War

PERRY T. HAMALIS

“War” carries multiple meanings and describes phenomena from varied contexts within Eastern Orthodoxy. In addition to the common understanding of war as “orga­nized violence carried out by political units against each other” (Bull 1977: 184), Ortho­dox sources discuss war as encompassing both the personal and communal, the phys­ical and spiritual, the bloody and bloodless. St. John Chrysostom writes: “There are three very grievous kinds of war: The one is public, when our soldiers are attacked by foreign armies; the second is when, even in time of peace, we are at war with one another; and the third is when the individual is at war with himself, which is the worst of all” (Hom. 7 on 1 Tim.). In each of these contexts (inter­state, interpersonal, and intrapersonal) the Orthodox Church has a threefold response: it proclaims the ideal of authentic peace, acknowledges the spiritual roots and implications of warfare, and affirms the sin­fulness of physical violence even if such violence may be tragically necessary given humanity’s fallen condition.

The ideal of authentic peace, while not unique to the Christian East, has been upheld as normative and is reflected clearly within the Orthodox tradition (cf. Harakas 1999; McGuckin 2006; Webster 1998). The Eastern Church’s divine services, oriented toward the eschatological peace of God’s kingdom, are replete with petitions for “peace from above” and “peace in the world,” as well as with exhortations to pray “in peace.” This focus reminds wor­shippers that the Lord being praised is the “Prince of Peace” (Isa. 9.6) who proclaimed a “gospel of peace” (Eph. 6.15), and that their identity as the church cannot be sepa­rated from their calling to be “peacemakers” and imitators of the non-violent Christ (cf. Mt. 5; Rom. 12; Heb. 12).

Notwithstanding their eirenic ideal, voices within Orthodoxy also express an acute sense of the depths of human corruption and resist naive optimism about the possi­bility for peace on earth. For the Orthodox, the problem of violence and war within human social history goes all the way back to Cain’s act of fratricide (Gen. 4), and stems from the passions that corrupt human beings’ souls. Furthermore, the activity of war tends to exacerbate and institutionalize those same sinful proclivities that sparked conflict in the first place (cf. Harakas 1999). Thus, from an Orthodox perspective, the only truly effective response to the funda­mentally spiritual roots of war begins with baptism and continues through a lifetime commitment to wage spiritual warfare against both human passions and the forces of evil in the world. Waging spiritual warfare in the intrapersonal context, then, is the necessary basis of a proper response to war in the interpersonal and interstate contexts. For the Orthodox, such spiritual warfare is the only legitimate “holy war” (cf. Dennis 2001).

Like many ethical issues, the topic of war developed differently within Orthodoxy than it did within Western Christianity – both Roman Catholic and Protestant. Despite the reality of war in Byzantium, there was no single eastern father who wrote extensively and systematically on the subject of war in the way that, for example, St. Augustine, Gratian, Thomas Aquinas, or Erasmus of Rotterdam did in the West. Neither was there a controversy in the Orthodox Church like the one between the Reformers (e.g., Martin Luther and John Calvin) and the Radical Reformers (e.g., Thomas Miinzter and Menno Simons) that engaged the questions of Christians’ military service and use of the sword. Furthermore, the Orthodox Church never endorsed or practiced “crusades” (cf. Dennis 2001; McGuckin 2006). In fact, Orthodox Chris­tians were the victims when, during the Fourth Crusade, Latin Christians turned their weapons against the citizens of Con­stantinople. In short, the different histories and theological styles of Western and Eastern Christianity led to different approaches to war ethics. The predominant categories used by Western Christian ethicists – “pacifism,” “just war theory,” “Christian realism,” “just peacemaking,” and “crusade” – do not exactly fit, therefore, within Orthodoxy. Strictly speaking, the Orthodox Church is not “pacifist” because, during the reign ofthe Emperor Constantine and, subsequently, in other predominantly Orthodox nations, military service by Chris­tians became necessary (although canoni­cally forbidden among clergy and monks). Important recent research, however, high­lights the ways in which Orthodox Christian sensibilities shaped Byzantine military prac­tices, reflecting a pro-peace bias (Miller and Nesbitt 1995). Similarly, “just war theory” is incompatible with both the spirit and sub­stance of most Orthodox sources (Harakas 1999; McGuckin 2006). The Eastern Church, particularly in its canon law, acknowledges the tragic necessity of defensive wars in some circumstances, but resists efforts to justify wars according to formal criteria, which can easily be preempted by those in power, and affirms the need for repentance among all who are complicit in physical violence. Some debate within Orthodoxy has ensued recently over whether war is best described as a “necessary evil” or as a “lesser good” (Harakas 1999; Webster 2003), with the majority of Orthodox thinkers supporting the “necessary evil” position.

SEE ALSO: Ethics; Military Saints; Original Sin; St. Constantine the Emperor (ca. 271–337)

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS

Bull, H. (1977) The Anarchical Society. New York: Columbia University Press.

Dennis, G. T. (2001) “Defenders of the Christian People: Holy War in Byzantium,” in A. Laiou and R. P. Mottahedeh (eds.) The Crusades from the Perspective of Byzantium and the Muslim World. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, pp. 31–9.

Harakas, S. (1999) “The Teaching on Peace in the Fathers,” in Wholeness ofFaith and Life: Orthodox Christian Ethics: Part One – Patristic Ethics. Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Press, pp. 137–61.

McGuckin, J. A. (2006) “Non-violence and Peace Traditions in Early and Eastern Christianity,” in K. Kuriakose (ed.) Religion, Terrorism, and Globalization: Nonviolence: A New Agenda. New York: Nova Science Publishers, pp. 189–202.

Miller, T. and Nesbitt, J. (eds.) (1995) Peace andWar in Byzantium: Essays in Honor of George T Dennis, SJ. Washington, DC: Catholic

University Press.

Webster, A. F. C. (1998) The Pacifist Option: The Moral Argument Against War in Eastern Orthodox Theology. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.

Webster, A. F. C. (2003) “Justifiable War as a ‘Lesser Good’ in Eastern Orthodox Moral Tradition,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 47: 3–57.