Born in Russia in 1921, Cornelius John "C.J." Dyck '55 immigrated to Canada with his family when he was 5 years old. He attended school, worked on his father's farm and as a young man volunteered for service with the Mennonite Central Committee. Working primarily in Europe, but also South America, his assignments with the MCC included helping organize food relief to some 100,000 children daily in North Germany in 1946. He returned to Canada in 1951.
Dyck came to the United States to study at Bethel College, from which he graduated in 1953 before taking up graduate studies in history at the University of Wichita, while serving as pastor of the Zion Mennonite Church in Elbing, Kan. From 1955-59, he studied history and theology at the University of Chicago and worked as a business manager at the Mennonite Biblical Seminary.
From Chicago, he and his growing family moved to Elkhart, Ind., where he assisted the merging of two seminary schools to form the Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminaries, now the Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary. He joined the new faculty as professor of historical theology, a position he held for 30 years until his retirement in 1989.
Dyck, who also directed the Institute of Mennonite Studies, is the editor of An Introduction to Mennonite History, which traces the history of Anabaptist-Mennonite life and thought from the 16th century to the present. The teacher, scholar and historian died Jan. 10, 2014, in Normal, Ill.
