Klaas Reimer

Klaas Reimer ( born October 16, 1770 in Peter Hagen, Royal Prussia, Poland, † December 28, 1837 ) was a Mennonite preacher and founder of the church movement Small community (now the Evangelical Mennonite Conference).

Life and work

Reimer came from a well-off peasant family in the Great Werder. At twenty, he was baptized in the Flemish community in Gdansk. In 1798, Reimer eventually moved into the village Nine Huben near Danzig and married Maria Epp, like him, came from a Mennonite family home and with whom he soon became a farmer's place. In 1801 both had a daughter. In the same year Reimer was also elected preacher of Gdańsk rural community. Although he had not completed any higher education or the study of theology, Reimer sat now intensively with the Bible as well as the Martyrs Mirror and the writings of the early Baptist. This solidified his pacifist stance, but he also developed a strict moralism.

In 1804, Reimer moved with his family in the Ukraine, where they founded a number of settlements within the colony Molotschna with other Mennonite immigrants. Reimer and his family thus became co-founders of the Russian Mennonites. Only two years later, his wife died Mary. Reimer married a year later Helene Friesen, from his marriage should finally emerge ten children.

Reimer saw the further development of the Mennonite communities in Ukraine increasingly critical. Especially the fact that the German-Russian Mennonites of the demand of the Russian government had complied for financial support for the fight against Napoleon's troops, met his resistance. His criticism was, among others, by Cornelius Janzen, who, like Reimer was active in the Mennonite settlements of Ukraine as a preacher shared. In 1812, finally, a group gathered around the two and there was a separate municipality, which soon received the nickname Small community because of their size. In contrast, was the mother church of the colony Molotschna, which was colloquially referred to as the Great Church. The new launched by Reimer community particularly stressed moral aspects and called for a simple living. Nonviolence also was one of the central pillars of the new group. Of the authorities and the other Mennonite congregations the little community was not recognized in the early years. Cornelius Janzen turned in 1822 finally back to the mother church to, yet the small community was able to establish the long term. Reimer himself fell ill in 1837, however unexpectedly and died in the same year at the age of only 67 years.

The little community continued to exist even after the death Reimers. With the beginning of emigration of German-Russian Mennonites to North America in 1874, the community moved to North America almost closed. Here, the majority settled in the Canadian Manitoba. A smaller group of about 36 families settled in Nebraska. The small community in Manitoba but later spread further and opened in the 20th century and increasingly for the English language, and not least for evangelical church and worship styles. Since 1960 she acts as an independent Mennonite church movement under the name Evangelical Mennonite Conference (Evangelical Mennonite Conference).