Orthodox Mennonites

The Orthodox Mennonites, also called Gorrie Mennonites or Gorries and formerly Elam Martin Mennonites, are a group of Old Order Mennonites in Canada and the USA with about 650 baptized members. Even though plain to a very high degree and primitivist concerning technology, they are rather intentionalist minded than ultra traditional. Since 1999 they were joined by several other Old Order Mennonite communities.

History

The Orthodox Mennonites have a complicated history because they did not just separate from one other Old Order Mennonite group but have a complicated history of splits and mergers of different Old Order groups.

The formation of the Orthodox Mennonites

In 1953 there was unrest among the David Martin Mennonites in the Waterloo Region in Canada, which resulted in the excommunication of numerous people. In 1954, a group of about 25 people, who attended the Rainham Old Order Mennonite Church, started to separate from the David Martin Mennonites. They joined a subgroup of the Stauffer Mennonites around the ministers Titus and Noah Hoover and Enoch Habegger of the merged Titus Hoover and Amish Christian Church. Parts of this group around Noah Hoover later became the Noah Hoover Mennonites. The merger with the group around Titus Hoover and others was only partly successful and a majority left the group after some time, while the ones that stayed in the Titus Hoover group moved to Pennsylvania, where the Titus Hoovers were located.

Those that did not merge with the Titus Hoover group sought unity with the Reidenbach Mennonites of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania under the leadership of Anson Hoover, but this merger was also not successful. During that time Plautdietsch-speaking Mennonites from Mexico, who were in Ontario to find a better economic situation there, joined the group.

In 1956 Minister Elam S. Martin was excommunicated from the David Martin Mennonite and joined the group. When Elam S. Martin became their bishop the group became known as "Elam Martins". In 1957 Peter O. Nolt and those with him in Pennsylvania joined the group. A third group, consisting of 50 people, who had left the David Martin Church under the leadership of deacon Samuel Horst, also entered this union in early in 1958. On April 6, 1958, the merged groups held their first united communion meeting and chose to call themselves the Orthodox Mennonite Church.

Division and reunification

In 1974 the Orthodox Mennonite divided, primarily over the question if wearing of beards should be enforced or not. The beard wearing group, which included Bishop Elam S. Martin, moved to Howick, Ontario en masse beginning in 1979. They were called Elam Martin group and were nicknamed "Gorries", but were more correctly referred to as Orthodox Mennonite Church, Huron County, Ontario. The other group, named Anson Hoover group, remained in the Waterloo Region and were also referred to as Orthodox Mennonite Church, Wellesley Township, Ontario.

The Anson Hoover group in the end proved to be short-lived. In 1976 they excommunicated their bishop, Anson Hoover, and Amos Sherk was advanced as bishop. In 1977 the majority of the Anson Hoovers, some 70 members, went back to the David Martin Mennonites. Amos Sherk in 1986 was also excommunicated. The remaining families, with few exceptions, then united again with the Elam Martin group, so that the spit of 1974 was overcome and the Orthodox Mennonites were a single group again.

Influx from other groups

After 1989 the Orthodox Mennonites were joined by some very conservative families from the Ontario Old Order Mennonite Conference, because their parent group decided to allow telephones in the home. This influx continued and until 2001 37 families had made the transition to the Orthodox Mennonites. Between 1999 and 2005 Orthodox Mennonites were joined by four local groups of Old Order Mennonites, one of them coming from the Phares S. Stauffer group, a subgroup of the Stauffer Mennonites and one from the Henry Hoover group, a subgroup of the Reidenbach Mennonites. In 2009 about half of the Elam M. Martin Mennonites, a relatively small group of Old Order Mennonites in the Waterloo Region in Ontario, Canada joined the Orthodox Mennonites.

Customs and beliefs

Orthodox Mennonites advocate high moral standard and overall and have many restrictions on technology. They live with no electricity, no telephones, and no propane gas in their homes. They do not own automobiles or computerized technologies, and farmers use work horses instead of tractors. They dress very plain, with beards and no neckties and speak Pennsylvania German. Donnermeyer and Anderson call them "an intentionalist minded, ultra-plain Old Order Mennonite body". They have made several changes of their Ordnung all of them tending to greater simplicity and nonconformity to the world. In worldview and practice they show some similarities with the Noah Hoover Mennonites.

Settlements

The group originated in Ontario, where until today their main settlements are. It has also settled further west in Huron-Kinloss township in Bruce County, Ontario. In 2013 a family has settled in Renfrew County in Admaston Bromley Township near Douglas, Ontario in the Ottawa Valley.

As of 2014 there were two settlements of Orthodox Mennonites near Hopkinsville, Kentucky, one in Cerulean and one in Fairview. There is also a settlement in Snyder County, Pennsylvania.

In 2006 a group of 12 families, that split from the main body in the Walkerton area in southern Ontario, moved to Westbourne, Manitoba, where they settled on 1,000 hectares of farmland. Until 2011 the group grew to about 20 families. They are the only Horse and Buggy Mennonites in Manitoba.

Membership

In 1996 there were 454 people in the church, of whom 222 were under the age of 16. In 2008/9 there were about 450 baptized members in 5 congregations in Canada and about 200 baptized members in 3 congregations in the USA. In 2012 there were about 200 families in Canada, 15 families in Snyder County, Pennsylvania and 35 families in Trigg and Todd Counties in Kentucky.

See also

• Elmo Stoll

Literature

• Scott, Stephen: An Introduction to Old Order and Conservative Mennonite Groups, Intercourse PA, 1996.