Patriarch of Romania: Church- Army Cooperation is a Beautiful and Beneficial Tradition

Basilica News – 11/10/2023

Bucharest-Romania: His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel addressed the participants at the Annual Convocation of the Romanian Armed Forces military chaplains, stressing the importance of cooperation between the Church and the Army. The event took place at the Palace of the Patriarchate in Bucharest on Thursday, October 5, 2023.

Please find below the full text of Patriarch Daniel’s message:

The Annual Convocation of military chaplains of the Romanian Army is an essential event for our Church and the Romanian Armed Forces. The Church and the Army are two fundamental national institutions contributing to the existence, the resistance in history, the becoming, and the perpetuation of a nation.

Since the first Christian centuries, the Army has given the Christian Church military saints, whose bright faces today adorn the approximately 80 military churches and chapels built in the premises of military units and objectives in our country.

These military saints, some of them simple soldiers, others high-ranking officers in the Roman Army, prove over the centuries through their lives that the Army and the Church share common values: love for the country and nation, the spirit of sacrifice until death, the courage to confess the Truth and respect towards others.

In any battle, the final victory cannot be individual! In the struggle for the soul’s salvation, no one wins alone. In the Church, we have as helpers the Saviour Jesus Christ, the Mother of God, the choirs of angels and saints.

In the Army, in the specific day-to-day training or in the missions they have to carry out, the soldiers know the portraits and lives of the saints of the Church from the preaching done by military priests, a distinct body of military personnel, which is the link between the two fundamental institutions of the Romanian people: the Romanian Orthodox Church and the Romanian Armed Forces.

Today, we are happy to open the proceedings of this Convocation after a four-year hiatus.

There are years in which the world faced significant existential challenges and crises: diseases, natural calamities, armed conflicts, massive dislocations of populations, and sophisticated technological innovations, all transposed into actual spiritual-religious trials, into very tormenting mental anguish and illnesses.

As every time in our history, in difficult moments, the Church and the Army join hands to find answers and solutions to the problems that arise from these challenges. An example is how the Church and the Army cooperated to support the victims in Syria, a country heavily affected, along with Turkey, by the earthquake this spring.

The Convocation of the chaplains is welcome and necessary to deepen the dialogue between the two institutions in this troubled context and motivate the military priests to continue their pastoral mission and religious assistance in the military environment with even more zeal.

The year 2023 was rich in events, achievements, exchanges of experience and interactions with representatives of the chaplains from various countries, all of which brought beneficial changes for the military clergy in Romania.

In February 2023, in cooperation with the Ministry of Defense, the Romanian Patriarchate hosted the 34th International Conference of Chief Chaplains of NATO member countries. This event gave rise to fruitful debates about the person and role of the military chaplain in the current geopolitical context. Interactions at this level determined recognition and appreciation from foreign delegations regarding the status of cooperation and the concrete results of the collaboration between the Church and the Romanian Army.

Also, this year, the efforts of a working group established at the level of the Ministry of National Defense, with the participation of military chaplains, experts and military lawyers, were crowned with success, which developed a new Regulation regarding religious assistance in the Romanian Army.

New, modern formulas adapted to the current context have been devised that clearly define the role and status of the military chaplain. Military priests thus enjoy professional recognition and appreciation not only among the Church but also within the Romanian Army through a better highlighting of their professional identity.

Equally, the military clergy better harmonise their status at a level closer to their counterparts in the armies of other countries.

The new Regulation is, in fact, a renewed covenant between the two fundamental national institutions, which affirms the need to ensure religious assistance among the military as a reality that meets both the spiritual requirements of the army personnel and the institutional expectations of the military leaders who, in the act their command, they need advice, guidance and balance.

We want today’s military chaplains to continue the holy tradition of religious assistance in the Romanian Army with grace, honour and dedication.

A strong army is defined by soldiers and commanders well trained in the military sciences but also strengthened morally and spiritually by the work of the military chaplains, who beautify with the grace of the Holy Spirit the two uniforms: the priestly vestment and the military outfit.

We want this Convocation to be a good start of a new stage in the activity of religious assistance in the Romanian Army, which will highlight both the specialised achievements of the military clergy and the new directions of activity for future missions.

We bless the works of this meeting, and we pray to God to pour out His rich gifts on all military priests in their holy mission to build victorious characters and souls among the soldiers of the Romanian Army!

With fatherly appreciation and blessing!

† Daniel
Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church

Photography courtesy of Basilica.ro

Source: Basilica News