The Pacifist Option: The Moral Argument Against War in Eastern Orthodox Theology [1 ed.] 1573092436, 9781573092432

Table of contents :
CONTENTS
LIST OF FIGURES
FOREWORD
PREFACE
Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION: A WORLD STILL SPLIT APART
PART ONE: CONTEXTS & CONCEPTS
Chapter 2: SOURCES AND THEOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS
Chapter 3: TYPOLOGIES FOR ORTHODOX SOCIAL ETHICS
Chapter 4: PACIFISM IN WESTERN ETHICS
PART TWO: THE ORTHODOX PACIFIST TRAJECTORY
Chapter 5: THE SCRIPTURAL WITNESS
Chapter 6: PATRISTIC WRITINGS ON WAR AND PEACE
Chapter 7: THE CANONICAL ''DUAL STANDARD''
Chapter 8: EXCEPTIONAL SAINTS
Chapter 9: DEVOTIONAL LITERATURE: MYSTICO-ASCETIC SPIRITUALITY
Chapter 10: MODERN RUSSIAN KENOTICISM
Chapter 11: CONCLUSION: THE PACIFIST OPTION
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX OF NAMES

Citation preview

THE PACIFIST OPTION THE MORAL ARGUMENT AGAINST WAR IN EASTERN ORTHODOX MORAL THEOLOGY

ALEXANDERF.C. WEBSTER

THE PACIFIST OPTION THE MORAL ARGUMENT

AGAINST WAR IN EASTERN ORTHODOX MORAL THEOLOGY

ALEXANDERF.C. WEBSTER

International Scholars Publications San Francisco I London I Bethesda 1998

Copyright © 1998 by Alexander F. C. Webster

International Scholars Publications 4720 Boston Way Lanham, Maryland 20706 12 Hid's Copse Rd. Cumnor Hill, Oxford OX2 9JJ

All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America British Library Cataloging in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Webster, Alexander F. C. The pacifist option : the moral argument against war in Eastern Orthodox theology I Alexander F. C. Webster. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. I. Pacifism-Religious aspects-Orthodox Eastern Church. 2. WarReligious aspects-Orthodox Eastern Church. 3. Christian ethicsOrthodox Eastern authors. 4. Orthodox Eastern Church -Doctrines. I. Title. BX323.W43 1999 241'.6242'088219-dc21 99-49358 CIP ISBN 1-57309-243-6 (pbk: alk. ppr.)

8™

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984

For Kathleen MaryJ Kristen MaryJ Beverly AnnJ Andrew Patrick &

Colleen Elizabeth

CONTENTS Page LIST OF FIGURES

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FOREWORD The Most Rev. Metropolitan Maximos of Ainou

vu

PREFACE

xiii

Chapter 1:

Introduction: A World Still Split Apart

1

PART ONE: CONTEXTS AND CONCEPTS Chapter 2:

Sources and Theological Foundations

25

Chapter 3:

Typologies for Orthodox Social Ethics

57

Chapter 4:

Pacifism in Western Ethics

91

PART TWO: THE ORTHODOX PACIFIST TRAJECTORY Chapter 5:

The Scriptual Witness

123

Chapter 6:

Patristic Writings on War and Peace

143

Chapter 7:

The Canonical "Dual Standard"

165

Chapter 8:

Exceptional Saints

183

Chapter 9:

Devotional Literature: Mystico-Ascetic Spirituality

197

Chapter 10: Modem Russian Kenoticism

217

Chapter 11: Conclusion: The Pacifist Option

243

NOTES

267

BIBLIOGRAPHY

325

INDEX OF NAMES

345

LIST OF FIGURES Page 1. The Moral Dimension of the Mysteria

41

2. Social Ethical Matrix

82

3. A Matrix for War and Peace

83

4. Key Characteristics of Orthodox Pacifism

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256

FOREWORD Most Rev. Metropolitan Maximos ofAinou It is always spiritually gratifying to know, with the Apostle Paul, "that in the Lord your labor is not in vain" (1 Corinthians 15:58). The present volume is ample proof that the years of research, reflection, writing, and rewriting that Fr. Alexander F. C. Webster has devoted to this project have not been in vain. I must confess to a very personal interest in seeing The Pacifist Option published at last. Indeed, I am part of the process that gave birth to this project in so many ways. Fr. Alexander began this project as a doctoral dissertation at the University of Pittsburgh, where he was the recipient of two Spero Samer Scholarships granted through my own office at the Greek Orthodox Diocese of Pittsburgh. The finished product, which he successfully defended in April 1988, has been available only through the usual source for dissertations, which is to say not widely accessible. In the decade since then, however, Fr. Alexander, has continued to brood over the topic of Orthodox pacifism, abandoning his own personal commitment to that moral position during the Persian Gulf War in 1991, but remaining convinced that it had to be reintroduced to the Orthodox community who had all but forgotten its historical and theological significance. We can thank Fr. Alexander's tenacity and the insight of the International Scholars Publications for giving this project

