Sardjo Djojodihardjo (d. 1948)

Sardjo Djojodihardjo was chosen to serve as secretary of the synod of the Gergeja Injili di Tanah Jawa (Evangelical Church of Java), Indonesia, at the time of its formation in May 1940 in a time of crisis. Two years later, to deal with the chaos and spiritual destruction resulting from the Muslim uprising of March 1942, Sardjo was appointed to one of the two teams of two selected to visit each congregation and assess their condition and needs. At the same time he became the chairman of the synod, a responsibility he held intermittently during the following years of Japanese occupation, persecution, famine, and revolution. Hurried removal from the hospital after an operation to escape Dutch military action brought about his untimely death in 1948 in Surakarta.
By that time Sardjo Djojodihardjo had served the mission and then the independent national church for 35 years. Part of that time he was a teacher in the teacher training school in Margorejo. Part of it was spent as a Bible translator working with Pieter Anton Jansz on the revsion of the Javanese Bible. In 1941 he was appointed to carry on the administration of the mission's 22 elementary and secondary schools when missionary activities were increasingly limited. He also maintained contacts in circles of teachers of Javanese mystical philosophy and their disciples to challenge them with the Christian gospel. Perhaps his most significant ministry was as pastor of the Pati congregation for more than a decade until the time of his death.

Tunggul Wulung (Tunggulwulung), Ibrahim (d. 1885)

As something of a folk hero Tunggul Wulung's early life is enshrouded in legends that are difficult to confirm or deny. These include birth as a scion of the Javanese royal line (in about 1800), participation in the Java War (1825-1830) against colonial rule, change of identity and relocation in the Juana area to hide from his past, spiritual dissatisfaction despite of material success, arrest for horse theft, and finally escape to become a hermit mystic on Mount Kelud in East Java. One scholar suggests that he is the author of the inflammatory 19th-century Javanistic tract, Serat Darmogandul.
The mysterious discovery of the Ten Commandments on a scrap of paper under his mat, his mystic partner and wife Endang Sampurnowati, the indigenous Javanese Christian movement in Nogoro, and a Nederlandsch Zendelingengenootschaft (Dutch Missionary Board) missionary, Jellesma, in Mojowarno all seem to have influenced Tunggul Wulung's conversion to Christian faith in about 1852 (and baptism by Jellesma on 6 July 1857 with the Christian name Ibrahim). He also used the honorific title of a traditional Javanese teacher of religion, Kyai.
Early in 1853 Tunggul Wulung sought partnership with Mennonite missionary Pieter Jansz in Jepara. Unfortunately the terms Jansz set for such a partnership were too domineering and presumptuous in Tunggul Wulung's mind, and he ultimately saw no option but to form an indigenous Christian movement based in remote villages independent of any mission. He traveled the length and breadth of Java gathering his converts and some dissatisfied members of mission congregations into his remote Christian villages. His first settlement (1856) in the Muria area was Ujung Watu (near present day Margokerto). Soon his center of activity in this area shifted a short distance south to Bondo, where, after more than 30 years of ministry, he died and was buried. His second and third settlements in the Muria area were in Banyutowo and Tegalombo.
Though sharply criticized by the missionaries for his allegedly syncretistic teachings and practices Tunggul Wulung clearly had a stronger appeal among the Javanese people than the missionaries. He was able to facilitate the engagement of the gospel with the real world of the Javanese people in a very direct way. He seemed to relish challenging in the name of Jesus Christ the evil spiritual powers that the Javanese knew to be dominating their lives. And he did not hesitate to nourish the hope in his followers that the Christian teaching about the coming of the kingdom of God would in some measure correspond to their hoped-for deliverance from oppressive foreign rule and the debilitating influence of Islamic belief. Perhaps these things help to explain why he had nearly 10 times as many followers in the Muria area by the end of his ministry as did the Mennonite missionaries.
Tunggul Wulung's first wife was Endang Sampurnowati. He later lived with another woman, the widow of one of his followers, though his first wife was still alive and living in Ujung Watu. Claims of biological descent from Tunggul Wulung are very difficult to confirm. His spiritual heritage is much more clearly evident in the life of the Gereja Injili di Tanah Jawa (Evangelical Church of Java).
In his estrangement from most missionaries Tunggul Wulung found a friend and supporter in the high government official and promoter of indigenous Christian movements, Anthing. However, Anthing's later involvement with the Irvingite Apostolic movement left little imprint on Tunggul Wulung and his movement. Tunggul Wulung was an early teacher of the leader of the south Central Javanese indigenous Christian movement, Kyai Sadrach.


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Gereja Injili di Tanah Jawa (GITJ)

