Peter M. Friesen

Peter M. Friesen (born April 20, 1849 in Sparrau , Ukraine ; † October 19, 1914 ) was a Mennonite preacher , teacher , historian and writer . He was the first Mennonite to attempt to portray the history of the Russian mennonites .

Life

Peter Friesen came from a Mennonite family of German descent in the Mennonite settlement of Molotschna in southern Ukraine. He attended the central school in Halbstadt (Molotschna Colony) and then studied in Switzerland , Odessa and Moscow .

When he was 16, Peter Friesen was baptized in the recently established Mennonite Brethren Congregation. Influenced by the rationalist mindset with which he was confronted in higher education, he temporarily gave up his belief as a young man, but returned to it again. From 1873 to 1886 he worked as a teacher in the central school in Halbstadt , and from 1880 as director. Thanks to his efforts, the first Mennonite teachers' college in Russia was founded in Halbstadt in 1878 . Due to his knowledge of Russian, he served several times as a representative of the Mennonites before the Russian government, where he represented the economic and religious interests of the Mennonites. He achieved great fame as a philanthropist and defender of the oppressed, especially during the pogroms against the Jews and during the persecution of the Russian students .

In 1884 Peter Friesen was consecrated as preacher of the Mennonite Brethren and from 1886 worked as a travel preacher and missionary at the Kuban , in Odessa and Moscow . He was a fiery and talented speaker, but not a particularly popular one, as his sermons often went over the heads of the audience. He dealt with grievances with very harsh words and spoke out very forcefully for his point of view at several Mennonite conferences . As a preacher, he endeavored to bring Mennonites and Mennonite brothers closer together, between whom there were sharp confrontations in the second half of the 19th century.

After a long illness he moved to Sevastopol , where he worked in a Russian evangelical community for 13 years. His house, where he also gave private tutoring, was the point of contact for many Mennonite students during this time. Then he moved to Moscow, where his apartment became a meeting place for the Mennonites who studied there.

Peter Friesen spent the last years of his life, during which he became almost completely blind, in Tiege (Molotschna colony).

Writing activity

Peter Friesen had a good theological training. As a result of his mediation between the Mennonites and the government, Peter Friesen wrote Confession or Sect? . In 1902 he wrote the creed of the Mennonite Brethren Congregation , according to which many Mennonite Brethren Congregations align to this day. He also wrote a number of other scriptures with spiritual content. His life's work, on which he worked for 25 years, was the presentation of the history of the Mennonites in Russia with the title The Old Evangelical Mennonite Brotherhood in Russia (1789-1910) as part of the overall Mennonite history , published in 1911 by the Mennonite publishing house Raduga in Halbstadt appeared. In addition to the texts he wrote himself, it contains an enormous collection of documents that have since served as a source of research for many historians.

Works

• Peter M. Friesen: The Old Evangelical Mennonite Brotherhood in Russia (1789-1910) in the context of the overall Mennonite history. Publishing company "Raduga", Halbstadt 1911.

literature

• P. Braun: Peter Martinovitch Friesen. In: Mennonite Life. 3 (October 1948), p. 8.
• Christian Hege , Christian Neff : Mennonite Lexicon . Volume 2, p. 6.
• FC Thiessen: My Recollections of PM Friesen. In: Mennonite Life. 3 (October 1948), p. 9 f.