WHEN Russia invaded in February 2022, Vitalii Nartov, a Pentecostal pastor in Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine, chose to join the army. He had been working as a volunteer chaplain since the Russian incursion into Crimea and the Donbass region in 2014. “I needed to defend my home and family,” he said on Wednesday, at a gathering of the First Ukrainian Battalion of Military Chaplains, which was attended by the Archbishop of Canterbury during his visit to Ukraine. The provision of chaplains on the front line is an important first step, but won’t solve everything, they all agree. “When the war ends, military chaplains will have more work than ever.”

Source: The Times February 10, 2024 12:48 UTC