- CA-MHC-2016
- Person
- 1932-
Waldemar Janzen was born in the Ukraine during the Stalin era, in 1932 to Woldemar Janzen and Helena Dueck. At the age of three, he lost his father, a Mennonite teacher and minister, to a Soviet concentration camp. In 1943, during World War II, he escaped with his mother to Germany, where he was a refugee until his immigration to Canada in 1948.
Encouraged by his mother, he was able to study. He earned the degrees of B.A. (University of Western Ontario), B.D. (Mennonite Biblical Seminary, then in Chicago), M.A. (German; University of Manitoba), Th.M. (Old Testament; Harvard Divinity School), and Ph.D. (Near Eastern Languages and Literatures; Harvard University).
He married Irene Marie Warkentin (popularly known as Mary Janzen) and they had three children. In 1956 Janzen began to teach at the Canadian Mennonite Bible College, Winnipeg, serving the College also as academic dean for many years. While at CMBC, he taught many courses in Old Testament and in German at the University of Manitoba, and in Old Testament at the University of Winnipeg. Other teaching assignments were in Ontario, Paraguay, and Switzerland. He has also lectured and preached in many institutions and churches. He is the author of several popular and scholarly works.