Military chaplains in the trenches of Ukraine
Kyiv, Ukraine – Since April, Ukraine’s eastern provinces have experienced continual military confrontation between its government, and pro-Russian separatists and Russian forces, and more than 3,200 have been killed in the conflict.
Accompanying the soldiers at the front are priests – both Catholic and Orthodox – as well as Protestant chaplains.
Vasyl Derkach, 23, recently returned to Lviv, in Ukraine’s west, to recover after his rotation in Ukraine’s military in the eastern conflict zone.
“Can you imagine, I have slept for seven days on clean sheets? I did not sleep on sheets for five months,” Vasyl told CNA in a recent interview. “Have you ever really thanked God for sleeping in a warm bed?”
“In my team, no one believed in God. I asked my friend with whom I always stayed on the post: ‘Do you believe in God?’ He told me, ‘No, I have faith in myself.’ But when he was wounded, the first thing which he said to me in the hospital, was ‘Vasyl, I prayed! Can you believe me, I prayed?!’”
“At war there are no atheists. When they start to shoot, everyone begins to make the sign of the cross,” Vasyl says.
Before joining the military, Vasyl had been a miner, and then edited a local newspaper for the miners. He belongs to an evangelical community called The Embassy of God. He explained that he attends church at the community “because there I really met the living God, I realized that God is the true miracle. My parents are still not believers.”
Vasyl did not take part in the Maidan protests in Kyiv, which led to a change of government in the nation, drawing it closer to the West and straining its relations with Russia.
When did he arrive in Kyiv, he stood in a pool of blood shortly after the shooting of many activists.
“I joined the military for patriotic reasons: I was mobilized, and I knew that I had to defend my land. I don’t want to go back to that hell, but I do not regret that I was there. My church taught me: ‘All who take the sword will perish by the sword.’”
Many Ukrainian soldiers, Vasyl said, turned to drink.
“Guys reduced stress with vodka … I don’t drink at all, that’s why the situation was very difficult for my psyche. Sometimes I dream that I am killing somebody, or somebody has killed me. Even now I can’t stay alone – depression comes … there is such an atmosphere, if you don’t drink, you will be crazy. I prayed.”
“You sit in a trench and pray, and nothing more can be done.”
Ukraine’s soldiers have been assisted by chaplains from the numerous Christian confessions in the country: Ukrainian Greek Catholics; Roman Catholics; Ukrainian Orthodox – both Moscow and Kyiv Patriarchates; and Protestant communities.
“There is no one ecumenical center for military chaplains for Ukraine’s armed forces. We don’t have any legislation which allows priests to work in conflict zones,” explained Father Lubomyr Yavorskiy of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church’s office, which organizes military chaplains.
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