Doerksen, Abraham (1852-1929)
Abraham Doerksen: minister and elder; born 11 September 1852 in the village of Schoenthal, Bergthal Colony, Russia. He was the eldest of twelve children of Abraham Doerksen (1 November 1827 - 20 September 1916) and Katharina (Friesen) Doerksen (12 April 1832 - 4 March 1876). His father was married for the second time to Aganetha (Elias) Wiebe, a widow with no children; they had 9 children. On 16 July 1872 Abraham married Maria Dueck (26 February 1855, Russia-15 April 1931, Rural Municipality of Rhineland, Manitoba). She was the daughter of Dietrich Dueck (13 June 1813 - 20 May 1883) and Anna (Unrau) Dueck (5 September 1813 - 18 May 1888). Abraham and Maria had 15 children, with the following 10 reaching adulthood: Abraham, Dietrich, Heinrich, Jacob, Peter, Maria, Katharina, David, Helena and Johann. Abraham died 25 January 1929 in Mexico.
Doerksen was the first Ältester of the Sommerfelder Mennonites. In 1922 he led part of his congregation to Mexico where they founded the Santa Clara Colony. Doerksen served the church as an Ältester for over 35 years.
Early Life
Abraham grew up in the Bergthal Colony in South Russia and was baptized on 5 June 1872. One month later he married Maria Dueck, who would be his lifelong. In 1874-1876 the entire Bergthal Colony moved to Manitoba in response to the Russian government's Russification program, which included universal military conscription. Doerksen's father was an important leader of the emigration. Doerksen moved with his wife and young daughter to the East Reserve, Manitoba, in 1874. His daughter died one month after their arrival in Canada.
In 1880, Doerksen's family relocated to the village of Sommerfeld in Manitoba's West Reserve. Doerksen served there as a municipal councilor before entering the ministry.
Formation of the Sommerfelder Church
In the 1890s the Bergthal Mennonites in the West Reserve split into two groups. A minority (61 families) remained with the Ältester, Johann Funk, a reformer who was open to public elementary schools, countenanced other "worldly" activities (like the breakup of villages, voting for public officials, and the pursuit of business), welcomed the coming of General Conference missionaries with their American revivalistic influences, and promoted a school of higher learning, the Mennonite Educational Institute (MEI) (later Mennonite Collegiate Institute), to train teachers for the Mennonite district elementary schools. Most of Funk's membership (415 families) left to form their own church, with the final split occurring when five Bergthaler minister walked out of a church meeting in the spring of 1892.
Funk's support for the teacher training institution was the formal cause for the split, but many scholars contend that the dissenters were not opposed to higher education per se.[1] They instead suggest that the school issue gave focus to a more general and widespread dissatisfaction with Funk's leadership, including his selection of H. H. Ewert, a polarizing figure, as the school's principal. In any case, it is a matter of record that the dissenting group did not later take hard-line stance against high school education.
In 1893, in the midst of this ecclesial turmoil, David Stoesz, Ältester of the East Reserve Bergthal Mennonites, ordained Abraham Doerksen as a minister. A few months later, the church elected Doerksen to serve as their first Ältester and David Stoesz ordained him to this position on 18 March 1894. In 1903, the church formally adopted the name Sommerfelder Mennoniten Gemeinde, because Doerksen lived in the village of Sommerfeld.
The Bergthaler-Sommerfelder split was painful for many, but there is evidence that Doerksen's leadership was a key factor in facilitating a relatively orderly and congenial division of assets,[2] which enabled cooperation between the two churches. Jacob Peters states that Doerksen had little to do with the church split and even suggests that he "was elected as Ältester not because he was a leader in the split, but, perhaps, because he was not."[3] There is also evidence that the Sommerfelder members, who had wanted to keep the Bergthaler name, were convinced by the pleading of Doerksen to officially accept the name "Sommerfelder" as a conciliatory gesture.[4] Sommerfelder and Bergthaler continued to live in the same villages and do business together. Many Sommerfelder families sent their children to the MEI in Gretna with no sanction from the church.
Ältester of the Sommerfelder
In the early years of the church, Doerksen's primary administrative responsibility was the logistics of the church split. This involved dividing the church's assets, including buildings, determining how to proceed with the jointly run Waisenamt, and deciding with which church outlying groups would affiliate.
