THE INFLUENCE OF THE ISLAMIC FACTOR ON THE STATE OF THE ARMED FORCES OF FRANCE

Nowadays France is a home to the largest Muslim community in Europe. Therefore, the issues of the relationship between government structures and adherents of Islam are of great importance for the country and they become a field for political confrontation especially because of the existing separation of spiritual and secular life. This means that Islamization of the armed forces of the Republic is also important. It is necessary to discover the level of army Islamization and spiritual needs satisfaction of soldiers, as well as the role of Muslim chaplains in army structures. Based on analysis of French laws, press and publications in scientific journals, the author discovers the changes that occurred in the Nation attitude to the issue of Muslims integration to the military system of the country and explains the reasons and content of some evolution stages of Muslim military chaplains institute in the French army since 2006.

Mission of the military chaplain on the battlefield and the Orthodox ethics during the World War I (on the example of Orenburg and Siberian Cossack troops

Military clergy was one of the core translators of military norms and regulations in the Russian army during the early XX century. The goal of this article is to examine the concepts of Orthodox culture within the ethics of war of the military chaplains. Leaning on the memoirs of A. Turundaevsky and archival documents of the Orenburg and Siberian Cossack troops, the article reconstructs the mission of the military chaplain on the battlefield, analyzes the structure of concepts of Orthodox ethics therein. The study of the structure of the elements of Orthodox ethics in the mission of the military chaplain reveals the key ethical principles that are fundamental to military conflicts, when one of the parties grounds its military regulations on the Orthodox culture. It is determined that in the conditions of new requirements established for military clergy during the World War I (1914–1918), there were instances that the norms of the Orthodox ethics contradicted the mission of the chaplain on the battlefield. The acquired results reveal that the underlying principle of the mission of military chaplain, as the representative of the “militant church”, on the battlefield was “love for one's neighbor”. The understanding of Russia as the center of Orthodox culture and the perception of soldiers as “warriors of the church” prompted the clergy to implement the concept of “meekness” in their actions, as well as the concepts of “recumbence”, “Divine Providence”, etc. for comprehension of their actions.

INVOLVEMENT OF MILITARY CHAPLAINS IN THE PSYCHOLOGICAL SUPPORT OF BORDER GUARDS

The article deals with the views of psychologists on the relevance of use of the religious faith potential in the context of the individual mental health maintaining. The state and problematic issues that arise during the introduction of the institute of military chaplaincy in the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine are considered. The need for involvement of Border Guard military chaplains and military psychologists in the psychological support of professional activity of the border guards of joint actions during psychoprophylactic, psychohygienic, psychotherapeutic, psychocorrectional measures is defined.Key words: mental health, religion, military chaplain, border guard, psychological support.

The Lutheran Military Chaplaincy in the Finnish Defence Forces’ Organisation Today. A Multi-Method Approach

The Finnish military chaplains’ work focuses on supporting the conscripts’ ethical functioning ability as well as overall wellbeing of the people in the Finnish Defence Forces. This article gives the military chaplains an opportunity to tell in their own words what kind of issues relate to their perceptions working as a successful religious professional in this unique context. The research was carried out with a multi-method data, that includes an electronic questionnaire and an interview data. The results show that as the military chaplains commit and integrate well to their operational environment, they are also a heterogenous occupational group and manage their work very self-directedly. They appear to be more chaplains than soldiers or special officers, but it does not cause significant professional conflicts. The military chaplains’ profession should be described more as contrasting than conflicting overall. The intensity of their personal vocation and religiosity varies, but it affects considerably to their work motivation. It can be interpreted that military chaplains hold, in a sense, a double vocation towards their work where there is a clerical calling and a mission to work in a military environment.

15 Protection of Religious Personnel

This chapter examines the protection of religious personnel and legal issues of religious tolerance in armed conflicts. The presence of religious personnel in armed conflict is a reflection of the most basic sentiments of humanity and respect for the individual. Military ‘chaplains assigned to the armed forces’ are, in accordance with Article 24 GC I, protected in the same way as medical personnel. Article 8, lit. d, AP I uses the term ‘religious personnel’, which is more neutral than the Christian term ‘chaplain’. Religious personnel shall not be the object of discrimination by the adversary with regard to their particular religion. Moreover, religious personnel must not be hindered in pursuing their religious duties, even if the national regulations of the state in which they are working prohibit it. These protections are applicable to all religious personnel irrespective of their age or length of experience or military rank that they carry.

Remembering the Holocaust

Having survived the Nazi atrocities, Jewish communities offered different spaces for collective mourning and remembrance. Among the earliest commemorative events were reburial ceremonies, presided over by American military chaplains and cantors. There were also memorials for those murdered in the Holocaust. Memorial days firmly instituted in the first months after liberation would have a lasting presence in Germany’s culture of remembrance. From early on, the communities’ commemorative efforts included music, which served as an agent to help with emotional hardship and to create an atmosphere of dignity, respect, and compassion. In parallel to the somber memorials, euphoric celebrations of liberation took place as well, which defined the Jewish population as survivors, rather than victims. Beginning in 1948, celebrations dedicated to the newly founded State of Israel had a massive impact on the self-image, political consciousness, and culture of Jews in post-Holocaust Germany.

Empathic care and healing the wounds of war in Ukraine

This article analyses the religiously infused talk therapy provided by military chaplains to soldiers as they transition to civilian life. They offer a form of empathic care that centres on dialogue and existential engagement, which often begins in hospital and extends beyond physical healing. Proposals to treat the emotional distress soldiers experience include creating residential centres in monasteries and the use of a religiously oriented therapeutic idiom to ‘work on the self ’ so as to hear and obey the ‘voice of one’s soul’. State-sponsored military chaplains harness religion for therapeutic purposes with the goal of transforming soldiers into high-functioning, religiously committed, patriotic, moral citizens dedicated to protecting a newly fortified sovereign country. This normativises a spiritual dimension to care, healing and understandings of the sources of wellbeing. More broadly, this injects religious practices and symbolism into secular social institutions and shifts the emotional tenor of public domains by mobilising the therapeutic qualities of religion for the purposes of social healing.