OCA Military Chaplains deployed in “Operation Enduring Freedom”

On January 28, 2003, the Very Reverend Theodore Boback, Director and Dean of the Orthodox Military Chaplains, informed His Beatitude, Metropolitan Herman, Primate of the Orthodox Church in America and Endorser for Military Chaplains, that four Orthodox priests have been deployed on “Operation Enduring Freedom,” with a fifth priest placed on alert.

Chaplains Jerome Cwiklinski and Mark Koczak have been deployed with the US Navy, as has US Air Force Chaplain Timothy Ullmann. The Very Rev. James Jadick, rector of Saints Peter and Paul Church, East Herkimer, NY, has been activated from the US Air Force Reserve Component and has been assigned to Lackland Air Force Base as a backfill providing Orthodox Coverage while Father Ullmann is deployed forward. The Rev. John Dickson Brown, Priest-in-Charge of Holy Apostles Mission, Bloomington-Normal, IL, has been alerted for deployment on “Operation Enduring Freedom” with the US Army Reserve Component.

“As we pray in our liturgical services ‘for our nation… and the armed forces,’ please remember the deployed priests and their families, as well as all of our military chaplains and their families, as they minister to those service members of the US Armed Forces and their families,” said Father Boback.