Two members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are now serving as chaplains in the British Armed Forces — the first since the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defence opened the role to Church members less than two years ago.
Chaplain Capt. Jonathan Bleakley and Chaplain Capt. Timothy Farrant became the first two Latter-day Saint chaplains in the British Army after they completed their training at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in Berkshire, England, on Saturday, July 18.
Elder Robert F. Schwartz, an Area Seventy in the Church’s Europe North Area, and his wife, Sister Amy Schwartz, attended the commissioning parade.
Todd Linton, director of the Church’s Military Relations, Chaplain Services and Prison Ministries Division of the Priesthood and Family Department, said the two chaplains’ service will bless many lives.
“Latter-day Saint chaplains stepping into the ranks of His Majesty’s Land Forces bring spiritual support into the barracks and battlefields for not only members of our faith, but also those of other faiths or no faith at all,” Linton told the Church News. “These two chaplains are opening an important door. Soldiers carrying the quiet weight of service, families waiting at home, young recruits far from everything familiar — they’ll all have someone new to turn to. It’s a small step on paper, but for those who’ll be touched by it, it could mean everything.”
The Church’s application to become an endorsing authority was approved by the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defence in December 2024.
At that time, Bleakley was serving as president of the Thames East England Stake and teaching chemistry at an all-boys high school in Essex. He had spent 30 years with the Army Cadet Forces, a youth organization sponsored by the U.K.’s Ministry of Defence — first as a cadet, then as an adult officer — but he had always planned on being a teacher, not an active-duty chaplain.
That’s when Bleakley said he felt the Lord close every door to teaching and open one to the chaplaincy. With much prayer, fasting and time in the temple, he followed that path.
Nearly two years later, the 43-year-old is one of the first two Latter-day Saint chaplains in the British Army.
“It feels like a moment where the Lord is opening doors to get the people He needs in the places He needs them, at a time He needs them,” Bleakley told the Church News. “And it feels special that this is where the Lord needs me now. It’s not what I’d expected to do, not what I planned to do, but where I was called.”
Bleakley, who served in the Utah Salt Lake City Mission from 2002 to 2004, will soon deploy to Germany with 3,500 troops, where he’ll focus on the three pillars of Royal Army chaplaincy: pastoral care, spiritual support and moral guidance. In the British Army, he said all Christian chaplains are known as “Padres.”
A lifetime of gospel learning and service has prepared Bleakley for this opportunity to minister, he said, quoting several verses from the Book of Mormon and the Bible (see Mosiah 18:8-9, Moroni 6:4, Mosiah 2:17, Matthew 25:40, 1 Corinthians 13, Moroni 7:45-48).
On his first day, Bleakley said, a foul-mouthed soldier pulled him aside and unloaded his problems. “My goodness, poor man, his life is so hard and yet he is trying to do his job and look after his family as best as he can — and he is carrying the weight of the world,” he said.
For such individuals, Bleakley is grateful to offer “a little bit of light, relief, guidance and support.”
“Ministering is fundamental and core, and such an essential part of what we covenant to do as members of the Church,” he said. “It’s a wonderful opportunity to do that as a job, and you are doing it for people who sacrifice huge amounts of freedom, of family, for something greater than themselves, because they wear a uniform.”
