Ukrainian military chaplains gather after completing their training in the southwest of England. Credit: Ben Birchall/PA Wire
Ukrainian military chaplains completed their training with the British Army before heading back to the war-ravaged country to give frontline troops a «spiritual umbrella.»
A two-week program run by the Department of Chaplains Royal Army (RAChD), for the first time a group of 10 Ukrainians are training in a camp near Warminster in Wiltshire.
Participants learned to provide pastoral care, spiritual support and moral guidance to soldiers on the battlefield.
Lieutenant Dmitry Povorotny, a priest from Dnipro in central Ukraine, was one of the officers who took part.
“Once, when Russia bombed the Dnieper, my four-year-old granddaughter hid her toys under the stairs and covered them with an umbrella,” said Lieutenant Povorotny, who decided to become a military chaplain after the occupation of Crimea in 2014.
“We have an understanding that the umbrella that covers Ukraine is our armed forces. Our men and women are so strong because they protect Ukraine from enemies who are so cruel that they came to Ukraine to kill and rape many people.
“But even those men and women who are fighting, they also need some protection.
“The main goal of the chaplain is to give a spiritual umbrella to the personnel who fight for us. It's not just about weapons and missiles, but about spiritual support.»
Ukrainian military chaplain 2nd Lieutenant Gennady Rokhmaniyko inspects . soldier's equipment at a training ground in England. Photo: Ben Birchall/PA Wire
Lt. Taras Kotsyuba, who has also been a military chaplain since 2014, explained why religion is so important to Ukrainian soldiers on the front lines.
“There is a saying that there is no atheism in war,” he said. .
“The main goal of chaplains is not to force a person to return to God, but to help him find the way to God.
“It is true that I am a priest and I can't bear arms, but I can be with soldiers who couldn't accept the idea of Russian occupation and decided that they should be part of this war.”
Like Lieutenant Povorotny, Lieutenant Kotsyuba left his family in their hometown near Lviv to support Ukrainian soldiers in the war against Russia.
“I wanted to do something for their future,” he said.< /p>
The Ukrainian army already has 160 chaplains who have joined the command structure of the armed forces since April 2023, having previously worked as freelance civilians, not officers.
However, much more is needed, to provide proper support to soldiers facing the horrors of war,” said the head of the Military Chaplain Service of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Colonel Vitaliy Skrybets.
“We need more than 700 chaplains, at the moment we have more than 100 chaplains, but this is still not enough,” he said.
“It is important to have a good quality of training,” he added. . “Chaplains from various departments, such as the navy, infantry, special forces, and also the medical department. They completed six weeks of training in the UK and now they just want to improve their skills here.
«When you have situations where you don't see any chances or options, chaplains give you hope to move on.»
Colonel Vitaliy Skrybets watches a live-fire exercise during training with British Army personnel. Credit: Leon Neal/Getty Images
He added that with the help of military chaplains, soldiers' morale is high and they are «more open with chaplains than their commanders.»
And he's «358 percent» I am sure that the long-awaited counteroffensive of Ukraine against Russia will be successful.
“A counterattack is not something that happens all of a sudden, it needs to be worked on,” he said. .
«Personnel have high morale because they understand what they are fighting for, fighting for their land.
«That's why we need a chaplain in the army to support our soldiers.»
The Reverend Robin Richardson, a chaplain at the RAChD who helped develop and deliver the training for Ukrainian visitors, said he hoped the course could be delivered to more chaplains.
< p>“These the chaplains currently taking the course are at the forefront of the chaplaincy department they have developed over the past two years,” he told PA.
“They want to provide spiritual support to people of all faiths. When people have “first order” questions – why am I here, what is my purpose, what is happening, what is beyond the horizon, how can I hope – they are here to offer spiritual support to people of all faiths, but they also offer pastoral support.” .
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