a new life. Tenacious is only one adjective that I would use to characterize the author. I Metropolitan Maximos (Agbiorgoussis) of Ainou, Th.D., [Doctor Theologiae Lovaniensis], is President of the Pittsburgh Diocese, Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America.

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have known Fr. Alexander for almost a quarter of a century, since he first crossed the Charles River from Harvard Divinity School in 1975 to take my courses in Dogmatic Theology at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Brookline, Massachusetts. Our association has been both professional, as teacher and student, and personal, as confessor and spiritual son, and has spanned time and distance. I was present at his graduation at the Harvard Divinity School in June 1978 and heard the commencement address of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn quoted on the first page of the present volume. Fr. Alexander's subsequent tenure in Pittsburgh from 1981 to 1986, might have resulted in his serving as a college campus priest under my omophorion were it a matter of my own authority. But Fr. Alexander has managed to overcome adversity and to respond to the Lord's call by serving honorably for the last sixteen years as a parish priest and military chaplain for the Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Eastern America and, currently, the Romanian Episcopate of the Orthodox Church in America. At least I was able to sponsor him for his ordination to the holy priesthood by Metropolitan Christopher (Kovacevich). I am also pleased to have baptized his second daughter, Beverly Ann, who will, God-willing, begin her own journey next autumn as a young scholar at one of our nation's institutions of higher learning. As I greet the publication of this book, I feel like the grandfather who witnesses the birth of one of his own grandchildren. A bright moral theologian, Fr. Alexander Webster has managed, once again, to do the impossible: to the difficult moral questions concerning war and peace, he has supplied compelling answers in the present volume. On the one hand, in his previous book, The Price of Prophecy: Orthodox Churches on Peace, Freedom,

and Security (which Eerdmans published in a second revised edition in 1995), the author painfully demonstrates that "the more specific the particular social and moral issue and the more concretely detailed the Orthodox moral position, the greater the danger of witnessing falsely by incorporating empirical error, misjudgment, and subjective opinion" (p. 331). On the other hand, in spite ofthis caveat, the author recognizes the need for an Orthodox Christian response to the perennial moral questions of war and peace, thus participating in the dialogue among Christian and other religious leaders and contributing to the public life of the American nation, specifically with regard to U.S. defense policy. Fr. Alexander contends in the Introduction to the present work: "The chalviii

lenge to Eastern Orthodox moral theologians and bishops in America in this context is clear: to enunciate . . . a balanced perspective in the shadow of the new apocalypticism but in light of their unique moral tradition. As familiar issues in international security are revisited by religious leaders, scientists, and military defense experts with all sorts of ideological proclivities, the stage is set for the Eastern Orthodox to enter the debate and to make a fresh, vital, but properly nuanced contribution" (pp. 18-19).

The eleven chapters of The Paci.fist Option:

The

Moral Argument Against War in Eastern Orthodox Theology that follow belowin a thorough updating, revision, and rewriting of the original dissertation-meet that challenge admirably. Fr. Alexander provides for his colleagues, both Orthodox moral theologians and non-Orthodox ethicists, a balanced argument against war from an Orthodox point of view by tracing what he aptly calls "the pacifist trajectory" as one of the two moral "options" in the matter of war and peace. The other viable option is the "justifiable war trajectory, 11 which Fr. Alexander concedes is "far more readily recognized in the historical experience and moral theology the Eastern Orthodox Churches" (p. 87). And yet many Orthodox moral theologians (and even some bishops!) today refuse to deal in any kind of depth with "justifiable war. 11 Actually, the resort to arms is never, as some would say, a "lesser evil. 11 That concept does not come from the Orthodox tradition. What Fr. Alexander initially took for granted during the 1980s in the original dissertation now seems in desperate need of demonstration: namely, that Orthodox Christianity embraces, together with absolute pacifism, its own moral tradition of limited, but morally justifiable military defense of the People of God. He is already working on a sequel to the present volume under the tentative title, Virtuous Warriors:

