Week 2 of Intensive Study Week of Riga Luther Academy. After a week by the coast in Mazirbe, we are now at the St. Gregory Education Center in Saldus, a small town in central Latvia. Yesterday morning I sat down with Rev. Traian Niculescu, a seminarian from Romania who is already an ordained Lutheran pastor yet is taking additional instruction. I asked him how he found Lutheran Christianity in a country that is largely Eastern Orthodox. As he explained, he grew up Orthodox, but because of various negative experiences in that denomination drifted away from the Church. As God would have it, he met a beautiful Evangelical lady (whom he would later marry) who provided a different perspective of Christianity, guiding him from the errors of legalism and the invocation of saints to a stronger focus on Christ. He discovered a Facebook group called “Protestant, Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox Discourse,” where he interacted with other Christians, defending salvation through faith in Jesus Christ by grace alone while holding to the Sacraments and historic liturgy. An LCMS pastor in the group noted that this sounded a lot like the ancient Christianity taught in Lutheranism and pointed Traian to the lone Lutheran pastor in Romania, Rev. Sorin Trifa, who lived in Bucharest—on the other side of the country. Rev. Trifa caught the ball and after a long period of catechesis by phone and via email, Traian became a Lutheran. Later, Rev. Trifa suggested that Traian be ordained deacon. Years later, after more advanced training, it was proposed that Traian be ordained pastor to serve in a new church plant in that part of the country, provided he take more instruction afterwards—at Riga Luther Academy. And so, OIM Eurasia Regional Manager Rev. James Krikava ordained him. Today he is studying with us—one of a number of talented young men to whom the torch of the Gospel has been passed in Eastern Europe. Praise be to God! (Photo of Traian who granted permission to share his story).
The Tiews in Germany 