Gereja Injili di Tanah Jawa (GITJ; Evangelical Church of Java), the predominately Javanese Mennonite conference of the north central part of the island of Java, Indonesia, was formed on 30 May 1940, 81 years after the beginning of Dutch Mennonite mission work in the area around the Muria Mountain in the early 1850s. The new conference consisted of 10 congregations with their 30 branch congregations. It had 4,409 adult members. The original name of the conference was Patunggilanipun Para Pasamuan Kristen Tata Injil ing Wengkon Kabupatan Kudus, Pati Ian Jepara (current spelling; literally: Union of Gospel-Patterned Christian Churches in Kudus, Pati and Jepara Counties).
The Margorejo congregation had become independent of direct mission oversight in 1928 and in the 1930s some planning toward the formation of a conference body took place. However the actual formation of the conference in 1940 was a hurried response to the arrest and imprisonment of two of the four active men working with the Dutch Mennonite mission team, Hermann Schmitt and Otto Stauffer. Both were German citizens and both died when their prisoner transport was sunk. This imprisonment of German nationals by the Dutch colonial government was in response to the occupation of The Netherlands by the German army on 10 May 1940.
The board chosen to lead the new conference consisted of the two remaining missionaries, Daniel Amstutz and Dr. K. P. C. A. Gramberg, chairman and vice-chairman respectively; Sardjo Djojodihardjo, secretary; Wigeno Mororedjo, treasurer; and Soedjono Harsosoedirdjo and Samuel Saritruno as members. However, during the second assembly (May 1941) both of the missionaries resigned from their posts in the conference organization and were replaced in their roles by national leaders, Soedjono Harsosoedirdjo (pastor of the already independent Margorejo church) and Samuel Saritruno respectively.
Within a year these leaders were to be severely tested in a Muslim uprising at the time of the Japanese invasion in March 1942. The uprising resulted in the martyrdom of missionary Heusdens (on loan from another mission) at the Donorojo Leprosy Colony, and Leimena, the head of the plantation of the colony for the poor at Ngablak, and the attempted slaying of Dr. Ong, a Chinese Muslim staff doctor at the mission hospital in Tayu. It also resulted in the destruction of much property including the large, beautiful church building at Margorejo and the hospital in Tayu. The most serious damage, however, was spiritual—to the leaders and the members of the Margorejo, Tayu, and Ngeling congregations where the leaders, including Soedjono Harsosoedirdjo, Samuel Saritruno, Samuel Hadiwardojo, and Surat Timotius, were severely mistreated through efforts to try to force them to become Muslims. From that time to the present a series of capable leaders in addition to the above mentioned—including Sardjo Djojodihardjo, Soehadiweko Djojodihardjo, Sastroadi and Pirenamoelja—have led the Evangelical Church of Java through military occupation, persecution, famine, revolution, and political, religious and economic upheaval.
The severe hardship suffered during the church's first decade is indicated in the sharp decline in membership from 4,409 in 1940 to ca. 2,400 by 1949. From the 1950s through the 1970s, despite continuing difficulties, a pattern of remarkable growth developed. By 1969 the 18 member congregations and ca. 125 branch congregations numbered 18,483 baptized members. In 1988 60 member congregations and 105 branch congregations reported a membership of 50,000. This latter figure is an estimate and should be taken to include both the children of Christian families and perhaps as many as 6,000 people who at one time or another registered interest in becoming Christians but have never been baptized. In 1969 the statistics showed 6,944 such persons in addition to the figure for baptized members given above.

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Location

Gereja Injili di Tanah Jawa
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Its member congregations are concentrated in the Mount Muria area along the coast of north Central Java in Indonesia, although there are congregations in a few other cities like Semarang, Salatiga and Yoyakarta and the provinces of Lampung and South Sumatra. The Muria area juts into the Java Sea east of Semarang, the capital of Central Java, and is dominated by Mount Muria, an ancient, now extinct volcano. GITJ is a member of PGI (Persekutuan Gereja-gereeja di Indonesia, the Fellowship of Christian Churches of Indonesia. It is also member of the Mennonite World Conference (MWC) and Asian Mennonite Conference (AMC).

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Recent activity

Gereja Injili di Tanah Jawa
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Free Indonesia provided opportunity for the churches to develop and grow, though not without struggle. Eventually, with renewed help from Europeans and now also North Americans sent by Mennonite Central Committee they were able to resurrect one of the mission hospitals and reopen many schools and start others, including one, and later a second, theological school in Pati. The church grew very rapidly, though in a predominately Islamic context. In the nineties the synod suffered from a schism, which after several years was healed. Now the GITJ Synod consists of 100 mature congregations, many congregations in formation and some 40,000 baptized members.

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Origins

Gereja Injili di Tanah Jawa
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Three streams of church life flow together in the life of GITJ. The first of these is the influence of the Dutch Mennonite Mission formed in Holland in 1847, which sent its first missionary in 1851. The first Mennonite mission congregation in the Dutch East Indies (today Indonesia) was formed in the coastal town of Jepara at the western foot of Mount Muria when the first believers there were baptized in 1854 by Dutch Mennonite missionary Pieter Jansz. Pasrah Karso became an important early Javanese leader of this church, leading in the formation of what is presently the oldest congregation in Kedungpenjalin.
The second stream is represented by a Reformed congregation begun in Kayuapu at the southern foot of Mount Muria under the auspices of Dutch Reformed missionary Hoezoo. Pasrah Noeriman was an important Javanese leader in Kayuapu. This congregation 45 years later was turned over to the care of the Dutch Mennonite Mission.
The third stream is a large, powerful indigenous Javanese Christian movement under the leadership of Ibrahim Tunggul Wulung. Tunggul Wulung was a scion of the royal family of Solo in Central Java who became a hermit mystic on Mount Kelut in East Java. From there, through an interesting series of events he became a Christian believer who identified himself as a Kristen Jowo (Javanese Christian) who sought to retain Javanese language, culture and folkways, in contrast to a Kristen Londo (Dutch Christian) who tended to mimic European ways. This indigenous movement grew much more rapidly than the Christian groups begun by European missionaries.
Eventually all three of these streams were united into one family of congregations who were served by missionaries from Netherlands, Russia, and later Germany and Switzerland. Finally the outbreak of World War II, which precipitated the arrest by the Dutch colonial government of the two German missionaries, precipitated the organization of these churches into an independent synod called Patunggilan Para Pasamuan Kristen Toto Injil ing Wengkon Pati, Kudus lan Jepara (literally Union of Gospel Patterned Christian Congregations in the area of Pati, Kudus and Jepara). The 13 or so congregations at that time consisted of about 5000 baptized members. The mission also had several hospitals and many schools. The Japanese occupation 1942-45 brought with it terrible suffering, followed by more suffering in the late forties during the time of the Indonesian struggle for freedom from Dutch colonial rule.