Justifiable War in Eastern Orthodox Moral Tradition. The 11justifiable war trajectory," as Fr. Alexander would have it, emphasizes the virtue of justice, as the foundation of a meaningful peace. Meanwhile, the "pacifist trajectory" stresses the virtue of mercy. As the author notes in the concluding chapter, for the Orthodox pacifist 11the only way to achieve peace is by peaceful, or non-violent means." Western readers will be interested to know that the "holy war" trajectory is not an option for Eastern Orthodox Christians. It was never part of our experience, history, doctrine, and moral teaching. The only exception is the "holy war" motif in the Book of Revelation in the New Testament. But even that kind of war requires no military assistance from the Lord's human creation. ix

The Pacifist Option is, in short, a mine of information for moral theologians and for anyone who wishes to familiarize oneself with the long neglected Orthodox moral tradition of pacifism. In the first part of the book, the author introduces the problem of war and peace in light of current international developments and presents the textual sources and theological foundations of Orthodox moral theology, three fundamental typologies for Orthodox social ethics, and a primer on peace and pacifism in Western experience. He devotes the entire second part of the book (chapters 5 to 11) to the Orthodox pacifist trajectory. If the contexts and concepts of the first part provide a firm skeletal structure interpreting the seeming contradiction, or, more properly, "antinomy," of two opposing moral options, the wealth of detail in the second part truly enfleshes that "incamational theology." The implications that Fr. Alexander draws from the Old Testament "revisionist" scholars in chapter 5 are of special interest. He lists a variety of Old Testament passages where the ancient Greek Septuagint translation (normative for the Orthodox Churches) dramatically revises the original Hebrew text.

These are

more than mere nuances or slight changes in meaning. For example, when the Septuagint renders expressions like "Yahve the Warrior" or "Man of War" to "The Lord Who crushes war," familiar militaristic Old Testament passages suddenly become anti-war texts! Similarly, one of the author's important conclusions pertaining to the New Testament evidence is that "the dilemma of military service for the Roman Empire is never explicitly raised and addressed by Jesus or the New Testament writers." And yet, through His teachings and non-coercive, non-violent, nonresistant behavior, the Lord Jesus Christ establishes pacifism as the moral ideal for His disciples. Even in the Book of Revelation, where a "holy war" is declared against Satan by the Lord Himself, Jesus Christ is the only one actually engaged in "combat": He is the one who conquers and finally destroys evil and Satan. The sufferingsnot any kind of anti-human violence--of the pacifist Christians are vindicated. Each chapter of the second part of The Pacifist Option is full of such surprises, ranging from the author's demonstration of a preserve of pacifist Latin Church Fathers in the era of the very non-pacifist St. Augustine of Hippo, to the author's canonical insistence on the absolute "vocational" pacifism of Orthodox clergy, to his attempts to draw the pacifist ramifications of the mystico-ascetic teachings on the passion of anger and his enlistment of several of Fyodor Dosto-

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evsky's fictional characters in the ranks of Orthodox pacifists. Fr. Alexander concludes in the final chapter that "it would behoove Orthodox pacifists in America to confine their public moral witness to the broader issues in U.S. defense policy without succumbing to the temptation to pontificate on the details of specific policy choices. General direction in U.S. defense policy, not concrete alternatives, ought to furnish the objects of Orthodox pacifist public moral witness" (p. 264). There is no doubt that Fr. Alexander practices what he preaches. For he has provided not just U.S. government officials, but any reader of good will with a clear, well-documented, and thorough Orthodox teaching on "the pacifist option. 11 Orthodox and non-Orthodox Christians alike, particularly moral theologians and ethicists of any religious persuasion or none at all, may benefit from this fine book, for which we owe the author heartfelt thanks.

