Source: OCU and UGCC clergy do not want to go to the front as chaplains

Dumenko and Shevchuk pondering how to motivate their clerics to go to the front. Photo: OCU

The UGCC and the OCU clerics have no desire to go to the front as chaplains, says a source in the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organisations.

According to the source, at a recent online conference between the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organisations and the Ministry of Defence, Nazim Agayev, Director of the Department of Social and Humanitarian Policy of the Ministry of Defence, said that only 150 clergymen went to the front out of 738 mandates issued to denominations.

Most mandates were issued to the OCU – 494. Of these, only 97 people are in the army, i.e. 20%. Approximately the same situation is with the UGCC. For 91 mandates, only 25 people serve as chaplains in the AFU.

At the same time, the priests of the UOC are not allowed on the front as chaplains.

According to the DESS head Yelensky, to become a military chaplain, it is necessary to leave the UOC. At the same time, Ukraine lacks chaplains.

Read also