Passing The Torch

Passing The Torch

Introducing the new Presiding Bishop

and President of The LOC

and the new

Executive Vice President

The LOC Founder, Presiding Bishop and corporate president has retired from the Office of Presiding Bishop on Nov 14, 2015 after 15 years at the helm of the Lutheran Orthodox Church. He will remain active in the ministry of both the LOC as Bishop of the Diocese of Allentown, Pa and in his personal ministry and national radio talk show host, and remains as a member of The Board of Directors of The LOC.

Bishop Guido is pleased to have consecrated his successor, The Reverend Bradley Varvil, who had previously served as the LOC Executive VP for 5 years, to the Office of Presiding Bishop, as well as installed him President of the LOC corporation.

A Ceremony of Installation was held in The Bronx, NYC on Nov 14th.

Messages:

From the Presiding Bishop Emeritus:

It has been a true honor and a blessing to serve the LOC in the capacity of Presiding Bishop for the past 15 years. The friendships we developed and the memories we shared over all these years will be with me forever. Reflecting back on these past many years, our family, our dear Christian friends in The Lord, in the LOC have always been with us like the hands and feet and heart of The Lord; through the sad passing of some of our dearest friends, through the highs and lows of ministry, and most dear to our hearts, through Sandy's near fatal illness you have been there, reminding me always of the 23rd Psalm. Never would we have imagined all those many years ago what a wonderful, loving, faithful to the Lord group of friends and organization the LOC would have developed into. A true, worldwide network of faithful Christians whose sole purpose is to serve the Lord Jesus Christ with all our hearts. But now, my wife Sandy and I have considered that it is time to move the LOC forward under new, young dynamic leadership, allowing what we planted to be watered by someone else, all the while knowing that it is God who makes it grow.

It is an honor and a true blessing to have such a fine capable and dedicated Minister of The Gospel, my dear friend, Bishop Bradley Varvil take the helm of the LOC and I trust in him fully to guide it in a God given, Spirit led direction. I am also overjoyed that another excellent man of God, Dr Mike Layne, my old friend from the beginning of the LOC has been elected as the next Executive VP. Under the leadership of these two capable, Spirit led men as well as perhaps the finest Board of Directors and best Council of Bishops of any organization, the LOC is poised to move to great heights in the coming decades.

And now, I bid farewell to the Office of Presiding Bishop, looking forward to concentrating on my congregation in Pennsylvania, spending time with my granddaughter, and occasionally harassing the new Presiding Bishop and company as a member of The Board.

May the Lord bless you all, and may He continue to bless the Lutheran Orthodox Church as we write a new chapter in our history, all to the Glory of God!

IHS

Pastor Sam Guido,

Presiding Bishop Emeritus

From our Presiding Bishop, The Reverend Bradley Varvil

Welcome and Introduction

It is my pleasure and my honor to serve the Lutheran Orthodox Church as Presiding Bishop and president, and in every respect a daunting prospect. We have had the remarkable and faithful leadership of Presiding Bishop Emeritus Sam Guido since the LOC emerged from its predecessor church body, and the fruits of the Holy Spirit through that leadership are manifest: against the backdrop of many Christian fellowships who have fallen prey to apostasy, unbelief, political ambitions, faddish contemporary culture, or cold hearted sectarianism, the LOC remains a fellowship of faithfulness to Christ in His Holy Word, of the blessed hope of salvation given to us by Christ through His Holy Gospel, and of the wondrous love poured out by Christ to us through His Holy Cross and through us to one another. We are a communion which has resisted the modern onslaughts of so-called Higher Criticism which would rip the confidence of Holy Scripture from the faithful, and instead taken our place in the world to bear unabashed witness to the mysteries of God—a foolishness to the intellectuals of the world and a stumbling block to the legalists, but to those who believe it is the power of salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone.

We stand together with the Confessors of the Reformation, even as they stood together with the Confessors of the ancient Church, bearing witness to the faith once for all delivered to the saints. While many larger and more prestigious fellowships have traded their Scriptural inheritance for the world’s passing bowl of pottage, we stand together with likeminded Christians of every time and place, of every stripe and tradition who with us believe that the Word of the Lord endures forever as the only infallible rule of the Church He has built upon it. We are fully Evangelical, with the Gospel of Salvation in Christ alone won through His Holy Cross at the center of our faith and life. We are fully Catholic, holding onto what has been held onto by all the faithful across all ages and geography. We are fully Lutheran, as measured by the Lutheran Symbols compiled from the testimonies of Scripture and the Church Fathers in the 1580 Book of Concord. And in all these titles—Evangelical, Catholic, Lutheran—we hold them only because they bear witness to what it is to be a Bible believing Christian fellowship; or, as we have sometimes said, a Lutheran rite Catholic community.

Your servant in Christ, our Risen Lord,

Bradley A Varvil,

Presiding Bishop

President and CEO

Photos from the 2015 LOC Convocation and Ceremony of Ordination and Installation of new officers, Nov 14 2015, The Bronx,

New York City, Nov 14th 2015