Prot ...

and indirectly through the influential preaching of Eduard Wüst, met in the village of Elisabeththal,

and formed the Mennonite Brethren Church. They felt the Mennonites had grown cold and formal, and were seeking greater emphasis on discipline, prayer and Bible study. The group presented a document to the elders of the Molotschna Mennonite Churches which indicated "that the total Mennonite brotherhood has decayed to the extent that we can no more be part of it" and fear the "approach of an unavoidable judgment of God." The immediate catalyst for the new organization was the discipline placed on a body of brethren who met to observe communion in a private home without the elders' sanction. The Mennonite Brethren were also in contact with and influenced by German Baptists J. G. Oncken and August Liebig. The Mennonite Brethren movement spread throughout the Mennonite colonies and produced many distinguished leaders, particularly in Molotschna. These include P. M. Friesen (educator and historian), Jakob and Abraham Kroeker (writers), Heinrich Braun (publisher), Peter Braun (educator) and A. H. Unruh (educator). Jakob Kroeker (1872–1948) was one of the most prolific Mennonite writers, completing a fourteen volume Old Testament commentary. By breaking religious and cultural patterns that had become a hindrance to Mennonite society, the contribution of the Mennonite Brethren allowed all Mennonite groups in Russia to pursue a more wholesome Christian life. The Mennonite Brethren movement also spread through missionary endeavor. They commissioned the first missionaries to travel from Southern Russia (Ukraine) to India in 1887, establishing congregations in the Hyderabad, Telangana State, region. In the ensuing years, Mennonite Brethren churches have been established in SE Asia, Africa, Europe, and Latin America. Because of growing pressure by the Czarist government and later because of the political turmoil of the Russian Revolution, significant numbers of the Mennonite Brethren moved to the United States, Canada, Paraguay, Brazil and Mexico. In the Soviet Union their organizational structures ceased to exist by 1930 due to Communist persecution. At that time some remaining Mennonite Brethren moved from Ukraine to the republics of the Soviet Central Asia. After

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

several Mennonite Brethren churches emerged in that region. In 1966 they joined the Evangelical-Baptist Union—an umbrella organization tightly controlled by the Soviet government.

Notes

References

* *{{cite book , last=Smith , first=C. Henry , others=Revised and expanded by Cornelius Krahn , title=Smith's Story of the Mennonites , year=1981 , publisher=Faith and Life Press , location=Newton, Kansas , isbn=0-87303-069-9, pages=277–282

External links

Mennonite Brethren Churches
in ''Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online'' Mennonite denominations Religious organizations established in 1860 1860 establishments in the Russian Empire Affiliated institutions of the National Council of Churches in India Radical Pietism

History

See also

Notes

References

External links