[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] (no subject)

[Donald Miller]

Further to Jerry Frank's comments, and elaboration by Dick Benert, re German
Baptiats in Volhynia.  The Baptists first came to Volhynia around 1860,
primarily through the missionary zeal of Gottfried F. Alf, pastor in Kicin,
near Warsaw, who pioneered the movement.  Many Baptists came from that area as
well as Prussia.  By 1915, there were approximately 10,000 German Baptists
scattered in a rectangular fashion from Zhitomir, north to Korosten, west to
Rozyszcze, near the Polish border and a bit to the south.  During their
deportation in 1915, their number was substantially reduced, but by the late
1930s when they were finally shut down by the Bolsheviks, they numbered
approximately 15,000.  In 1928 the German Baptists opened a seminary in
Odessa, which also served as the denominational headquarters for their
congregations.  The president of the seminary, Daniel W. Braun and the
denominational executives, were all arrested in 1930 and sent to various
Gulags.  That for all practical purposes, except for a brief reprieve in
1941-43 when the German army occupied the area, marked the end of the German
Baptists in Volhynia.  Today there are no German Baptists in Russia.

--Donald N. Miller