Feast of the Protection of the Holy Theotokos October 1, 1998

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PREFACE As an advocate of the value of community, I wish to thank the communities-the persons and institutions-that have enabled me to make this contribution to the moral tradition of the Church. The present work began as a doctoral dissertation in the Cooperative Graduate Program in Religion at the University of Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, which I successfully defended in April 1988. I remain very grateful to the libraries of those institutions, as well as the opportunities for research at the libraries of Harvard University, Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, Stanford University, and the Naval Postgraduate School. I am also indebted to the libraries of Virginia Theological Seminary and the University of Pennsylvania for enabling me to update and revise the original work during the past year. For their professorial example, personal interest, and many hours of scholarly assistance during my research and writing of the original dissertation, I single out my major advisor, Dr. Walter E. Wiest, emeritus professor of theology and ethics at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary; Dr. John W. Chapman, emeritus professor of political philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh; Dr. Steven A Edwards and Dr. Peter Karsten, professors of religious studies and history, respectively, at the University of Pittsburgh; and the Very Rev. Dr. Stanley S. Harakas, former dean and emeritus professor of Christian ethics at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology. Though retired from active teaching, Fr. Stanley continues to set a blistering pace of scholarly production for his all-too-few proteges in the neglected

xiii

field of Orthodox moral theology. I am especially grateful to the Most Rev. Metropolitan Maximos (Aghiourgoussis) of Ainou for his encouragement and generosity in awarding me two Spero Samer Scholarships from 1981 to 1983, which enabled me to pursue the first stage of my doctor of philosophy degree in religious studies (social ethics) at the University of Pittsburgh. His Eminence has remained a veritable beacon and personal role-model of Orthodox piety and scholarship and has also graciously provided a Foreword to the present volume. I also cherish the unique contribution of my mentor at Harvard Divinity School, the Rev. Dr. George Huntston Williams, who launched me into the world of scholarly publication a little more than two decades ago with an article on Russian Orthodoxy that we co-authored for a Unitarian journal. The faithful of my present parish, the Protection of the Holy Mother of God Orthodox Church (or St. Mary, for short) in Falls Church, Virginia, have granted me sufficient time away from my pastoral duties to complete the research and rewriting of the present volume. I trust that I have not betrayed their trust. One parishioner in particular, Mrs. Nadine Thola, has provided invaluable technical assistance in preparing the camera-ready typescript for publication. I also wish thank Jason Buffetti, a former colleague at another familiar institution-the Ethics and Public Policy Center-for providing the Index ofNames. I owe the greatest debt of gratitude, however, to my wife, Kathleen, and our four children, Kristen Mary, Beverly Ann, Andrew Patrick, and Colleen Elizabeth, whose years of patient support for this project in both its original and more recent phases have been truly inspirational. In the spirit of Dostoevsky's fictional character Zossima the spiritual elder, I ask their forgiveness for all the time spent away from them in pursuit of this work of scholarship for the Church and the society in which-it is my fervent prayer-they, too, will become dedicated and productive members.

Rev. Fr. Alexander F. C. Webster, Ph.D. Feast of the Protection of the Holy Theotokos October 1, 1998

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Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION:

A WORLD STILL SPLIT APART [T]he fight for our planet, physical and spiritual, a fight of cosmic proportions, is not a vague matter of the future; it has already started. The forces of Evil have begun their decisive offensive.... Even if we are spared destruction by war, life will have to change in order not to perish on its own. We cannot avoid reassessing the fundamental definitions of human life and human society. Is it true that man is above everything? Is there no Superior Spirit above him? Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Harvard Commencement Address, June 8, 19781

VIOLENCE AND VELVET When Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn delivered his long-awaited commencement address in Harvard yard to a gathering of more than 20, 000 graduating students, faculty, alumni, family, friends, journalists, and sundry illuminati, no one could have anticipated the storm of controversy that would follow the enigmatic Russian writer's criticism of the U.S. antiwar movement and the West's "loss of will power" in Vietnam. 2 Nor could the otheiwise often prescient Solzhenitsyn himself have envisioned-only thirteen years later-the sudden demise of the Soviet regime in

his homeland, the generally peaceful transition from communism to nascent forms of liberal democracy in Eastern Europe including Russia, and the end of the Cold War between the Soviet East and the American-led West. On that drizzly June day in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the world was, for this Russian Nobel laureate in literature, "split apart"-not so much between the First and Second Worlds, or the Western democracies and the Soviets and their Communist minions, as between believers in a transcendent divine reality and those who, in their pursuit of a merely mundane human happiness, insist on unbridled materialism and an autonomous freedom from duty, responsibility, and courage. Twenty years later, the world is still split apart in much the same way. To be sure, more optimistic observers like George Weigel, former president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., may try to remind us of the remarkable transformation that has swept the world of late.

