Rocky Cape Christian Community

The Iron Gates (Por?ile de Fier), where the Danube cuts through the Carpathian mountains between Serbia and Romania. The Hutterite brothers, Solomon Böger and Balthasar Goller, passed through this strategic and heavily fortified spot with the Imperial Ambassador's entourage on the way to Constantinople in 1608.

The Iron Gates (Porţile de Fier), where the Danube cuts through the Carpathian mountains between Serbia and Romania. The Hutterite brothers, Solomon Böger and Balthasar Goller, passed through this strategic and heavily fortified spot with the Imperial Ambassador's entourage on the way to Constantinople in 1608.

Balthasar Goller, the brother Solomon found at Komárom with the Imperial Ambassador's entourage, had a high-profile, but dangerous and troublesome job. Like other Hutterites trained in home remedies, herb cures, and simple surgery, he found his services in demand among the nobility of the region. Austrian officials, even the emperor Rudolf II and his close ally, the Cardinal von Diedrichstein, called on Hutterite doctors -- into whose hands they could entrust their lives -- to keep them in good shape. Very necessary in an age when disease and infirmities claimed a great majority of people before they reached fifty years of age.

The problem with being a Hutterite doctor in high circles (a service one did not dare refuse) was that it took you to strange places far from home, in company the church community would never have chosen. Now it took Balthasar on a 1,200 km journey down the Danube with the Imperial Ambassador Adam von Herberstein, in charge of delivering a large gift of gold coins to the Turkish Sultan in the wonder-city of Constantinople.

Just before the entourage left Komárom, Balthasar, the doctor, wrote a quick note back to Klaus Braidl and the church community in Moravia:

21 June 1608, from Balthasar Goller in Komárom, to Klaus Braidl at Přibice in Moravia

May the Lord be with you, dear brother Klaus! In these days I met our brother Solomon Böger, and on his request I have agreed to take him along to Constantinople to look for his wife. I have found a position for him as table-waiter for the nobles in the ambassador’s entourage. I am sure he will write you more about it, but I also wanted to inform you of the plans. With this I greet you, and all the believers with you, in the peace of Christ!

P.S. Tomorrow, the Lord willing, we leave by water for Esztergom, from there to Budapest and down to the Gates [the Iron Gates on the Danube, near present-day Orsova, Romania].

One week later, taking advantage of a courier returning to Vienna, Solomon also sent a letter:

28 July 1608 from Solomon Böger in Beograd to the Church Community in Moravia

May the Lord be with you, dear brothers! Out of heartfelt, brotherly love I cannot keep from writing to tell you how it goes with Balthasar and me. So far we have not found any traces of the captive sisters but everyone tells us they got taken to Constantinople or beyond, where they live scattered far and wide. The soldiers tell me that many captives got taken from four to six hundred miles beyond Constantinople. Some, they say, got sold to the black Moors beyond the sea [into Africa] or to the Tatars in Mongol lands.

It will be a very great struggle for us brothers and sisters in the faith (Glaubensgenossen) to rescue any of them, particularly the younger sisters. In Turkey it is really hard to ask about the sisters because they do not let you into the house, like we do in German lands. If a Turk keeps a woman for his personal immorality, no one is able to get into contact with her.

Here I am called upon to wait on the table of the important people in the entourage. I am responsible for all the silverware as well. I really wish I had more time to scout around, along the way, but as soon as I do anything other than my work I get cursed and shouted at by the ambassador’s people. It doesn’t frighten me too much as they are not paying me wages.

The fortress and town of Ada Kaleh, at the entrance to the Iron Gates. Austrians and Turks battled for centuries over this island, so important for the trade and defense of the Europe. When Solomon and Balthasar stopped here it was a bustling Turkish fortress. After numerous conquests and reconquests, it lay within the territory of Austria-Hungary, but remained a private possession of the Turkish Sultan until the first World War. In 1964 Adah Kaleh disappeared forever under the waters of a dam built by the communist governments of Romania and Yugoslavia.

Solomon's letter continued:

I find it very noisy and busy here on the ambassador’s entourage, day and night. So much so that I cannot find any quiet time or place to pray as much as I need to. For this reason, dear brothers, and all the church community, please pray to God for us that in this most dangerous time we may stay upright and faithful. We also pray for you.

The Ambassador has, very graciously, offered to loan us money to redeem any captive we may find along the way. May the Lord grant him a long life! I really hope we get to use this opportunity.

So far I have not found any clues to my wife and child, even though I have gone through many frightful experiences on their behalf. I commit myself and Balthasar into God’s hands, and greet you elders as the fathers of the church community, along with all the brothers and sisters. I hope you can trust our judgement in the things we undertake. In this great turmoil it is often really hard to know what best to do, and I am sure we will not always hit it right with everyone.

