Corneliu Constantineanu, a Langham Scholar and General Editor of the Central Eastern European Bible Commentary, died in Romania from Covid-19 on 17 March 2021.
Corneliu, who was also at the forefront of bringing Langham Preaching to Romania, gave considerable support to the cause of evangelical faith in his country.
He was latterly Professor of Public Theology at the University of Arad, Romania.
Please pray for Corneliu’s wife Ioana and their daughters, Carmen and Anamaria.
Corneliu was deeply involved with the one-volume Bible commentary for Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), which is progressing well. Two thirds of the text fully edited and approved.
A draft version of the front cover has also been revealed, designed by a local artist.
Crucial contextual resource
General Editor of the CEE
There are 17 countries in CEE, including Romania, Poland, Bulgaria and Croatia. The whole region faces a number of challenges as they move on from a Communist past.
The CEE commentary aims to equip pastors and evangelical leaders with a crucial contextual resource.
The first official meeting for the Central Eastern European Bible Commentary took place in February 2017, involving Corneliu, Dr Katharina Penner (the project coordinator), other theological editors and Langham Literature’s Isobel Stevenson.
Solve several crises
Katharina explained more about the CEE commentary’s journey to this point [statements made ahead of this week’s tragic news].
“We have moved on with the texts slowly but steadily and have managed to solve several crises on the way.
“So the question is not anymore, if the commentary will come out but, when. We aim to have all texts (commentaries and articles) written and fully edited by end of September 2021 (then typesetting, proofreading and printing – so that the publication will become available by fall 2022, hopefully).
Two-thirds signed off
“About two-thirds of the text (900.000 words of the 1.511.700 planned for commentaries) are fully edited and signed off by the General Editor. Of the planned 130 articles about 100 are completed and signed off for publication; the others are at various stages of the editing process.
“Much prayer is needed these months for the editors. The pandemic still weighs heavily as many of the editors are also theological teachers who still teach online (which is very time-consuming and tiring). They are also pastors and deal with many additional issues in their churches, including death and illness.”
Watch Corneliu speak about the commentary in 2017.