"The great

contest," Weigel contends, "that defined world politics since Hitler's reoccupation of the Rhineland [in 1936]-the struggle between totalitarianism and liberal democracy-has been won: and by the party of freedom. 11 3 When Boris Y eltsin's democratic forces peacefully resisted their potentially violent neo-Soviet rivals in Moscow on August 21, 1991, what Weigel calls the "Fifty-Five Years' War" came to a happy end.

Having withstood two years of dramatic political and social

change on its Western frontier, beginning with the rise of a Solidarity labor government in Poland, the "velvet" revolutions in Czechoslavakia and Hungary, and similarly non-violent transitions in Bulgaria, Albania, and Serbia, the militaristic, malevolent Soviet Empire had finally collapsed from its own top-heavy weight at the center, like a black hole in the firmament of nations. But the world remains a very dangerous place, even if the danger has been transposed into a new key, or, more accurately, an old one. In the wake of the Cold War, many of the nation-states of Asia, Africa, and Europe have revived older tribal, ethnic, or religious antagonisms in a wholesale reversion to modem international politics as usual. The bloody overthrow of the Ceausescu regime in Romania, the vicious barbarism among the Serbs, Croats, and Bosnian Muslims in some of the new republics carved out of the former Yugoslav state, and the intermittent violence in the Caucasus between Russians and Chechnyans, Georgians and Ossetians, and Armenians and Azerbaijanis-to name only three regions where peoples with traditional Eastern Orthodox religious identities are involved-should 2

caution any prudent observer against concluding that the post-Communist era is paradise regained. Self-described Christian realists like George Weigel (a Roman Catholic currently engaged in writing the official biography of Pope John Paul II) are too politically savvy to allow euphoria over the fall of Soviet communism to cloud their understanding of the daunting tasks before men and women of good will on the international scene. Chief among those tasks, as they see it, is an aggiornamento of the classic Western just war tradition "to meet the exigencies of our current situation" and a successful resistance to "the temptation to elevate the moral status of pacifism" in Roman Catholic ethics and Western thinking more generally. Weigel's ethical disdain for pacifism reaches its apogee in the following conclusion: "Pacifism is a personal commitment that can, arguably, be reconciled with the demands of Christian conscience. But the pacifist conscience per se can provide no serious counsel to the statesman. 11 4

In this dismissal of pacifism's political relevance Weigel echoes the damning judgment of Reinhold Niebuhr, a pacifist Protestant who, by 1940, had become an inveterate foe of that moral position. Niebuhr warned his erstwhile allies that their insistence on non-violence, "illusions" about human nature, and reluctance to evaluate social systems "either tempts us to make no judgments at all, or to give an undue preference to tyranny."

In the real world of political and historical

ambiguity, he offered this strident counsel: "Let those who are revolted by such ambiguities have the decency and courtesy to retire to a monastery where medieval perfectionists found their asylum. 11 5 Contemporary pacifists are usually loathe to accept such facile dismissals of their political and ethical viability, at least not without a non-violent fight. To the objection that pacifists fail, while preserving their own personal moral integrity, to take responsibility for the "macro-course of events," the late Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder retorted: "A refusal to play the game by the agreed rules may be morally more basic than a courageous wrestling with things as they are. Jesus defeated the Powers not by being better than they at their trade of domination but by refusing to meet them on that terrain, at the cost of his life. 11 6 Also bristling at the accusation of political irrelevance and the implied charge of moral cowardice, Stanley Hauerwas, Methodist professor of ethics at Duke Divinity School, counters that "pacifists believe there is much worth dying for." Pacifism is thus 3

"the most political of positions," since "it refuses to accept the illusions of political order that promise security in place of moral goods for which lives may at times have to be sacrificed. 11 7 One of the primary tasks at hand in the present volume is to retrieve the gauntlet so cavalierly cast down by Weigel and by Niebuhr before him. We shall not, however, furnish an apologia pro vita sua for pacifists in the post-Communist era, or in any era for that matter. Instead our contribution to the current conversation about international security will be more fundamental yet indirect. We shall attempt to demonstrate that pacifism of a distinctive Eastern Orthodox Christian variety-defined here, for the time being, as an exceptionless rejection of violence against human beings on moral grounds-has existed for two millennia in unbroken continuity with the ancient Church.

