Odessa seminary enters second year

by Norman Threinen

Seminary students in Odessa with Dr. Threinen (right) and interpreter, Marya

After a two-day delay leaving Toronto due to Hurricane Irene, I was finally on my way to Odessa again on August 30. This is my fifteenth trip in as many years to the country from which my German ancestors emigrated more than a century ago.

Since seminary classes would not begin for a few days after my arrival, I took a two-day side-trip for research purposes to Lviv. This city was once called Lemberg when it served as the capital of the Austrian province of Galicia in the days when my ancestors lived in the area. Coincidentally, my modest guest accommodations were in the facilities of the former German Lutheran Church which had been handed over to the Baptists after the collapse of theSoviet Union in 1989.

On September 6, Concordia Seminary,Odessa opened its second academic year in its new building. With the local pastor Rev. Oleg Shewtschenko conducting the service, I preached on 1 Kings 3:5-9 with the theme, “What is your dream?” Our current six students attended along with Marya my interpreter, a young lady from Dnepropetrovsk where Lutheran Church–Canada missionary Rev. Alexey Novrotsky serves.

For the first six-week session in this academic year, I am teaching two courses. A study of the book of Genesis will occupy the students’ attention in three-hour blocks of time in the mornings and Christian Ethics studies fill similar periods in the afternoon. After this six-week session, other professors and pastors from Canada will teach courses throughout the year to prepare the students for their vocation as pastors. The seminary is not admitting new students until the current students have graduated in 2013.

Rev. Dr. Norman Threinen

Having taught these students for three months in September 2010, I am pleased to see a notable growth in maturity in their theological outlook and a greater seriousness about preparing for the ministry. Although the size of the student body has diminished from a year ago, I recognize greater cohesion in the group including our student from Moldova. Spirited discussion still takes place both in the classroom and in such places as the seminary dining room, but it is all an essential part of shaping future theologians and pastors for the Lord’s Church.

A grant from LWML-Canada is funding the installation of more adequate kitchen facilities, and plans are in place for additional development of the seminary facilities including a separate chapel. The overall setting in which theological training currently happens is already far superior to that under which previous classes of pastors studied.

The seminary program itself, including travel of faculty to Ukraine, is  funded by generous Canadian donors through the Concordia Lutheran Mission Society.

Our thanks to all who have, through their prayers and gifts, supported this mission of training of Lutheran pastors in Ukraine which is so vital for strengthening the Lutheran Church and for the expansion of the Gospel in this former Soviet Union country.

Rev. Dr. Norman J. Threinen is a professor emeritus of Concordia Lutheran Seminary, Edmonton and president of Concordia Seminary, Odessa.