What is the spiritual dimension of the human experience of war? How are the values of a devoted and self-sacrificing service to your people formed? One who can give the best answer to these questions is a chaplain – the word that has occupied a prominent place in the vocabulary of Ukrainians in the past three years of war. Our interviewee is the Rev. Andrii ZELINSKYI, a priest of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, a member of the Society of Jesus, the first official full-time chaplain in Ukraine’s Marine Corps (36th Independent Brigade). Having been educated in philosophy (St. Basil College, Stamford, US), theology (Pontificia Universita Gregoriana, Rome, Italy), and political science (National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy, Kyiv), he chose the role of a pastor of souls for the military and has served in the hottest spots shoulder-to-shoulder with soldiers since June 2014. He initiated learning the English and Italian languages in the ATO zone, wrote the books Sunflowers: Spirituality during the War and By the Rivers of Babylon: a Few Thoughts on the Return on the basis of what he felt. The Day spoke to the Rev. Zelinskyi about the spiritual needs of our defenders.
“THE INSTITUTION OF CHAPLAINRY HAS LONG EXISTED IN THE WORLD’S DEVELOPED ARMIES”
On what stage is the institutionalization of military chaplainry now?
“This year Ukraine saw the emergence of a state-sponsored institution of military priests in the National Guard, the State Border Security Service, and the Armed Forces. The institutionalization has taken almost all the years of Ukraine’s independence. Traditional Ukrainian churches have been always aware of having to bear responsibility for the moral and spiritual condition of their believers and other people in any ‘dimension’ of society. So priests have always worked in the armed forces to the extent agreed upon with the command of units and subunits. In other words, this guardianship has always been in demand. Yet it was on a volunteer basis in various formats. I have personally been in military chaplainry for 10 years. I started at the Land Forces Academy in Lviv, when nobody was speaking of or suspected a war. It is a very important point. In reality, our current association of such things as ‘military chaplain’ and ‘war’ is not exactly correct.
“The institution of chaplainry has long existed in the developed armies of the world, say, in those of NATO member states. In the US, for example, it was established when the state itself was created. It is based on a certain philosophy of understanding the human being, the state, and the armed forces. In the Soviet era, nobody spoke of the serviceman’s spiritual requirements – instead, the question was how to meet material, technical, and psychological needs. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian military do have spiritual requirements. And, in a democratic society, the state is just obliged to create all the necessary conditions that allow one to satisfy his or her spiritual needs to the extent and in a way that do not affect the freedom of other citizens. The freedom of individual conscience is one of the gains of democracy.
“In Ukrainian society, the question of chaplainry was only put on a nationwide agenda when hostilities began in Ukraine. In the first years of the war, when the institution of the armed forces was weakened and undermined and, accordingly, the morale left much to be desired, chaplains were trying to do their best, albeit on a volunteer basis, to save the situation.
“So, there have been three stages in the development of chaplainry in Ukraine. The first is in peacetime. The traditional denominations in our society have always been doing this. The second stage is the beginning of hostilities. And now it is the third stage – the year 2017 and official institutionalization. Today, the main combat brigades’ tables of organization include the office of chaplain, i.e., military priest. It is the first stage of fulfilling the Provision on the Service of the Military Clergy.”
“IN THE FACE OF A REAL DANGER TO LIFE, AN INDIVIDUAL RADICALLY REAPPRAISES THE VALUES OF LIFE”
What kind of challenges does the military chaplain come across? What is the military’s attitude to the presence of this person?
“The first challenges are already obvious: there is clearly no sufficient number of people who can do this professionally. For to be a priest is one thing, but to be a spiritual counselor for the military is a totally different thing that requires certain experience, knowledge, and understanding of military culture. Some of those who go to the zone of hostilities to do the pastoral duty only know what it means to serve in trenches on the line of contact. But wars do not last forever, and even the units engaged in battles will sooner or later leave the zone of responsibility for recuperation. So, the question of meeting spiritual needs in wartime, with due account of the hostilities and peaceful daily routine, emerges today as the main challenge on the way to the final formation of the institution of military chaplainry in Ukraine.
WITH CADETS. SHYROKYI LAN, JULY 16, 2017 / Photo from Andrii ZELINSKYI’s Facebook page
“Chaplains exist not because there is a war but because there is an army and, inside it, a human being, a serviceman, who requests to meet his spiritual demands. This raises the question of how to train professional chaplains – the people who not only have a theological education, but also know how to do their pastoral duty within the law-guided framework in a multireligious country. Although religious institutions rank first in terms of public trust, we are living in a modern state, where this trust is expressed and interpreted in very different ways. Way back, during World War One, there was an aphorism: ‘There are no atheists in the foxholes.’ I can say for sure that it is not true. I began to serve as chaplain near Sloviansk and Kramatorsk in 2014, then I saw Pisky, Debaltseve, Starohnativka, Hutove, the Avdiivka industrial area, Shyrokyne, and Vodiane in the ‘hottest’ periods. There are all kinds of people with different views – so I have also seen atheists. But it is true that, in the face of a real danger to life, during the hostilities, in a life disfigured by war, when there’s a lack of light, warmth, and the affection of the most beloved and closest ones, the individual radically changes, reappraises the values of life, and seeks a deeper understanding of what he or she witnesses.