We shall argue further that the

Eastern Orthodox moral tradition of pacifism is so firmly grounded in the life of that venerable Christian community and so morally compelling as to speak with an unexpected vitality and force to the perennial problems of war and peace, to the international conflicts that currently beset the world in the aftermath of the Cold War, and to the human creation that Solzhenitsyn perceived as tom apart in its very soul. Few scholars of religion or theologians in Western countries would tend to link pacifism with Eastern Orthodox Christianity, much less acknowledge a vibrant pacifist tradition in a religious community usually associated with ruthless Byzantine emperors and autocratic Russian tsars. Despite centuries of neglect and even hostility by the majority of Orthodox faithful themselves, a distinctive form of pacifism has endured in the quiet comers of monastic communities and individual souls. Recently, however, pacifism has regained its lost prominence as a viable and valuable Orthodox moral perspective on the perennial problem of war and peace. In the United States, for example, Fr. Stanley S. Harakas, emeritus professor of Christian ethics at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology near Boston, challenged Orthodox pacifists in America to stand firm and witness publicly on behalf of their morality. In an influential essay published in 1981, he asserted that Orthodox Christians "do have a real choice in this day and age" between two fundamental responses to the question of war-"the pacifist answer and the just war answer. 11 8 His defense of that "choice" is worth quoting, since it was the first 4

unqualified public utterance on behalf of the moral validity of absolute pacifism by a respected Orthodox theologian in this country. Some Christians will be committed to a total non-violent approach to war simply because they are Christians and want to emphasize the perfection demanded by the Christian calling. Those who do this recognize that they open themselves up to the charge and the danger that the innocent and weak may suffer from their action, that evil may take place because they choose not to lift the sword in defense. There are people who will do this in the total context of life. They will seek to live their lives completely in a non-violent fashion. 9 Within a decade, some Orthodox theologians professed their own personal pacifism, chief among them Professor Vassilios Giultsis of the University of Thessaloniki. In an essay included in a 1990 collection edited by Fr. Limouris Gennadios and entitled, Justice, Peace, and the Integrity of Creation: Insights From Orthodoxy, Giultsis declared that the "horror of war . . . forces Orthodoxy to condemn in the strongest terms all the causes of war and means of destroying God's gift of human life. 11 10 In the same collection of essays, Fr. George Dragas, then a professor of patristics at the University of Durham and currently professor of patristics and dogmatic theology at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Brookline, Massachusetts, issued the following unequivocal denunciation of the classic "just war" tradition:

11

There is no just war, no just violence, no just revenge

or recompense, no just accumulation of wealth.

Justice implies mercy and

philanthropy, forgiveness and suffering, the way of the cross. 11 l l A second crack in the wall of silence surrounding Orthodox pacifism also appeared in 1981, when the monks ofValamo Monastery in Finland officially opened their institution to Finnish conscientious objectors to military service. Although the national government consented to that alternative means of ful-filling the civic obligations incumbent upon the citizenry, the five Eastern Orthodox military chaplains in the Finnish armed services expressed anxiety in 1985 about the "high number of young Orthodox, encouraged by the monks, who refuse to serve their country. 11 12 This burgeoning split among Finnish Orthodox has been accelerated no doubt by two further developments.

In 1986 the bishops of the Finnish

Orthodox Church expressed their support for the Finnish military and for military

5

service by Orthodox in particular.

The following year the monks of Valamo

Monastery received the 1987 prize of the Christian Peace Movement of Finland for their "special emphasis on peace, peace education, making an alternative lifestyle known, developing forms of civilian service [as an alternative to military service], and its international activities for peace and reconciliation." 13 Perhaps the most visible pacifist presence among contemporary Eastern Orthodox Christians is the Orthodox Peace Fellowship (OPF), founded in 1987 by Jim Larrick, an Antiochian Orthodox layman in Fort Wayne, Indiana, under the guidance of Jim Forest. After years of faithful service with the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), one of America's oldest pacifist organizations, Forest resigned as editor of its Fellowship journal in December 1976 over what he considered that peace group's hypocritical neglect of the victims of violence perpetrated by the Communist regime in united Vietnam. His conversion from mainline Protestantism to Orthodox Christianity on Palm Sunday, 1988, was probably as much of a surprise to his erstwhile pacifist colleagues in the FOR as his vigorous pacifism has proved to be for many of his new Orthodox co-religionists.14 In 1997 the OPF, with headquarters in Forest's home near Amsterdam in The Netherlands, opened a new chapter in Russia, adding its Orthodox members to those from elsewhere in Europe, North America, Asia, and Africa.15 The group, which boasts an excellent website on the Internet, maintains an affiliation with the International Fellowship of Reconciliation and its American branch, the same FOR that ousted Forest from his editorship more than two decades ago for his principled criticism of the FOR's reluctance to oppose human rights abuses by the North Vietnamese Communists.16 The virtue of forgiveness is indeed, as we shall see below, an integral part of the Orthodox pacifist's moral witness. What many, perhaps most of these contemporary Orthodox pacifists may deem so obvious and morally compelling based on their own spiritual experience and familiarity with the Bible still requires, for the vast majority of Orthodox Christians in the world today and for non-Orthodox scholars, a sustained, systematic argument supported by specific examples from the rich Orthodox moral tradition. That is precisely what the present work will attempt to provide.