When a new teacher training institute opened in Altona in 1908, Doerksen supported its school society. Doerksen also made several minor reforms to improve the quality of education. During Doerksen's tenure and with his support the Sommerfelder largely abandoned the traditional village system.
Doerksen was part of an inter-Mennonite committee of church leaders that negotiated with the Canadian government for military exemption for Mennonite men during World War I. Unlike Reinländer church leaders, Doerksen encouraged his church members to fill out the national registration cards the Canadian government issued in early 1917 after he had received satisfactory assurances from the government in Ottawa that Mennonites who filled out the cards would remain exempt from military service. Together with the Bergthaler Ältester (Jacob Hoeppner), Doerksen directly intervened when an unbaptized Mennonite man from Lowe Farm was imprisoned for refusing the draft; they managed to secure his release and to reach an agreement with the government for unbaptized men, since the customary age of baptism was 21.
Doerksen also worked in an inter-Mennonite capacity to advocate to the Manitoba government for the Mennonites' continuing right to teach German and religion in their schools, initiating a school commission in 1913. When the Manitoba government passed compulsory school attendance legislation in 1916, the Bergthaler and Sommerfelder met together under Doerksen's chairmanship and agreed to revert to exclusively running private elementary schools. In 1919, the Sommerfelder initiated a court challenge on behalf of all Manitoba Mennonites against Manitoba's coercive education legislation. Doerksen had no objection to schools teaching English, but wanted to ensure the maintenance of German instruction and of religious teaching and objected to the nationalistic and militaristic curriculum of the public schools.
Beginning in 1900, Doerksen made regular trips to visit and serve various Bergthal-related Mennonite communities scattered throughout Saskatchewan, Alberta, and North Dakota. He helped to organize Saskatchewan Bergthaler and Sommerfelder churches in Rosthern, Herbert, Dunelm, Star City, Lost River, Carrot River, and Langdon, ordaining six Ältesten and many ministers to serve these communities.
There is ample testimony that Doerksen was much loved and respected by his congregants and also by Mennonites from other churches.[5] Peter Zacharias describes Doerksen as a "strong organizer and charismatic leader" and argues that it was in part his leadership that won over such a large majority of the Bergthaler people.[6] Doerksen's contemporaries remember him as a dynamic preacher with a powerful voice, a great asset in the years before electronic amplification. Under Doerksen's leadership, the Sommerfelder church grew from approximately 1,000 members in 1892 to approximately 3,000 members in 1922.
Doerksen served as the Ältester of the Manitoba Sommerfelder for 29 years. He baptized 3,595 people, served communion to approximately 51,140 people in 58 different services, married 295 couples, conducted 719 funerals, and preached in 1862 Sunday services. He also served for six years as the Ältester of the Sommerfelder in Mexico, during which time he baptized 61 people, married 21 couples, conducted 33 funerals, and preached in 213 services. In his long career he only missed a church service twice, both times due to illness.
Migration to Mexico
The Mennonites in Manitoba and Saskatchewan faced increasing pressure from their provincial governments to send their children to public schools. Mennonite groups who resisted the public schools were concerned that their acceptance would lead to the destruction of their faith and way of life. The pressure became such that by 1919 many Mennonite groups were seriously considering emigration and began sending out delegations to seek a new homeland. Under Doerksen's leadership, the Sommerfelder sought to reach a compromise with the government while maintaining some control over their children's schools.
By the end of 1920 it was clear that the government would not compromise and the Sommerfelder decided on a course of emigration, sending out a land-seeking delegation together with the Chortitzer church and the Saskatchewan Bergthaler. This delegation visited Paraguay and Mexico and strongly advocated moving to Paraguay.
Acting against this recommendation, over the following year Doerksen played an almost singular role in leading Sommerfelder Mennonites to Mexico. The neighboring Reinländer Mennonites were already planning to move to Mexico and Doerksen had heard many positive accounts about the country that contradicted the delegation's report. He therefore organized a second delegation to Mexico, giving it explicit instructions to seek a Privilegium. This delegation received the desired Privilegium and delivered a positive report. During this time, an unidentified man from Chicago also visited Doerksen, attempting to dissuade him from moving to Mexico; this visit only aroused Doerksen's suspicions against the Paraguay boosters. Then, in the winter of 1921-22, Doerksen received a visit from David S. Russek, a Chihuahua banker and heir to the massive Santa Clara estate, looking for a buyer for his family's land. After this visit, Doerksen appears to have been completely persuaded to the Mexican option.