“And here religion and spirituality offers you certain ways to reconsider yourself and what is going on around. This allows you to find a certain peace of mind and balance and ensures your inner functioning and integrity. War is the ruination of a personality, of the arranged interpersonal relations, of the sensation of safety, and of the possibilities of individual and societal development, i.e., of our humanness. What poses a threat in this disorder is not only a bullet or a shell from the opposite side, but also the very situation in which you have to live and accomplish missions and which is aggressive to human psyche. In this case, spirituality allows overcoming this dissociation, launches a process of healing and inner renewal, and helps act effectively.
“It is easier to defend when one is aware of being a defender. This requires a certain categorical apparatus, a language that in turn also crystallizes in the process of communication. A serviceman needs someone to speak to about these things, someone he trusts. In the first and second year of the war, we had in fact no institution of military psychologist, although it nominally existed, and volunteer chaplains were doing their best to bring about the process of useful communication and, hence, inner healing.
“I often say that a chaplain should also be able ‘to bend the sky to the serviceman.’ He must be a person of prayer and sacrament. The military often ask, at least in my practice, for a confession or even baptism. These requests harbor a search for a deeper sense and a sensible existence in the context of war. War is always cruel, it issues a challenge to humaneness and rouses aggression in an individual, and how to cope with this is a challenge to the present-day Ukrainian society, which is often manifested as posttraumatic stress disorder. Spirituality helps regain humaneness, and conscious humaneness makes a defender out of a soldier and forms certain principles of his spiritual cohesion.”
“THE CHAPLAIN’S GOAL IS TO PROTECT HUMANENESS”
How did you become a chaplain in the Ukrainian army? What prompted you to serve as chaplain in the ATO zone?
“Being a chaplain is a great surprise in my life. As a believer, I see the Divine providence and vocation in this. I was born and raised in an academic milieu, in the world of books, and chaplainry become a major discovery for me in 2006. I emphasize that it was the army of 2006 – an unattractive spectacle, when worthy people had to struggle for survival, dignity, and military honor, for some universal values. What forced me to ‘cast anchor’ in the military milieu was the personality of a Ukrainian serviceman and the possibility of belonging to an essentially value-based community.
“It became important and meaningful for me to perform spiritual ‘microsurgery’ and revive humaneness in people amidst the ethical and existential challenges typical of the military milieu. One of the chaplain’s most important goals in a real war is to help an individual remain human, so that the military could efficiently accomplish their mission and be not just servicemen but warriors, true defenders. Ukrainian culture has historically shaped the image of a serviceman as a protector, and this element of military identity is not at all obvious in the armies of Europe or the United States. For us, a soldier is always a protector. Accordingly, the armed forces turn into a value-based institution that influences the formation of a society of certain quality. Otherwise, the army may pose a threat to man and the state. So the chaplain performs a small but important function in ensuring the activity of a whole organism.”
“STRUGGLING FOR STATUSES AND WEALTH IS TYPICAL OF THE PEACETIME DAILY ROUTINE, WHILE LIFE IS THE KEY VALUE IN WAR”
To what extent serious is the problem of posttraumatic disorders among those who come back from the front? How can it be solved? It is often the question of a lack of systemic help and integration…
“It seems to me that the largest number of posttraumatic stress disorder cases occurred during the ‘first wave’ of mobilization and the first ATO stage. We are talking about clinical indications. The next waves saw the ‘adaptive mechanism’ brought into play. When you return from the zone of hostilities to Kyiv, Lviv, Odesa, or Kharkiv for the first time, you are seriously concerned about the difference between the dimensions of war and peaceful daily routine. But when this repeats and you go there for a second or a third time, your psyche adapts to this uncommon societal reality. Anyway, an individual who has gone through a war will return to peaceful life, one way or another, with a different world-view. The previous world-view is deformed, and, accordingly, the individual needs to reinterpret the societal reality and certain values that will help him not to disintegrate. And, again, the role of the pastor of souls is to form a ‘linchpin’ in the personality by way of spiritual categories. Circumstances can vary – you are on the line of contact today and on the thoroughfare of a big Ukrainian city tomorrow, but something remains behind in me forever and forms a permanent attitude to the surrounding world. I am aware of why I am doing what I’m doing. I am free from the logic of a victim and slave who is forced to act by force of certain circumstances. I am the master of my own life. This important element of awareness, firstly, allows preventing the development of the posttraumatic syndrome and, secondly, allows curbing the consequences that are inevitable to one extent or another.”
What did the military teach you?