6

CAVEATS AND CLARIFICATIONS If pacifism is not commonly associated with Eastern Orthodox Christianity, neither is "systematic" theology. Throughout the venerable, nearly two-thousand year history of this Christian community, moral perspectives on issues of war and peace have not been systematically formulated, much less presented and inculcated in a scholastic manner. This should not be surprising for a fundamentally mystical, experiential religious tradition that generally eschews abstract theologizing and exhaustive, excessively detailed, legalistic casuistry. Reaction against perceived abuses in Western Christian systematic and moral theologies has exacerbated this disdain for system and formalism. As recently as 1939, Fr. Georges Florovsky-perhaps the greatest Orthodox theologian in the twentieth century-noted the peculiar Russian variety of "lack of faith in and obstinate indifference to the theological culture which still has not yet been outgrown among the wider circles of the congregation and even among the clergy." He traced its origins to the domination of Russian Orthodox theological thought and teaching by Roman Catholic and, alternatively, Protestant scholasticism in the Apparently one way of resisting this

seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

bondage to the foreign systematization of theology was for the typical layman or cleric to regard theology itself 11 as a foreign and western appendage forever alien to the Orthodox East. 11 17 This antipathy toward theological scholasticism, however, tends to broaden so as to include virtually any attempt to construct conceptual systems. Partly as a result, ironically, of Florovsky's recovery of the unique genius and integrity of Eastern Orthodox theology, contemporary Orthodox theologians, having cast off the shackles of Western scholasticism, often rail against what one Antiochian bishop has described succinctly as "the western preoccupation with defining concepts." Despite his justified interest in safeguarding Orthodox Christianity from facile identification with any ideologically motivated "historical systematization of the human milieu, 11 the disdain for conceptualization expressed by Metropolitan George Khodre borders on anti-intellectualism.18 But for those Eastern Orthodox Christians, moreover, who live in the lands of the West-above all, the United States of America-and whose political and social cultures, perhaps even their lifetime agendas, are molded in large part by the

7

rationalism, individualism, and assorted ideologies of modem Western provenance, the more comfortable unsystematic heritage of Orthodox moral tradition will no longer suffice. In the maelstrom of conflicting values, loyalties, .and worldviews that contemporary American society has become, those citizen-participants who are members also of the Eastern Orthodox religious community require to sustain them in both their private reflections and the public debates a clearly formulated moral decision-making process and cogently presented arguments on substantive moral and ethical issues. This leads logically to the second mitigating factor in any serious endeavor to formulate a coherent resolution of the problem of war in Eastern Orthodox moral theology: the scope of morality. In After Virtue, a brilliant analysis of the disintegration of the Aristotelian virtue tradition in modem Western Civilization, Alasdair Macintyre illustrates "the conceptual incommensurability of the rival arguments" in the public debate on ethical issues.

The different premises entail conflicting

normative claims upon human agents, and there is no universally acknowledged rational way of evaluating these claims. To be sure, "the language and appearances of morality persist even though the integral substance of morality has to a large degree been fragmented and then in part destroyed." The rise of the philosophical theory of emotivism, for example, promised a universal conceptual apparatus for reaching moral judgments, but this doctrine reduced all moral judgments to the level of expressions of individual preference based on feeling. It hardly bodes well for the desired moral unity of Western societies that this theory, which "has become embodied in our culture," is diametrically opposed to the ancient communal orientation of the moral life based on acquired and cultivated virtues. Macintyre is forced, therefore, to conclude pessimistically that "our society cannot hope to achieve moral consensus."

