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2024, The War in Ukraine: Challenges to Just War Doctrines in Eastern Orthodoxy
The sequence and escalation of Russian-Ukrainian political and military conflicts since 2014, culminating in Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, have reopened interest in and debates on just war theory and practice in general and specifically in historic and modern Eastern Orthodox cultures and Orthodoxmajority states. These debates have significant repercussions in areas like church-state and church-military relations in these cultures; ecclesial involvement in these conflicts has varied from war-justification rhetoric (in the case of the Russian Orthodox Church) to reiterations of the inherited traditions of ecclesial pacifism/condemnation of all violence (the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, a number of Orthodox Churches, clerical and theological networks, etc.). The Russian ecclesial involvements in the justification of war/military necessity and formulation of just war narratives have triggered divisions and antagonisms in the Eastern Orthodoxy. The development and course of the ecclesial conflicts involving Russian and Ukrainian Orthodox churches and parishes (and other Orthodox ecclesiastic bodies) will show whether Orthodox religious actors may begin to play a more significant role in the articulation and application of newly emerging trends in areas like the theology of just peace, just peace-making and Christian realism, Orthodox social ethics and the dynamic praxis of just peace-making.
The Uppsala Yearbook of Eurasian Studies III
Dynamics of Russian Orthodox Ethics of Peace and War: Sketching Shifts from the Cold War to the War in Ukraine2022 •
2023 •
This article shows how war is restructuring the configuration of religious life in Ukraine as a result of Russia's full-scale invasion. Following a short introduction, which documents churches' initial reactions to the war, I focus on three issues. First, I examine the ways in which the war exacerbates existing tensions within Ukrainian Orthodoxy, echoing the divide within world Orthodoxy. Second, I analyse the challenges faced by Ukrainian Catholics in relation to the Holy See's position on the war, which is marked by neutrality and a propensity towards nonviolence. Third, I delineate a few trajectories, which could allow churches to be more proactive in playing a role in peacemaking and future reconciliation.
Eastern Orthodoxy: Religion, War, and Ethics
Eastern Orthodoxy: Religion, War, and Ethics2014 •
The provenance, historical trajectories, and modern transformations of Eastern Orthodox cultures vis-à-vis the ethics of war display both significant analogies and dissimilarities to the respective Western Christian developments but have received much less in-depth and comprehensive treatment. However, in the last three decades some intense debates have evolved among Eastern Orthodox theologians, Byzantinists, and historians of the modern period centered on the Eastern Orthodox Churches’ and cultures’ traditional and current stances on the legitimization and conduct of just, justifiable, and “holy” warfare, as well as on pacifism and nonresistance to violence. These debates have ranged from the scriptural and patristic substructures of these stances to their more recent reformulations and political instrumentalizations in modern ideologized, “nationalized,” and reformist trends in Eastern Orthodox thought and societies. The study of the Eastern Orthodox perspectives on the morality and justifiability of warfare, the principal stages of their evolution, and figures involved in their conceptualization and elaboration is still hampered by the fact that a good of deal of the relevant late antique, medieval, and early modern material has been neither edited and published nor translated into modern Western European languages and thus remains not sufficiently accessible and little known, not only to the general public but also to the larger scholarly audience While comprising predominantly texts already available in English translations, it is hoped that the present selection of sources will provide an informative and balanced picture of the normative and influential Eastern Orthodox perspectives on the nature and laws of war, as they evolved in diverse religio-historical contexts.
Ukrainian Autocephaly: Source of Confrontation or Conflict?
THE UKRAINIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH A POWERFUL PEACE ACTOR2019 •
According to the Ukrainian Constitution, the country is secular, where its churches and all religious organisations are separated from the state and the legislative process. According to theologian Gennadiy Druzenko, in the regional scope, Ukraine might be described as one of the most religious countries in Europe. Demonstrated by the history of the Ukrainian Church, dating back to the time of the Kyivan Rus, when its Prince Volodymyr the Great received Christianity from Constantinople in 988. It was one of the most remarkable events in the creation of the Ukrainian state, that united the Ukrainian people spiritually. However, it further served as an instrument of manipulation and basis for lies from the Russian side so as to justify its right to exert control over Ukraine. This current paper aims to analyse the role of the Church in peace mediation versus conflict promotion in the case of Ukraine, addressing such issues as: - Official relations between and within different churches in the country and show impacts of this in reality; - The official position of the UOC KP and UAOC towards the conflict in Eastern Ukraine, the illegal annexation of Crimea, possible future reconciliation and current geopolitical challenges, reactions to fake news and disinformation; - The official position of the Church, position on the ground and the reaction on the discrimination against LGBT, religious and ethnic minorities; - Based on these points we will analyse whether the Church promotes peace or encourages conflicts in Ukraine, trying to answer whether the Church as an institution could serve as a powerful peace actor or not.
Theological Reflections
The Unholy War. Heresies and Theological Errors in the Russian Orthodox Church's Support for War2023 •
It is difficult not to see how the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) has taken the wrong side when it openly supported the war against Ukraine. But in so doing, ROC invited in some problematic and even heretical teachings. It embraced the heresy of (ethno-)phyletism, it combined ethnic nationalism with civilizational nationalism into a toxic mix, and it also violated its own social teaching that explicitly states that waging aggressive external war is one of the areas "in which the clergy and canonical church structures cannot support the state or cooperate with it." Moreover, it has promoted and supported a political ideology that downplays the human dignity inherent to every living person. This paper will shortly explore each one of these theological transgressions and will conclude with some warnings that such ideas have a contagious potential that could easily spread to other countries in the region, with emphasis on Romania's case.