In this way it happened that the Chortitzer church and most of the emigrating Saskatchewan Bergthaler decided on Paraguay as a new homeland while the Sommerfelder church was split in its opinion between the two countries, ultimately voting for Mexico by a count of 125-123. 357 Sommerfelder ended up later moving to Paraguay despite their Ältester's decision.
The Sommerfelder purchased 12,000 acres of land from the Santa Clara estate in Mexico in the summer of 1922. Later that year Doerksen left Canada with 550 people (about 8 percent of his church). Of Doerksen's own family, only one son and one daughter (with their families) joined him in the move to Mexico. Unlike the Reinländer church leaders, Doerksen maintained communion with those church members who remained in Canada and ordained an Ältester (Heinrich J. Friesen) to succeed him that October. Doerksen preached his farewell sermon on 3 December 1922.
The initial years in Santa Clara were challenging. There were many deaths, particularly of infants. The land that the Sommerfelder had selected had insufficient water, and fewer people moved to Mexico than Doerksen had anticipated, in part because of the water shortage. The Sommerfelder only founded one village in 1922 (Neuanlage); the rest of the settlers remained some time on nearby ranches and at the disembarkation point of Agua Nueva. In the first few months, Doerksen alternated between conducting church services in Neuanlage, Agua Nueva, and the Fehr-Sawatzky plan, where some Sommerfelder families had settled.
Doerksen preached his final sermon on New Year's Day 1929. He died on 25 January 1929 and was succeeded a year later by Jacob Abrams. After his death, Doerksen's widow, Maria, returned to Manitoba, where she died two years later.
Views and Approach to Leadership
Both his contemporaries and historians describe Doerksen as a conciliatory leader who effectively blended pragmatism and principle. He was oriented towards congregational decision-making, often yielding his own opinion or preference to the voting majority of his church's delegates. For example, Doerksen wanted to maintain and incorporate the Waisenamt the Sommerfelder ran together with the Bergthaler, but went along with his church's motion in 1906 to divide this institution from the Bergthaler and remain unincorporated. Doerksen's ability to hold together his large church without any major incident despite church members' widely disparate views on matters like education is a testament to his leadership abilities and style. Doerksen also had an ecumenical spirit; he built strong relationships with Mennonite leaders outside of the Sommerfelder fold and was able to effectively work together with them.
Doerksen did not favor strict rules against activities like smoking, drinking alcohol in moderation, square dancing, playing sports, playing instruments, or playing card games. He was accommodating towards members who modernized by owning bicycles and automobiles or adopted fashionable dress. Doerksen preferred to promote more general virtues like "honesty, a charitable attitude towards others, and manual work."[7] Doerksen exhibited concern for the poor in his congregation throughout his leadership.
Doerksen's preaching frequently emphasized commitment and re-conversion to Christ.[8] One of his favorite texts to preach on was John 3:3: "Very truly I tell you, no one can see the Kingdom of God unless they are born again." David Schroeder describes how Doerksen used this and other passages to call people to be born again into a full offering of oneself to Christ in repentance: in Doerksen's view neither correct deportment nor right belief were sufficient, but instead the gospels demanded "a change of heart and a new relationship to Christ."[9] This change of heart and a new life in which believers are able to love one another is possible because of God's redeeming love.[10] Accordingly, themes of God's rescue and deliverance in Christ recur in Doerksen's sermons, themes which Doerksen especially and repeatedly gave focus to via four Psalms: 72:12-13, 73:21-24, 8:10, and 103:2-4. Schroeder notes that Doerksen's sermons rightly presupposed a thorough grasp of the catechism, which partially explains why he focused on exhortation rather than teaching. Other Scripture texts favored by Doerksen included Matthew 9:13, in which Jesus uses his time with tax collectors to let people know that he had "come to call sinners, not the righteous," and Luke 18:8, in which Jesus declares that God will grant justice to the chosen ones.
Notes and References
- ↑ See Friesen, 33, 38, and 197-198; See also Gerbrandt, 90-91.
- ↑ See, e.g., Zacharias Reinland, 209.
- ↑ Peters, 111.
- ↑ Gerbrandt, 90.
- ↑ See, e.g., Peters, 123; Schroeder, 125; and Bergen, 49-51.
- ↑ Zacharias, "The Sommerfeld Mennonite Church," 101.
- ↑ Bergen, 50.