Constantinople, as it appeared in Solomon Bögers time -- the glory it knew under its Byzantine (Christian) emperors already ravaged and replaced by the crowded markets, the filth, the congestion of its Turkish conquerors. The largest church in the world, the Hagia Sophia (built by the emperor Justinian in AD 532) already turned into a mosque. Constantinople (now Istanbul) stood on the Strait of Bosphorus, linking the Black with the Mediterranean Seas.

5 November, 1608 from Solomon Böger in Constantinople to the Church Community in Moravia

May the Lord of Peace be with you dear brothers! I must write you a little to say where we are, and can tell you that so far we are doing all right. May God give further grace.

It is dangerous here in the city because of a plague that has broken out. Here where we are staying several have come down with it. So far we have not been able to find any of our people except a man that was put into the Ambassador’s care. His name is Heinrich and was an ox-team driver from the Maierhof at Kreuz (the ex-Gabrielite community near Hodonín). As soon as Balthasar saw him, he suspected he had been a brother and talked to him about it. The Ambassador also questioned him sharply whether he had not come from a Hutterite community, but Heinrich roundly denied it. Then, later, when I got to be alone with him I asked him if he wasn’t the brother whose wife and child had died in the forest at Dämberschitz, and he began to cry. He told me, weeping, that he had indeed been a brother but that he had fallen from his profession.

I must also tell you that I travelled three days south of  Constantinople to an old city called Nicaea, the place where they held that big council, the first one. People had told us that many captives were held there, but I did not find anyone. Apart from the one sister in Bulgaria we have not found anyone so far.

Entrance to the old city of İznik (Nicaea), famous under the Byzantines, conquered and rebuilt by the Turks in 1331. Solomon heard that a number of Hutterite captives lived here, but could not find them.

Red dotted line showing Solomon and Balthasar's seven-month journey from Komárom to Nicaea in Turkey, and back. Much effort, many prayers, but no clue of Gretl and the baby (by now a two or three-year-old if still alive).

Solomon's letter from Constantinople, continued:

In Turkey it is so difficult and dangerous to ask about captive women. The Turks’ houses are so different. They keep their women and their captives hidden somewhere inside where no man can get close to them except their own castrated servants.

Peace between the Turks and the Roman Emperor (Emperor Rudolf II of Habsburg) has now been fully established. But there is much rebellion here among the Turks and we have to return home along another route because of it. We hope that God will open the door to us finding more of our poor captives along the way. May his will be done! We would have been so happy to come home with good results. Please pray for us as we always do for you, every morning and every evening. We greet you all, the elders with the entire community, faithfully, in the peace of Christ.

The Roman road that Solomon and Balthasar took from the Turkish city of Edirne (Adrianople), visible in the distance, into what is now Bulgaria. From this city where Goths and Romans fought a landmark battle in AD 378, Balthasar Goller wrote his last trip report to the church communities in Moravia.

21 November 1608, from Balthasar Goller at Edirne (Adrianople) in Turkey, to the Church Community in Moravia

May the peace of Christ be with you dear Brothers! On the thirteenth of this month we left Constantinople and arrived safely here at Edirne. Now I have the chance to send this message to you with a courier dispatched by the ambassador to Vienna. I can tell you both Solomon and I are well. Please write back to tell me how things are going at home and with my family. I believe we will be in Budapest for two weeks so you can write to me there.

Here in Edirne, a city as large as Prague, there is such unrest we were warned, on pain of death, not to speak one word about the rebellion now going on. There is much fear the Germans will break the treaty that has just been signed.

I would really like to know how things are going back in the German lands. I could not make sense of the last message I got, and am wondering whether you are moving away from Nikolsburg (Mikulov in Moravia), or whether you are getting persecuted again by the priests. I would write much more but don’t have time. Greet everyone from Solomon and from me, especially Christoph and the kitchen people.

We have another eight weeks to travel from here back to Budapest.

Constant uncertainty, dangers abroad and danger at home, everything drove Balthasar and Solomon closer to God, and drew them closer to one another, on their long trip through southeastern Europe. But just when Solomon reached his darkest hour -- no sign of Gretl and the baby anywhere, only rumours that she might have been sold to Africa or Uzbekistan -- he got another clue. Some said they had seen captive Hutterite women in Sremska Mitrovica (south of Novi Sad) in Serbia, or at Osijek in Croatia.

Driven by love and faithfulness, Solomon once more set his face to the south. For the last time?

All his brothers and sisters prayed he would find his heart's desire.

To be concluded.

Peter
 
Rocky Cape Christian Community
19509 Bass Highway
Detention River, Tasmania 7321
Australia
www.thecommonlife.com.au