Feature
Seeking the Lost in Italy
The Confessional Lutheran Church of Italy shares the Word of God and welcomes Italians back into the church.
Grace is shocking. God’s gracious attitude toward undeserving sinners doesn’t make sense. Even so, it’s easy for longtime Christians to become complacent about these things. But seeing stories like the Parable of the Prodigal Son through someone else’s eyes can help us see again the surprising — and perhaps a bit unsettling — nature of God’s love.
The Rev. Tyler McMiller, a missionary with The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) who serves in Italy, hosts a Bible class in his home every Thursday. Locals from his neighborhood in Rome, including people he has invited from the streets, come to his house for fellowship, food and the Word of God. Many of the attendees would probably claim to be Roman Catholic, but they have little knowledge of Scripture. During one study on the Prodigal Son, an aged attendee eagerly anticipated the father’s harsh treatment of the son.
“Yes, this is such a good story,” McMiller recalls the man saying. “This brat, he’s going to get it so good.” But as the story continued and he heard how the father gathered up his robes and ran to his son and forgave him — one of the reasons some have suggested this is really the Parable of the Forgiving Father — the man was visibly shaken. “He was so shocked,” McMiller said, “he couldn’t say anything. … [He was] so overwhelmed by grace.”
Through the work of McMiller and the Confessional Lutheran Church of Italy (CLCI), God is pouring out His grace over the people of Italy, unleashing blessing upon blessing, grace upon grace, through the preaching of His Word.
The Lost Ones of Italy
Despite being surrounded by religious symbols, Italians often have little knowledge of what these symbols mean. Greg and Brandie Stuckie, members of an LCMS congregation in Oregon, spend up to half the year in southern Italy. They bought a home there in part to reach out with the Gospel and help plant the CLCI.
On their first trip to Italy, Greg was struck by the art in the churches all over Rome. The art itself didn’t surprise him, but he was bewildered by the lack of religious knowledge about it. He watched tours traverse churches while the tour guides talked about Michelangelo, marble, paint and periods of artistic history; all Greg could think was: “Why aren’t you talking about the story? … Jesus is dead on Mary’s lap, right there. Come on; tell that story.”
The statistics on worship attendance in Italy bear this out. In the last 25 years, weekly church attendance in Italy dropped by nearly 10 million people. In 2001, just over 36% of people reported attending worship weekly; last year, that dropped to around 15%. And the need isn’t just for Italians. Foreign residents in Italy now account for nearly 9% of the population. Many of these expats do not know Italian and do not regularly attend worship.
“I’ve met most of the people in my apartment complex,” McMiller said. “I don’t want to generalize, but I don’t know any [of them] that go to church regularly, and by regularly, I would say a couple of times a year.”
The Rev. Lorenzo Murrone, recently ordained to serve in the CLCI, believes this secularization of the people and culture in Italy will be the most significant challenge the CLCI will face in the coming years. “It becomes more complex with people who might be churchgoers but aren’t particularly interested in talking about religion,” he said. The people might be atheists, nominal Roman Catholics, perhaps simply attending church out of tradition, but “there isn’t much interest in even talking about the Bible.”
The Father Comes Running
But God the Father has not left the people of Italy without a witness. Even as the church in Italy faces challenges, God girds up His loins and comes running with His grace and forgiveness for those who repent and desire His gifts.
For example, the LCMS Eurasia region remains committed to hosting theological conferences in Italy. These conferences introduce inquisitive Italians to the teachings of the Lutheran church and have become a source of outreach in the community. On May 29–30, the CLCI hosted its second Lutheran symposium on the topic of “Holy Scripture and Divine Inspiration.” Presenters discussed the doctrine of creation, sola Scriptura, what it means to subscribe to the Book of Concord and more.
Another instance of God’s gracious favor is the ordination of two men to serve as pastors of the CLCI. In 2021, Murrone and the Rev. Joshua Salas enrolled in the Luther Academy in Riga, Latvia, an institution of higher education founded by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia (LELB). In May, Murrone and Salas were ordained to serve as bivocational pastors at Christus Victor Lutheran Church in Rome. A third student, Luiz Lange, is completing his preparations for ordination in the near future.
Their studies firmly rooted them in the Word of God. “One thing I like about the Lutheran church is delving directly into the Word, which I have not seen in other churches,” Salas noted.
Their studies also taught them to apply the Word to God’s people. “The Lutheran approach to pastoral theology is where I think we outshine pretty much everyone else, [along with] the way that we … apply Law and Gospel to sinners who need it and preach the forgiveness of sins that is found in Jesus Christ,” Murrone said.
In their new roles, both Salas and Murrone are excited about the opportunity to care for God’s people in Rome. “One of my most personal [and] … greatest joys will be offering absolution,” Murrone said. “I can think of very few things that are greater and more wonderful than telling someone that their sins are forgiven.”
Salas looks forward to evangelism: “Evangelism is one thing that excited me because we have a lot of plans … for doing evangelism in the universities.” He grounds these evangelistic endeavors in the Word of God: “Take the Word. Teach it. Study it together. … The Word is in front of you; let’s talk about it.”
During the ordination service, which brought together Lutheran pastors from around the region, LCMS Eurasia Regional Director Rev. Dr. David Preus encouraged the two men: “You are being sent as Christ’s ambassadors. An ambassador speaks not his own words but those of the one who sent him.”
Even as Murrone and Salas have taken up this new role as pastors in Italy, they do so alongside a robust and expanding mission field. Preaching stations and home churches have popped up in various places across Italy. “We have this tradition of the circuit rider,” McMiller said. “We know that’s how the church started in the Midwest, with one guy on a horse running around chasing down Lutherans.” Having Murrone and Salas to help care for Christus Victor in Rome will allow McMiller more opportunity to travel, especially as the work continues to expand and grow.
Welcome with Open Arms
Once a month, McMiller visits a house church in Florence. There, a young man named Filipe Bertolucci, who would probably describe himself as being a prodigal at one time, attends the Divine Service. “I was in a very dark place; I was in a very pagan or atheistic blended worldview,” he said. “The Lutheran church is the only church that I could finally have peace.”
Amid the guilt that plagued his conscience, Bertolucci was struck by the unmerited grace and forgiveness found in Jesus, through whom the Father welcomes back even the most egregious sinners. After experiencing God’s shocking grace firsthand, he is now overjoyed to use his skills to build a website that will help the CLCI further expand the reach of the Gospel in Italy.
Bertolucci said he feels like he has been welcomed back into the family with open arms. Ultimately, he found peace in the fact that “it doesn’t matter what I do. It’s not that now I will do whatever I want, but [no matter what] … I can still come back to Jesus, and I’m still saved.”
Learn More
- Learn more about LCMS mission work in Eurasia
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Rev. Roy S. Askins
Managing director of Editorial and Theological Content for LCMS Communications and executive editor of The Lutheran Witness.
