Żuławki (formerly Fürsternwerder) Source: Wikipedia Commons

Fürstenwerder (now Żuławki; coordinates: 54° 17' 05" N 18° 58' 17" E), a village in the former Free State of Danzig, 12 miles (20 km) east of Danzig, with a Catholic, a Protestant, and a Mennonite church, on the Elbing Vistula, near the "Danziger Haupt." Fürstenwerder is the name (since about 1830) of an independent Mennonite congregation, which formerly belonged to the "Flemish Mennonite congregation in the Grosse Werder" and was called the "Bärwald'sches Quartier"; from 1809 on was known as Bärwalde and had its own elder (Isaac Schulz, 1809-1834).

Fürsternwerder Mennonite Church Source: Mennonite Library and Archives, North Newton Scanned Photo Collection: 2003-0144

Since 1768 there has been a meetinghouse in Fürstenwerder, which has been preserved without any important alterations to the present. In that year the bishop of Culm, who in the name of the King of Poland had supreme ecclesiastical authority in the Grosse Werder, had permitted the overgrown Mennonite congregation to erect four meetinghouses, whereas up to this time the Flemish Mennonites had only the church built in Rosenort in 1754. The new buildings were begun in Tiegenhagen, Ladekopp, Fürstenwerder, and Heubuden, on the condition that the Mennonites build and perpetually maintain a Catholic chapel on Möskenberg at Petershagen. The buildings were progressing well, when in the summer of 1768 the bishop suddenly forbade and forcibly prohibited their completion. The reason was this: Anna Steffen, the only daughter of Jakob Steffen, a Mennonite resident of Tiegenhagen, was with her own consent abducted by Catholic nuns with aid of the Tiegenhagen priest, taken to Culm, and married to a Pole. Since the girl was still a minor, the parents demanded her surrender, and finding no hearing from the bishop they appealed to the King of Prussia, who had control of the Elbing region as a special right from Poland. The king ordered the bishop to release the girl; but now the bishop visited his wrath on all the Mennonites of the Grossen Werder, by prohibiting the completion of the four buildings, and declared that he would not consent to having them finished until they stopped bothering him about Steffen. At the end of October he gave his consent and the buildings were finished. The Catholic chapel in Petershagen, which was finished at the same time, was burned down by lightning in 1778 and was not rebuilt. The Mennonites terminated their obligation by paying a lump sum.

In 1853 Claas Epp, the Schulze of Fürstenwerder, emigrated to the province of Samara (Am Trakt settlement), followed in 1859 and the following years by the preacher Cornelius Classen and finally also Elder Johann Wiebe to the Alt-Samara settlement in the same province.

The Fürstenwerder congregation was incorporated in 1880. In 1924 it had a membership of 540 souls. According to the Gemeinde-Kalender of 1941, the number of souls in 1940 was 556, of whom 450 were entitled to vote, and 106 were unbaptized children. The elder was Jakob Jantzen (preacher from 1894, elder 1911); preachers were Heinrich Dau (ordained 1912), Johannes Dyck (1919), Ernst Dyck (1928), Heinrich Wall (1934); the deacons were Gustav Wiens (1923) and Gustav Schulz (1928). Jakob Jantzen died an accidental death in 1942, and was succeeded as elder in 1943 by Johannes Dyck. The congregation was extinguished by evacuation westward before the advancing Russian army in 1945. In 1990 the former church building was destroyed by fire.

Bibliography

Adapted by permission of Herald Press, Scottdale, Pennsylvania, and Waterloo, Ontario, from Mennonite Encyclopedia, Vol. 2, p. 427. All rights reserved. For information on ordering the encyclopedia visit the Herald Press website.

©1996-2008 by the Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. All rights reserved.

To cite this page:

MLA style: Mannhardt, H. G. "Fürstenwerder (Pomeranian Voivodeship, Poland)." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. 1956. Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 23 November 2008 <http://www.gameo.org/encyclopedia/contents/furstenwerder_pomeranian_voivodeship_poland>

APA style: Mannhardt, H. G. (1956). "Fürstenwerder (Pomeranian Voivodeship, Poland)." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 23 November 2008 <http://www.gameo.org/encyclopedia/contents/furstenwerder_pomeranian_voivodeship_poland>