bruce-church (https://bruce-church.myopenid.com/) has left a new comment on your post "John Shep Has a Question for the ELS/WELS":
Plenty of people know the answer to Rev. Shep's question. The answer is that for some reason it was felt necessary to pay Bishop Horpynchuk a salary midway between a Western salary and the $250 per month wage that the average Ukrainian made at the time, and still does. So $1,000 per month was four times the average salary of the average Ukrainian, so it is no wonder he was able to accumulate enough money to build such a nice house.
Of course, if the WELS, ELS and LCMS laymen were supporting their seminaries and seminarians like they should be, this would never have happened since they would not have been in a position to even THINK about paying a Ukrainian that much money.
So now we have seminaries where roughly half the graduates receive certificates that aren't accredited, and in many cases don't even need any college credits to attend seminary. That's right. I asked a SMP person where he attended college, and he said he never had!
Ironically, the laymen think everything is fine and the seminaries are supported enough since there are hardly any calls open.
