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Navy Chaplain Corps Celebrates 228th Anniversary
Story Number: NNS031121-14
Release Date: 11/22/2003 10:48:00 AM
By Operations Specialist 2nd Class Wendy Kahn, National Naval Medical Center Public Affairs
BETHESDA, Md. (NNS) -- The Navy Chaplain Corps celebrated its 228th anniversary Nov. 13, commemorating a history that traces back to 1775.
Today’s Navy chaplains represent more than 100 faith groups. They provide religious support and counseling services to Sailors and Marines, Coast Guardsmen and Merchant Mariners during war and peacetime operations.
The term “chaplain” is derived from a French legend. According to the legend, Saint Martin of Tours split his cloak in half and shared it with a beggar at the gates of Amiens, France. The officer tasked with the care of the cloak and carrying it into battle was called the chaplain or “cloak bearer.”
A Navy chaplain’s role on active duty is very rewarding, yet hard at times, according to Lt. Cmdr. Mark Koczak, a Russian Orthodox priest and one of National Naval Medical Center’s (NNMC) staff chaplains. Unlike a civilian pastor, who is limited to one faith group, military chaplains work with people from different faith groups.
“It’s a different kind of ministry than being a priest in a civilian church,” he says. “I work at NNMC to serve our Sailors, Marines and patients. I also served in four Armed Forces, and advising people from various religious denominations is a neat experience, but it’s not an easy life. We’re different people, because we’re sometimes isolated from the rest of the people in our faith group.”
Being a Navy chaplain requires the clergy person to take care of people in a specific faith group by performing services. Chaplains can be ministers, pastors, priests, rabbis or imams, but must be ordained and endorsed by their churches to serve in the military’s Chaplain Corps.
Once a clergy person is approved by his or her church, he or she would then attend chaplain school and report to a duty station. The Chaplain Corps also has a Chaplain Candidate Training Program for men and women who become Reserve officers but are not ordained. They are called chaplain candidates and are similar to interns until they’re ordained.
Like staff corps officers (attorneys, nurses and physicians), chaplains compete against each other for rank promotion.
They are assigned to hospitals, ships, the Marine Corps and the Coast Guard. Currently, there are about 860 Navy chaplains on active duty; about 200 of them are serving with Marines and 40 are in the Coast Guard.
Besides performing divine services, chaplains are the ethical, moral and religious advisors for the commanding officer of a particular unit. Chaplains can request religious materials, contact a member’s minister on behalf of that Sailor or advise the command of a member’s religious dietary needs. The bottom line is that they are chaplains for everyone.
For related news, visit the National Naval Medical Center Navy NewsStand page at www.news.navy.mil/local/nnmc.
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