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Spotlight: Chaplain Fr. Stephan Close's Afghanistan Dispatches

As of January 27, Fr. Stephan Close, Antiochian Chaplain assigned to Afghanistan's Kandahar Air Field Chapel, has written fifteen vivid letters to his Bishop, His Grace Bishop Basil of Wichita. With permission, Antiochian.org is republishing the letters as journal entries, and the regular diary essays compose a moving first-hand account of his life in a war zone.

Fr. Stephan's colorful prose details all the sorrows and joys of a chaplain's life. "It's been a rough week," he writes in Entry 14, "with too many rockets and caskets and trouble and sorrow." Earlier, in his first encounter of the chapel at Kandahar, he explains, "I was able to serve Liturgy with the Romanians yesterday. Their chapel was one of the first constructions when they first came into theater at the beginning of the war (about 10 years now, Lord have mercy on us). It is not a prefab, but was purpose built-some of the interior supports are hewn and fitted, not nailed; a beautiful devotion of handiwork."

Read the full journal here.