Claas Epp, Jr.

Claas Epp Jr. (September 21, 1838 – January 19, 1913) was a Russian Mennonite minister known for leading his followers into Central Asia where he predicted Christ would return in 1889.

Epp was born in Fürstenwerder, Prussia. His family moved to the Trakt Mennonite settlement in the Russian province of Samara in 1853. He was married to Elisabeth Jantzen in 1862. Most of their twelve children died before reaching adulthood. His son, Claas Epp III migrated to Beatrice, Nebraska, in 1891, and his numerous descendants live in the United States.

The 1870s were a time of stress and transition in the Mennonite settlements of Russia. The population of the colonies was more than could be supported by available land. The Russian government announced in 1870 that it would end all special privileges granted to colonists by 1880, including the exemption from military service, which was so important to nonresistant Mennonites. Those most concerned with these changes were looking toward North America as a resettlement option. There was widespread distribution of chiliastic writings by prophetic authors such as Jung Stilling and others among the Mennonite colonies.

It was in this uncertain environment that Epp distributed a self-published book in 1877 in which he put forth his own prophetic interpretation of the Bible. Epp predicted that Christ would return in 1889 and meet the faithful in central Asia. According to Epp, his own congregation was Philadelphia of the seven churches of the Book of Revelation, which would become a doorway into heaven.

As 1880 and the end of special privileges approached, a group of Epp's followers prepared for a trek east. A party traveled to Saint Petersburg where they obtained permission to settle near Tashkent from Konstantin Petrovich Von Kaufman, the first Governor-General of Russian Turkestan. Over a hundred families in four groups set out in summer and fall of 1880, arriving in the vicinity of Tashkent after an arduous fifteen week journey. When they learned that the military exemption now no longer applied to Russia's Asiatic possessions, a disagreement arose among the group. Those willing to accept forestry service in lieu of military service, separated from the main group and settled at Aulie-Ata, 240 km (150 mi) northeast of Tashkent.

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