- ↑ See Stoesz, Use of Scripture, 120-28 and 133-135.
- ↑ Schroeder, 128. See also Stoesz, Use of Scripture, 55, 104, et passim.
- ↑ Stoesz, Use of Scripture, 56, 107, et passim.
Bibliography
Bergen, Peter, comp. History of the Sommerfeld Mennonite Church. Sommerfeld Mennonite Church, 2001: 48-102, 187-233.
Doell, Leonard. "Bergthaler Mennonites in the Carrot River Valley." In Church, Family and Village: Essays on Mennonite Life on the West Reserve, edited by Adolf Ens et al. Winnipeg: Manitoba Mennonite Historical Society, 2001.
Doell, Leonard. "The Bergthaler Mennonite Emigration to Mexico and Paraguay." Saskatchewan Mennonite Historian 27, no. 2 (2022): 13-21.
Elias, Peter A. Voice in the Wilderness: Memoirs of Peter A. Elias, translated and edited by Adolf Ens and Henry Unger. Manitoba Mennonite Historical Society, 2013: 68-70.
Ens, Adolf. "Sommerfeld Mennonites at Santa Clara, Mexico." In Church, Family and Village: Essays on Mennonite Life on the West Reserve, edited by Adolf Ens et al. Winnipeg: Manitoba Mennonite Historical Society, 2001.
Ens, Adolf. Subjects or Citizens? The Mennonite Experience in Canada, 1870-1925. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1994: 109, 121-122, 174-175, 211, 275.
Ens, Adolf et al., comp. "Selected Annual Bruderschaft Meeting Reports: Sommerfelder Mennonite Church of Manitoba." In Church, Family and Village: Essays on Mennonite Life on the West Reserve, edited by Adolf Ens et al. Winnipeg: Manitoba Mennonite Historical Society, 2001.
Epp, Frank H. Mennonites in Canada, 1786-1920: The History of a Separate People. Toronto: Macmillan, 1974.
Epp, Frank H. Mennonites in Canada, 1920-1940: A People's Struggle for Survival. Toronto: Macmillan, 1982.
Friesen, John J. Building Communities: The Changing Face of Manitoba Mennonites. Winnipeg: CMU Press, 2007.
Gerbrandt, Henry J. Adventure in Faith: The Background in Europe and the Development in Canada of the Bergthaler Mennonite Church of Manitoba. Alton< MB: D. W. Friesen and Sons, 1970: 87-91, 279-280, 316.
Klippenstein, Lawrence. "Johann Funk (1836-1917)." In Church, Family and Village: Essays on Mennonite Life on the West Reserve, edited by Adolf Ens et al. Winnipeg: Manitoba Mennonite Historical Society, 2001.
Peters, Jacob E. "Ältester Abraham Doerksen, 1852-1929." In Church, Family and Village: Essays on Mennonite Life on the West Reserve, edited by Adolf Ens et al. Winnipeg: Manitoba Mennonite Historical Society, 2001: 109-124.
Schroeder, David. "Worship and Teaching in the Sommerfeld Church." In Church, Family and Village: Essays on Mennonite Life on the West Reserve, edited by Adolf Ens et al. Winnipeg: Manitoba Mennonite Historical Society, 2001: 125-136.
Stoesz, Donald. Canadian Prairie Mennonite Ministers' Use of Scripture: 1874-1977. FriesenPress, 2018.
Stoesz, Donald. "Preaching in Mexico: Sommerfelder Minister David M. Stoesz." Preservings, no. 45 (Fall 2022): 9-12.
Zacharias, Peter D. Reinland: An Experience in Community. Reinland Centennial Committee, 1976: 203-214.
Zacharias, Peter D. "The Sommerfelder Church of Manitoba." In Church, Family and Village: Essays on Mennonite Life on the West Reserve, edited by Adolf Ens et al. Winnipeg: Manitoba Mennonite Historical Society, 2001: 93-108.
| Author(s) | Gerald Ens |
|---|---|
| Date Published | June 2025 |
Cite This Article
MLA style
Ens, Gerald. "Doerksen, Abraham (1852-1929)." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. June 2025. Web. 19 Jan 2026. https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Doerksen,_Abraham_(1852-1929)&oldid=180908.
APA style
Ens, Gerald. (June 2025). Doerksen, Abraham (1852-1929). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 19 January 2026, from https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Doerksen,_Abraham_(1852-1929)&oldid=180908.
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