“I’ve been mingling with the military for 10 years now. The most important thing inherent in them is sincerity – a thing we lack in our peaceful daily routine. There can be all kinds of people in the army: the scared individuals who try to hide behind the number and size of stars on their epaulets, and the true and chivalrous titans of spirit, who are conscientiously doing their duty and are role models to others.
“A man on the frontline has a clearly-structured system of priorities. What was once unnoticeable becomes by far the most important here. The military defend life itself, and victory in an operation or in the war as a whole depends, after all, on the extent to which you value your own life and that of your comrade-in-arms. Struggling for statuses and wealth is typical of peacetime daily routine, but they lose any significance in war, when life itself becomes the key value. War cleanses society – I mean that we have focused our attention again, at a certain stage of our political development, on something really important. I am sincerely proud and consider it a great honor to personally belong to their ranks, to be beside them everywhere.”
“THE ARMED FORCES OF UKRAINE ARE PLAYING A DECISIVE ROLE IN THE TRANSFORMATION OF UKRAINIAN SOCIETY”
You said in an interview: “The greatest problem is not corruption but a weak individual.” What did you mean?
“The Soviet culture and system of values ruined the individual and damaged the human personality. They blew up the ephemeral essence of a mythical state as a living, omnipresent, superhuman creature which forced you to self-sacrifice all the time for the sake of a higher abstract goal. A constructive self-sacrifice is the result of conscious freedom. But when the government strips one of freedom but demands a sacrifice, this poses an existential threat to the individual. Accordingly, the people brought up in Soviet and sometimes even post-Soviet culture are still inclined to think that there is ‘somebody’ called ‘the state’ who must do everything for them. There is no culture that would encourage personal development in a wide range of free opportunities: entrepreneurship, the ability to feel that you are the creator of reality, etc. And man is weak – he is a victim, and the surrounding world is not his creation. This complex was formed not only in the Soviet era – even classical Ukrainian literature is a story of never-ending sufferings.
“Of course, we should know the past, for it legitimizes the process of development, but we must not determine it. Our goal is not to repeat history but to project the future we want to live in. All we have to do today in this connection is fight on two fronts – on the one, the armed Ukrainian defends our right to freedom and dignity and, on the other, we must rapidly form in ourselves a new-quality Ukrainian who can live freely and adequately. We need high-quality educational institutions that will shape individuals prepared for self-development on the physical, emotional, and intellectual level. No one will ever send us a new Ukraine by the New Mail – either we ourselves will create it or we will miss the chance again, as it has repeatedly happened in the history of the Ukrainian people.
“In this situation, the Armed Forces of Ukraine are playing a decisive role in the transformation of Ukrainian society, for it is a very important formative and standard-setting institution. After serving in the army, people are supposed to be integrative and value-oriented individuals capable of vigorously pursuing their goal. The armed forces have a sufficient potential today to turn yesterday’s ‘weak’ Ukrainian into a true author and defender of his future, who is responsible for his own life and the destiny of his country. Chaplains are also doing their share in reviving the military’s human potential and ability to do great things. The Soviet army used to form people of a totally different kind – another time, other needs, and other methods. It is our history, the history of our past. And the history of our future is our current struggle of a new human being in a new country.
“Earlier, the army often deformed the personality (although there were some positive moments that should not be denied). Suffice it to recall a phrase from the Soviet military folklore: ‘Initiative in the army is punishable.’ Thank God, this phrase has no equivalents in the official language because it is essentially aimed against the state: it dashes any hopes for development, destroys the institution of the armed forces and the state of Ukraine as such. I would bring to severe justice anybody who will dare pronounce it in the presence of younger-generation people. For it is a real crime against Ukraine. Our nation does not deserve this. But this phrase still remains etched on many minds. This is why I am saying: our enemy, even a more avowed one than Russia, is the old, weak type of personality that comes from the ‘dark cave’ of the Soviet past and does not want to lose its positions. It is about the way of thinking, not the age, of a person. Our front is there! Our past is the history of an incessant struggle of our forefathers for a better future. Unfortunately, we are betraying them today when we sing praises of the past instead of becoming ourselves the future they dreamed of. The future is not a slogan but a type of societal relations – legal, economic, and political. What distinguishes one type of relations from another are determinative values that become criteria for personal decision-making. This war is already our victory: this fighting may bring forth a new, strong Ukrainian responsible for himself and his country. To be more exact, it must, not just may, do so, taking into account the price we are paying today. It is our moral imperative, a duty, a veneration of the serene memory of the fallen.
“Whenever our weak Ukrainian switches on a TV set or travels abroad and sees a success story there, he wants to take advantage of this success and material benefit – he also wishes to ‘live high off the hog.’ But far from everybody is prepared to work on himself because initiative demands valor and struggle. Corruption results from the fact that a weak person, who has inherited the old culture, does not want to learn and improve. He just steals someone else’s success. I really wish the Armed Forces of Ukraine would be a state institution that will be able to form citizens of new values and new quality – the true warriors who will know clearly how to achieve their goals, struggle for and protect their dreams. It is time for the army to regain the status of the school of life!”
