Service celebrates Ukrainian-Mennonite experience

Tokmak, Ukraine

A new choral work by a Canadian composer and a Ukrainian choir singing music from the Orthodox tradition were both part of the Molochna Bicentennial Thanksgiving Service here on October 10.

The service commemorated "200 years of partnership between Mennonites and Ukrainians in the Molochna River Region." Speaking to the theme, "Joint heirs with Christ," were novelist Rudy Wiebe from Edmonton and historian Paul Toews from California.

About 550 people attended the service, including 191 passengers on the Mennonite Heritage Cruise. Also participating was a group of Russian emigrants now living in Germany (Aussiedler), and members of four local congregations.

This was the largest gathering of Mennonites in Ukraine since 1943, according to Walter Unger, co-director of the heritage cruise and an initiator of the celebration.

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The service opened with a new work by Larry Nickel of British Columbia, "Molochna Thanksgiving," for choir, baritone solo, instruments and congregation. The work included "new realizations" of German hymns such as Ich bete an die Macht der Liebe and So lange Jesus bleibt der Herr.

Diana Wiens of Edmonton conducted the work; her husband, Harold Wiens, was the baritone soloist. Instrumentalists included Calvin Dyck, violin, and Betty Suderman, piano, both from British Columbia.

Local Mennonite congregations gave presentations in words and music.

In his presentation, "Reflections on the past: Look to the Rock," Rudy Wiebe walked through Mennonite history, from sixteenth century Europe to the diaspora of Russian Mennonites in the twentieth century.

"But today we can meet," he said. "We can come together and tell each other our stories, however sad or happy or amazingly miraculous they may be. That is the most beautiful thing we human beings can do...not yell at each other, or quarrel about land, or kill one another because of an idea, or--worse--kill because of God. No!...

"We tell each other stories, as, by his gentle example, Jesus himself taught us. Our past gives us the stories by which we can live our present." Wiebe ended with his own story--his parents were the only members of their families to get out of Russia in the dramatic "Flight over Moscow" in 1929.

In his "Thoughts about the future," Paul Toews reflected on how things have changed since he first visited the Soviet Union in 1989. Acknowledging the difficulties that continue, Toews focused on the hope of the present.

"Today there are four Mennonite congregations in Ukraine--Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Kutuzovka and Balkova. Today Ukrainians and people from various countries are working together in effective partnerships in the work of the Mennonite Centre in Molochansk, in the work of the Mennonite Family Centre in Zaporizhzhia, in the work of Mennonite Central Committee, in the work of the Baptist Union....

"Today we meet with a sense of hope, with a sense that a Mennonite presence and witness in Ukraine is growing and is making a difference."

Toews referred to the monuments that were unveiled in spring to commemorate the 200-year history of Mennonites in the region and quoted the Ukrainian mayor's comments at that event: "We want to carry into the future the values that you [Mennonites] taught us, the legacy that you left to us.... We thank you for helping us to recover it. With your help we want it to shape our future."

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The benediction to the anniversary service was spoken by Alan Peters from the USA and Zoya Gerasimenko of Zaporizhzhia.

In the afternoon, many enjoyed a program of music and other events in Halbstadt/Molochansk. Some attended the opening of a memorial to agricultural innovator and leader Johann Cornies in Juschanlee (now Kirovo).