Mayak Bible School (Ufa, Russia)
Mayak Bible School, located in Davlekanovo village, Ufa, Russia, was the last of the three Bible schools established by the Mennonites of Russia after World War I, and was founded in September 1923 by Karl Friedrichsen, a Mennonite preacher, who had served as a Bible teacher in the Davlekanovo Zentralschule in 1913-1922. He was the director, and apparently the sole teacher of the school throughout its history. The government permit for the school was issued 27 July 1923, and withdrawn in November 1926. Friedrichsen appointed a school council of four local ministers, including the two local elders (Mennonite and Mennonite Brethren) to assist him. Financial support came from widely scattered sources, including small contributions from the Emergency Relief Commission at Newton, Kansas, and from "Licht dem Osten" at Wernigerode, Germany. The school sessions were held in the Davlekanovo Mennonite Church. The course was a three-year curriculum leading to a diploma, the school year 15 September - 1 May.
Enrollment in the school never was more than seven at one time (1924-25), five in the last full year, with a total of 13 different persons, all men, in the entire first three years, of whom three graduated in April 1926. The enrollment of the final school year is not known. Of the 13 students, nine were Mennonite Brethren, one Mennonite, two Freie Gemeinde, and one Baptist. They came from Siberia (6), Turkestan (5), Alt-Samara (1), and Ufa (1). A picture of the teacher and five students enrolled in April 1926 appeared in Unser Blatt for June 1926 (I, 203).
The school was definitely a ministerial training school, one of three started in 1923. The other two, Tchongrav in the Crimea and Orenburg, had to close before April 1926. Similar shorter preachers' courses planned for Slavgorod and Orenburg in 1926 were not permitted by the government. A general Mennonite Bible School planned by the Kommission für kirchliche Angelegenheiten (KfK), for Melitopol, which was to begin in the fall of 1927, for which permission had been orally promised on 20 October, 1926 by the government but never granted in writing, had to be given up.
Bibliography
Der Bote II, (No. 27): 6.
Friedrichsen, K. "Die Majak-Bibelschule." with financial report, Unser Blatt I (1926): 138 f.
Friedrichsen, K. "Schlussakt der Majak-Bibelschule in Davlekanovo." Unser Blatt I (1927): 220-22.
Friedrichsen, K. "Die Allgemeine Mennonitische Bibelschule." Unser Blatt I (1926): 280-84.
| Author(s) | Harold S Bender |
|---|---|
| Date Published | 1957 |
Cite This Article
MLA style
Bender, Harold S. "Mayak Bible School (Ufa, Russia)." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. 1957. Web. 21 Nov 2024. https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Mayak_Bible_School_(Ufa,_Russia)&oldid=113046.
APA style
Bender, Harold S. (1957). Mayak Bible School (Ufa, Russia). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 21 November 2024, from https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Mayak_Bible_School_(Ufa,_Russia)&oldid=113046.
Adapted by permission of Herald Press, Harrisonburg, Virginia, from Mennonite Encyclopedia, Vol. 3, pp. 545-546. All rights reserved.
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