Swiss military welcomes first Episcopal chaplain into its ranks

[Episcopal News Service] Being a chaplain in the Swiss military comes with challenges. Many are unfamiliar with what a chaplain does, and past church encounters with church people have “spooked” a lot of people, Erin Lederrey told Episcopal News Service.

Lederrey is the first-ever Episcopal chaplain to serve in Europe. She sees her role as more than a good listener. She’s there to provide spiritual care rooted in the Christian faith to soldiers who, in a secular context, may not speak the language of Christianity. It often requires her to talk in terms of universal truths.

Formerly a chaplain sent by the Reformed Church, founded by John Calvin in the 16th century, Lederrey has represented The Episcopal Church since last May through an agreement between the military and Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Geneva.

“The Episcopal Church has given me the spiritual practice and foundation that I never had, the community and institutional support that I was missing,” Lederrey told ENS. “By being an affirming church rooted in Christian tradition, this gave me coherence between my faith, my identity and my duty, and the joy to share the wisdom I find in the Christian faith.”

Swiss men ages 18 to 30, in most cases, are required to serve in the Swiss Armed Forces, providing the country security against military attack, countering threats to internal security, supporting communities during natural disasters and providing international peacekeeping and humanitarian assistance. Women who choose to serve do so equally alongside men.

Lederrey, 39, served her mandatory military service from 2005 to 2015, spending the next two years in the reserves. By 2017, she had begun studying at the University of Geneva’s Reformed Theological School and hoped to find a mission aligned with her studies. She reached out to the chaplaincy head, but at the time, he told her they didn’t accept student chaplains.

“Then out of the blue in January 2018 – I’d completely forgotten about them – the head of military chaplaincy got back to me and said, ‘We’ve changed the rules,’” said Lederrey, who is also an IT security consultant. “I applied, and at the end of the year, I did the chaplaincy training and reenlisted in the army.”

Colleagues appreciate that Lederrey is grounded both spiritually and in military culture. “I’m different enough to provide another way of seeing or thinking, but close enough so that any help, advice or support I give is compatible with the military environment,” she said. “This also means that I can’t just rely on myself; it’s a personal challenge that has forced me to deepen my faith.”

Lederrey performed her first military chaplaincy mission in 2019, the same year she realized she was trans and began coming out to family and friends.

Then in March 2020, COVID-19 hit, and her brigade was mobilized in response to health care needs. Given the additional stress, she chose not to come out more fully as trans until the end of her mission. When, later in 2021, she told her chaplaincy supervisor about her transition, he responded, “OK, what could we do for you?”

That response didn’t surprise Lederrey, she said, because she already knew the Swiss military well enough to know it cared for people. As long as one does their mission and is honest, there’s no issue. Even when it was confusing, supervisors said, “Maybe we don’t understand what you’re doing, but we know it takes courage to do it.”

In addition, Lt. Col. Christine Hug had paved the way. In 2019, Hug became the first openly transgender woman to command a 900-soldier battalion.

The Swiss Army is primarily a reservist army; recruits complete a four-month boot camp and then serve one month a year, typically for six or seven years, depending on the rank. Higher rank means longer service, Lederrey said, with the civilian employer paid by the state for the service days. Lederrey is often a chaplain to young recruits in boot camp.

Chaplaincy eventually led to a call to the priesthood, which Lederrey is now pursuing with the support of Emmanuel’s vestry, though church hasn’t always been part of her life. She quit church by the time she was 8 years old and then returned and was baptized in the Reformed Church in her 20s. In about 2018, she decided she was “fed up” with the Reformed Church and asked a friend to recommend a place she could worship. The recommendation was Emmanuel Episcopal Church.

“I walked in for the first time in 2019 and gradually, year after year, I became more involved,” Lederrey said.

In secular Europe, especially French-speaking countries like Switzerland, which, in addition to French, recognizes German, Italian and Romansh as national languages, “You don’t say that you believe [in God],” she said. “You almost excuse yourself to be a Christian.”

“The Episcopal Church has given me the spiritual practice and foundation that I never had, the community and institutional support that I was missing,” she said.

Lederrey “is a highly capable chaplain; she’s got superior pastoral skills, particularly for folks in the military who may feel like they’ve been othered,” Armed Forces and Federal Ministries Bishop Suffragan Ann Ritonia told ENS. “What a wonderful resource she is to the Swiss Army.”

In her role as bishop suffragan to Armed Forces and Federal Ministries, one of Ritonia’s primary responsibilities is serving as “pastor to the pastors,” and although she’s not serving as a military chaplain in the U.S., she can provide her care and counsel.

Lederrey had become a chaplain in the Reformed Church, yet each time she prepared to leave on a mission she would ask Emmanuel’s congregation for a blessing. At some point, she decided to ask her chaplaincy supervisor and church leaders if she could be sent as an Episcopal chaplain.

For Lederrey to be sponsored by The Episcopal Church as a Swiss military chaplain, the Rev. Michael Rusk, Emmanuel’s rector, and the Rev. Richard Cole, Emmanuel’s deacon, traveled with her to Bern, the Swiss capital, to be interviewed by the senior Swiss military chaplain about The Episcopal Church’s values.

“And then we had to sign an agreement saying we would sponsor Erin, and that the values that we espouse would be carried out by Erin,” Rusk said.

Per the agreement, she cannot proselytize, and her work must be pastoral, inclusive and welcoming to all in the military. “What was very apparent was that the values of The Episcopal Church aligned very closely with those of what the Swiss military chaplaincy is looking for, because they don’t want chaplains who are fundamentalist, or intolerant in their outlook,” Rusk said. “And there was even a request, could we try to find more people within our congregation to be Swiss military chaplains?”

Sponsorship means the church maintains and can advertise its connection to the Swiss military. As a congregation, members offer a prayer of blessing for Lederrey, who sometimes comes to church in her military fatigues, as she’s about to leave for her month of service, just as others receive birthday and other blessings.

“In Switzerland, there’s a very strong sense of civic responsibility, and a lot of that is formed from mandatory military training. It creates a culture of military responsibility,” Rusk said.

The international community recognized the mountainous Central European country’s neutrality in 1815. Switzerland’s foreign policy prohibits it from entering armed conflicts and joining military alliances. Still, it has an army and an air force, and it participates in the NATO Partnership for Peace Program.

While Ritonia lauded the Swiss military for its inclusivity, she expressed sadness and disappointment at the Trump administration’s stance toward transgender service members.

In his first weeks back in the White House, President Donald Trump signed an executive order essentially banning transgender people from U.S. military service.

“We’ve had people who have served faithfully in the military as trans folk, and they’ve been forced out,” said Ritonia, adding that those who have filed court cases have been discharged, and the few remaining have essential skills.

“I don’t see the U.S. military taking on any trans chaplains in the near future,” she said. Still, she said, it’s mostly the Episcopal chaplains, with a few other denominational exceptions, who minister well to gay and lesbian servicemembers.

Whether she speaks about faith or not, one thing Lederrey brings to her counseling with soldiers is that “she just lets folks know they are loved, they are beloved by God and beloved by the community. And not everybody gets that in the United States military, which makes me very sad,” Ritonia said.

“I’m grateful she’s serving with the Swiss Army.”

-Lynette Wilson is a reporter and managing editor of the Episcopal News Service.