2018 •
Many regions of the world whose histories include war and violent conflict have or once had strong ties to Orthodox Christianity. Yet policy makers, religious leaders, and scholars often neglect Orthodoxy’s resources when they reflect on the challenges of war. Through essays written by prominent Orthodox scholars in the fields of biblical studies, church history, Byzantine studies, theology, patristics, political science, ethics, and biology, Orthodox Christian Perspectives on War presents and examines the Orthodox tradition’s nuanced and unique insights on the meaning and challenges of war with an eye toward their contemporary relevance. This volume is structured in three parts: “Confronting the Present Day Reality,” “Reengaging Orthodoxy’s Tradition,” and “Constructive Directions in Orthodox Theology and Ethics.” Each exemplifies the value of interdisciplinary reflection on “war” and the potential for the Eastern Orthodox tradition to enhance ecumenical and interfaith discussions surrounding war in both domestic and international contexts.
Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe
SOFT, SHARP AND EVIL POWER: THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH IN THE RUSSIAN INVASION OF UKRAINE2022 •
This paper examines the enactment of soft/sharp/evil power by the Russian Orthodox Church and its leaders during a month before the major exertion of hard power by the Russian military and one month after the invasion of Ukraine. In the period from January 25 until March 25, 2022, 27 messages of the leading actors in the Church–Patriarch Kirill and Metropolitan Hilarion, head of the Department of External Church Relations (DECR)–are closely examined. The results are presented and discussed in four thematic sections: 1) soft power: the religious approach to the Russian World; 2) Sharp power: the territorial expansion of the Church with the help of the Russian state; 3) Evil power: Church leaders on war and peace; 4) Comparison with the messages of Russian political leaders (President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov). The soft power the Russian Church exercises for the benefit of Russian foreign relations is manifest in the strong emphasis on the spiritual unity of Russian and Ukrainian people within the religious narrative of the Russian World. This soft power takes the form of sharp power vis-à-vis the Ukrainian invasion and vis-à-vis those, who recognize the autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine. The influence of the Russian Church in support of the Russian government’s invasion has also a dimension of evil power, that is, power exercised in service to immoral or unethical state actions such as the unwarranted invasion of Ukraine by Russian military forces. Finally, both religious and political leaders are similar in denying the agency (including autonomous existence) of the nation-state and the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, they consider both the Orthodox Church of Ukraine and post-2014 Ukrainian government to be tools of outside forces (be it the West, the United States, or the Ecumenical Patriarch), and they threaten and attempt to punish everyone who supports those whom they have selected out as targets.
2023 •
The Holy See Confronts the War in Ukraine: Between Just War Theory and Nonviolence. This paper explores Pope Francis' and the Holy See's reaction to the war in Ukraine, and attempts to explain the logic behind it. After introducing the Holy See's statements since the start of Russia's aggression, the author reads them through the background of Catholic social teaching. In particular, he claims that the ambiguities of the Holy See's position are due to the unresolved tension between the traditional just war approach and a tendency towards nonviolence. The latter has acquired prominence over the last decades, in particular with Francis' Fratelli Tutti. The author concludes that the war in Ukraine represents a pivotal moment in the Catholic Church's thinking on war and peace.
Russian Journal of Philosophical Sciences
Orthodox Christianity and War2020 •
The subject of this article is the Orthodox Christianity's approach to war. Christians of other denomination have developed an elaborate theory of war, so-called "Just War Theory" (JWT), which has also been accepted by non-Christians and even secular thinkers regarding the nature and justification of war. A vast literature has been produced in a dire attempt to render perfect the world by insisting on the claim that war is the act of punishment for breaking the law. The result is an epistemological ease from which everything seems evident in advance including who is right and who at fault, who is and who is not favored by God. By removing from war an essential feature-that it is a form of conflict-JWT takes away the concept of reciprocity and introduces an in advance declared inequality which enables removal of uncertainty about the war's outcome. In Orthodox Christianity, the situation is different. With still live debate whether to persevere or abandon original Christian pacifism, for Orthodox Christianity, war is always a combination of cataclysm and temptation and far less Manichean than anything present in JWT. The aim of war is peace; but, however necessary, justice is an insufficient condition for justification. The difference between "justness" and "justification" is preserved through the uncertainty whom God, at war's end, loves more, because both victors and vanquished remain and continue to be in His grace. Losing a war, as such, does not turn the vanquished into criminals, nor does victory give the vanquisher the right of revenge for defending oneself. The latter approach Теория справедливой войны... to war has significant potentialities: preserving the distinction of ius ad bellum and ius in bello, preserving reciprocity, mutual respect and trust, impossibility of incrimination of war per se, the possibility of honorable defeat, etc.
2023 •
Because of the Russian aggression in Ukraine, the question about the capacity of the Eastern Orthodox Church to act as a geopolitical actor and to explore its role on the international stage is more urgent than ever. The aim of this paper is to stress the importance of providing an ethics of peace regarding the Ukrainian conflict, following the classical methodology of social ethical research: (1) I begin by paying attention to the context; (2) I then analyse it according to the normative principle of social ethics; finally, (3) I try to respond to the following question: What could be done to improve the current situation?
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Old Norse Folklore: Tradition, Innovation, and Performance in Medieval Scandinavia2023 •
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