Kleine Gemeinde

Kleine Gemeinde is a group of German-speaking "Russian" Mennonites that was created in 1812 in Russia and still exists today in Latin American countries like Mexico, Belize and Bolivia. In 2015 it had some 5,400 baptized members. In Canada it underwent radical changes and is now called the Evangelical Mennonite Conference.

The Kleine Gemeinde began in 1812 in the Molotschna settlement of southern Russia (present-day Ukraine) as the Kleine Gemeinde (Small Church, KG) a group of Low German (Plautdietsch) speaking Mennonites of German-Dutch cultural background.

In 1870 the Russian government issued a proclamation stating the intention to end all special privileges granted to German colonists by 1880. Alarmed at the possibility of losing control of their schools and military exemption, a delegation of Mennonite and Hutterite leaders, including Cornelius Toews and David Claassen of the Kleine Gemeinde, visited North America in 1873 to investigate resettlement possibilities. In 1874–75, the main group proceeded to migrate to North America, settling in Manitoba, Canada, and near Jansen, Nebraska in Jefferson County, US.

Klaas Reimer (1770–1837), a Mennonite minister from Danzig, a German-speaking city at that time, settled in Molotschna, a Mennonite settlement in southern Russia in 1805. Reimer felt Mennonites of the area were too lax in doctrine and piety, and began to hold meetings in homes in 1812. He was joined by another minister, Cornelius Janzen, and eighteen members, who together recognized themselves as a separate church body in 1814.

As for reasons for the 1812 separation, an 1838 pamphlet addresses five disputes with the main Mennonite body. The primary complaint was that Mennonite leaders were straying from their traditional nonresistant stance when they turned lawbreakers over to the government for punishment while at the same time church leaders became more lax in enforcing spiritual discipline. An increased use of alcohol and other vices were cited as evidence.

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