Argentina. World factbook map, 2005

Argentina is a Spanish-speaking republic on the Atlantic side of the Andes in the southern part of South America. With an area of 1,079,965 sq. mi. and a population (2007) of 37,584,554, it is, next to Brazil, the second-largest in South America. North American Mennonite missionaries (Mennonite Church (MC)) first entered the country in 1917 (see Iglesia Evangélica Menonita, Argentina), locating in the territory 50-150 miles (80-240 km) west of Buenos Aires, which became the heart of the Mennonite mission enterprise there. Work was established at Cosquin in the province of Cordoba in 1935, among the Indians in the far north Chaco territory in 1943, and in the capital city of Buenos Aires in 1949. The North American staff of the mission has averaged twenty to twenty-five people, with a church membership of 745 in 1953. The church organ was La Voz Menonita (1932-1961).

In 1948 about 150 Russian Mennonites forsook the transport en route from Germany to Paraguay while it was temporarily stalled in Buenos Aires, and settled largely in the city and its environs as day-laborers. Additions to the group from Paraguay after that time increased the total of Russian Mennonites in the country to over four hundred. Since the group lacked all church privileges, the Mennonite Central Committee, at the request of the various interested Mennonite mission boards of North America, established a religious and social center in the city in 1949, at first under the direction of Bishop Nelson Litwiller of the Argentine Mennonite Mission, but after 1950 under the direction of the minister Martin Duerksen, formerly of Paraguay.

The Mennonite Bible School at Bragado, F.C.O., the Spanish training school of the Argentine Mennonite Mission, sought to serve not only the mission's own needs in Argentina, but also the Spanish training needs of the Paraguayan Mennonites.

In 1998 there were three Mennonite groups in Argentina. The Alianza Evangélica Menonita had three congregations and eighty members; The Altkolonier Mennonitengemeinde had 405 members; and the Iglesia Evangélica Menonita, Argentina had thirty-five congregations and 2,585 members.

Adapted by permission of Herald Press, Scottdale, Pennsylvania, and Waterloo, Ontario, from Mennonite Encyclopedia, Vol. 1, p. 153. All rights reserved. For information on ordering the encyclopedia visit the Herald Press website.

©1996-2009 by the Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. All rights reserved.

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