I amused myself with the above unrelated promotional video for the Ukrainian army.
Kyiv (RISU) — Union of Officers of Ukraine (UOU) has requested that each military unit have permanent priests to meet the religious needs of officers.
Supporters of this proposition state that military chaplaincy has existed in the armies of the United States, Germany, and Poland for many years.
“Member states of NATO – an organization Ukraine wants to join – have institutionalized military chaplains,” stressed UOU head Viacheslav Bilous. “This increases military morale and discipline by allowing believers of particular confessions to exercise their right to prayer.”
The question of confessional affiliation is a point of opposition to such innovations, as it is still unclear what criteria will be used to determine the confession of priests to be assigned to particular units. The very question that came to my mind.
In order for such innovations to be legally accepted, alterations must be made to laws promoting church-state separation; as of today, the law “On Military Service” does not permit ministers to be affiliated with the armed forces.
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Do other Orthodox majority nations use chaplains?
ReplyDeleteI recall an ancient canon from one of the councils expressly forbids membership in the military... So they may not be actual officers the way priests are in the US military...
On the plus side, this would be a boon to the UGCC which has, I am told, a glut of married priests compared to their parochial assignment needs...