Rev. Wilhelm Torgerson marks 50 years of ministry

Rev. Wilhelm Torgerson

WINDSOR, Ont. – 2021 marks 50 years of ministry since Rev. Wilhelm Torgerson’s ordination.

Rev. Torgerson was born in Germany in 1944, and after the war his mother married a Canadian soldier who adopted him. He grew up in Edmonton and was confirmed at St. Peter’s— the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod’s mother church in Western Canada—in 1959. He attended high school and junior college at Concordia Edmonton, and then returned to Germany in 1964 to attend Oberursel Seminary. He then attended Concordia College in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and Concordia Theological Seminary in Springfield, Illinois.

On June 20, 1971, Rev. Torgerson was ordained in Edmonton and began serving his first parish, St. Paul Lutheran Church, in Medicine Hat, Alberta, where he stayed until 1975, when he was called to serve in Germany’s Independent Evangelical-Lutheran Church. While there, the parishes he served included the Lutherische Gemeinde Berlin-Mitte church, which had been founded in 1835 and had been the only Lutheran church east of the Berlin Wall. He also served as the founding director of the International Lutheran Centre in Lutherstadt Wittenberg.

In 2008, Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne awarded Rev. Torgerson an honourary Doctorate of Divinity.

Rev. Torgerson returned to Canada in 2011, becoming Adjunct Professor at Concordia Lutheran Theological Seminary in St. Catharines. He also served as Rector of Concordia Seminary in Odessa, Ukraine.

In 2018, he accepted a call to be Assistant Pastor at First Lutheran Church and Christian Academy in Windsor, Ontario, where he continues to serve.