Mennonite German Soldiers: Nation, Religion, and Family in the Prussian East, 1772-1880

3. Redefining Mennonites’ Place in Ancien Régime Prussia

C H A P T E R T H R E E ∏ Redefining Mennonites’ Place in Ancien Régime Prussia T he first Mennonite emigration to Russia in 1788 came at a time when Frederick William II was considering far-ranging changes in the government’s religious policy. As a result of these deliberations, he ordered a general review of the Mennonites’ status, triggering in turn wide-ranging discussions within a divided bureaucracy. Some ministers in the General Directory continued to see Mennonites, like Jews, as valuable taxpayers. Others thought in any case the laws of the land should not be trampled in order to impose new restrictions. The advisers closest to the king, however, made strengthening orthodoxy an important state goal and sought to override concerns about revenue and strict legality. The result was promulgation of a Mennonite edict in 1789 (see document 2 in the appendix ) that added religious qualifications for considering Mennonites as proper subjects. The review of Mennonite policy came at a time of change and turmoil in the monarchy’s religious policy. Johann Christoph Wöllner had only been appointed minister of culture in July 1788.1 During his 49 50 Mennonite German Soldiers first week in office he had the king promulgate an edict on the Religious Constitution of the Prussian States. Wöllner’s edict was aimed at eliminating Enlightenment-inspired rationalist theology from Prussia’s pulpits. Along the way he also set clearly defined boundaries for the established churches—Reformed, Lutheran, and Roman Catholic— and for the tolerated sects—Jews, Moravian Brethren, Mennonites, and Hussites. Included in these boundaries was an absolute prohibition on proselytizing.2 This new policy would cause problems for Mennonites as the state now construed non-Mennonite spouses and their children joining the Mennonite church as a pernicious form of proselytism . Such conversions were cast as a great danger to the state for they opened a new avenue of escape from military service. As part of Wöllner’s campaign to strengthen orthodoxy, credence was given for the first time to Protestant clergy’s complaints about Mennonite reluctance to pay Protestant church fees. The Mennonite Edict of 1789 therefore mainly addressed the issue of church taxes. Wöllner’s new religious policy for Prussia brought the strands of Mennonite mixed marriages and church taxes into the ongoing debate about Mennonites as taxpayers or soldiers. Restricting Mixed Marriages Mennonites’ attitude toward intermarriage with non-Mennonites served as a barometer of their willingness to acculturate to Prussian society. Frisian and Flemish Mennonites initially held different views on allowing such mixed marriages.3 The expulsion of Frisian Mennonites from the Kingdom of Prussia in the 1720s was connected to their acceptance of non-Mennonite spouses into the congregation, resulting in a hotly contested change of policy in most Frisian congregations . The Edict of 1789 hardened the barrier preventing mixed marriages because it considered non-Mennonite spouses joining the Mennonite congregations to be an unacceptable form of proselytism. This new legal framework accelerated Frisian adoption of the Flemish practice of prohibiting mixed marriages, thereby slowing Mennonite integration into Prussian society. Frisian and Flemish disagreements on mixed marriages had grown out of the two communities’ differing stances on the ban. The Flemish understood an individual’s commitment to the church to take precedence over his or her commitment to a spouse. They initially required members to shun banned spouses, neither eating nor sleeping with them.4 By corollary then, marrying someone outside the church was not permissible since it indicated a willingness to put one’s spouse before one’s church. Flemish members who married outside the faith were therefore themselves irrevocably banned. Frisian Mennonites likewise did not approve of mixed marriages and generally banned their members who entered into them. They were willing, however, to allow the non-Mennonite spouse to join the church after marriage or in some cases to readmit the Mennonite spouse alone. Although maintaining a stance of disapproval, Frisians nonetheless made it possible for those in mixed marriages who did not mind a little public humiliation to remain members of their congregations . Frederick William I in the 1720s expelled Frisian immigrants from the Kingdom of Prussia in part because of their acceptance of mixed marriages.5 Once Frisians had settled there, many of their Lutheran farmhands had joined the Mennonite congregation, making it the only one with a significant number of...