Magazine:
• Latest Issue
• Back Issues
• Subscribe
• Change of Address

Resources:
• What We Believe
• Statements
• Find a Congregation
• Find a School
• Find a Church Worker

Pastors Help:
• OT Sermon Notes
• NT Sermon Notes
• Hymn Notes
• Liturgy Notes
• Worship
• Links

Other:
• Affiliates

Print this page

Mission Update

Concordia Theological Seminary

Klaipeda, Lithuania - May 9, 2000

Dr. William Weinrich, Third Vice President of the LCMS and Professor and Academic Dean at CTS, participated in the first official theological discussion with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Lithuania (ELCL). The ELCL later met in a synod convention on July 29, 2000, and passed an historic resolution that not only approved fellowship with the LCMS, but also stated, " . . . we are faced with false doctrine which endangers the biblical and confessional identity of our Lutheran Church in Lithuania. Rejecting these false doctrines, we confess the complete authority of the Bible and its teachings, as it is correctly and unchangingly stated in the Book of Concord. We can have full fellowship with those churches that share with us the same faith and teachings, and which do not ordain or promote the ordination of women, do not defend homosexual behavior, do not make compromises on the doctrine of Justification, and which confess that each communicant in the Holy Communion under the sign of bread and wine is given and receives the true Body and Blood of the Lord."

---

Dr. Weinrich is teaching Early Church to a group of seminarians in the dining hall of Lutheran Theological Seminary in Novosibirsk, Siberia. The CTS Russian Project helped the Russian Lutherans establish the seminary in 1995. The student body has grown from seven to 24 and, as a result, must hold classes in the dining room. LTS has gone from being merely a Siberian to an international seminary, with students coming from Kazakstan, Kyrgistan, Ukraine, Moldova, and Belarus.

---

Taurage, Lithuania-May 7, 2000

Dr. Charles Evanson receives a traditional Lithuanian sash from Rector Stasys Vaitiekunas of Klaipeda University following the bestowal of an honorary doctorate by the Rev. Dr. Dean O. Wenthe, President of Concordia Theological Seminary (CTS), Fort Wayne, Ind. Dr. Evanson was called to CTS and deployed to Klaipeda as a result of a request for help from Bishop Jonas Kalvanas (far right) and a subsequent three-party agreement signed by the Bishop, the Rector, and President Wenthe.

---

Lutheran Theological Seminary will move into its new building (pictured here) in fall, 2001. Having outgrown the current building, and with a conservative estimate for the next class at 30 new students, a former bank in the academic section of Novosibirsk is being renovated to accommodate the growing student body. The class may include students from Uzbekistan and Mongolia.

---

Kisumu, Kenya, on Lake Victoria

Prof. Timothy Quill of CTS is visiting with Pastor David ChuChu (left) and Professor Joseph Ochola of Matonga Lutheran Seminary (middle). The men are pastors in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Kenya and began graduate studies at CTS this year on the M.A. and D.Miss. programs.

---

The CTS Russian Project has organized 26 theological seminars in Russian cities from Saratov on the Volga River to Irkutsk on Lake Baikal and also in Kazakstan, Kyrgistan, Belarus, Lithuania, Ukraine, and Moldova. The first seminar was held in July 1996 in Almaty, Kazakstan. It was organized by Gennadij Khonin (far left), who later studied at Fort Wayne. Gennadij is now an ordained Lutheran pastor serving as a missionary and pre-seminary professor in Almaty.

The statue of Lenin has since been torn down, but Professors Timothy Quill, Arthur Just, and William Weinrich (left to right) are still around and regularly travel to the former Soviet Union to teach.