File 10 - Klaas E. Reimer Writings

Klaas Reimer (1770 – 1837) is the founder of the Kleine Gemeinde, which in 1952 was renamed Evangelical Mennonite Church, and in 1960 Evangelical Mennonite Conference. Reimer was born to Heinrich Reimer (ca. 1745 – ca. 1772) and Agatha Epp (ca. 1745 – ca. 1808) in Petershagen, near Danzig, Prussia. In 1798, he married Maria Epp (1760 – 1806), daughter of Peter Epp (1725 – 1789), an influential church leader in the Mennonite settlements in Prussia. Reimer was ordained into the ministry of his local church in 1801. However, influenced and encouraged by his father-in-law’s opinion that there was no future for the Mennonites in Prussia, Klaas Reimer decided to migrate to Russia. In 1804, he led some 30 members of his church to settle in the Molotschna region. Soon after their arrival in Molotschna, Klaas Reimer and the elder of the Molotschna congregation, Jakob Enns, started to disagree over issues like contributions to the Russian government in the Napoleonic war, church authority vs. civic authority, and others. In November of 1806, his wife Maria passed away. About two months later, Reimer married Helena von Riesen (1787 – 1848).
By 1812, the disagreements between Reimer and elder Enns had grown, and Reimer and a small group of the church started to hold church services in private homes. In 1814, this group decided to form a separate congregation, and Reimer was elected the elder. After initial harsh criticism and attempts to ban and shun the members of the newly formed congregation, the Kleine Gemeinde eventually was accepted as a separate church in the Russian Mennonite community. Klaas Reimer passed away on Christmas of 1837, having led the Kleine Gemeinde up until his death.
The opinions of historians in regards to Klaas Reimer are different. Historians like Cornelius Krahn and Peter M. Friesen described Reimer as a man of very poor formal education, who had some narrow views about basic concepts of Mennonitism and Christianity. On the contrary, Delbert Plett described him as one of the most important Russian Mennonite church leaders of the nineteenth century, whose “brethren and descendants regarded him as a giant man of God.”