In a clever variation on

Clausewitz's classic dictum about war and politics Macintyre reviews the public arena of ethical debate and opines: "Modem politics is civil war carried on by other means." 19 The absence of a popular consensus concerning the premises and modes of moral and ethical reasoning in contemporary Western societies, most notably the United States of America, suggests that, on the one hand, there is no purely rational foundation for and common language in moral and ethical discourse, and, on the other hand, a golden opportunity exists for any and all particular moral traditions to influence and shape the malleable public ethos. The stage is 8

set, therefore, for a dramatic debut by the Eastern Orthodox religious community with its unique moral tradition. In light of this fluid situation elucidated by Macintyre, a distinction between "ethical" and "moral" would be in order. There are almost as many ways of defining these terms as there are ethicists and moral theologians. Aristotle differentiated moral virtue from intellectual virtue on the basis of the means of cultivation. Since moral virtue is formed by habit instead of teaching, moral virtue derives its name, ethike, from the Greek word for habit, ethos. 20 Macintyre himself establishes a connection between ethike and the Latin moralis-from which the English term "moral" is derived-in terms of "character," or the set of dispositions that incline a person to lead a particular kind of life. 21 James Gustafson, emeritus professor at Emory University, also notes the eminently practical dimension of the adjective "moral," but he contrasts the "moral level" to the "ethical level" as virtual equivalents for what are commonly delineated by philosophers as casuistry and normative ethics, respectively. 22 Another categorical distinction between types of ethics has been proffered by Fr. Stanley S. Harakas.23 Perhaps more sensitive to the ancient religious context of Christian moral reflection, this Greek Orthodox moral theologian focuses on the ultimate source of inspiration and divides ethics into two fundamental camps: (I) "Christian ethics" grounded in divine revelation, which may or may not be subject to supposedly pure rational analysis, and (2) "non-revelatory ethics." The former is not a narrower, sectarian subset of the latter; rather the reverse is closer to the truth. Non-revelatory ethics is a reduced, even impoverished, non-religious, or secular, version of the richer, more complete Christian ethics, which offers both a natural/rational source and a revealed source of morality.

Harakas' distinction

commends itself to any Christian moral theologian whose mode of moral/ethical argument is at least as theological as it is philosophical. The present study will utilize Harakas' conceptual categories, but his terminology will be modified in keeping with traditional Eastern Orthodox nomenclature.

Thus "morality" will be the preferred term for what Harakas labels the

Christian ethic, but this noun and its cognate adjective "moral" will refer more generally to any religious ethic based on a revealed or suprarational source of inspiration. "Ethics" will serve as an equivalent for Harakas' category of non-revelatory ethics, and the adjective "ethical" will designate non-religious, or secular, 9

styles of normative thinking and behavior. As an exercise in Eastern Orthodox moral theology, this volume affirms at the outset the preeminence of "moral" over "ethical" concerns and modes of argument. As an illustration of the radical contrast between these two fundamental ways of determining what is right, good, or appropriate, consider the biblical perspective on war as a perennial moral problem. Whereas the various secular theories of the causation and prevention of war derived from scientific and social scientific disciplines differ from one another in accordance with their particular premises and foci, the Bible, its formation over centuries of time and a vast cultural-geographic expanse notwithstanding, offers a remarkably unified, integral outlook on war and violence. Literally from beginning to end, the Bible presents war as endemic in the human condition pursuant to the Fall from divine grace--a particular human behavior the enormity of which, however, is clearly superseded by the power of divine love as expressed through God's providential care for His creation. The divine judgment against the primeval ·murder is pronounced as a curse against Cain in the creation narrative in the book of Genesis.. Having already warned Cain that "sin is couching at the door" and must be mastered (Genesis 4:7, RSV24), the Lord declares to Cain after he slays his innocent brother, "The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground" (Genesis 4:10). But this divine "curse of Cain," to coin a phrase, apparently has no deterrent effect. Human sin, as Gerhard von Rad perceived, far from diminishing, is magnified with each successive generation "to avalanche proportions" until the Lord deems it necessary, according to the Y ahwistic primeval history in Genesis 11, to scatter the sinful generation who erected the Tower of Babel, having already rendered their intercourse confused and ineffective. 25 The institutionalization of ever-escalating human violence achieves its apogee with Lamech's pledge, in the spirit of Cain, his ancestor, to exact vengeance seventy-seven-fold upon anyone who wounds or strikes him (Genesis 4:23-24). As Jacques Ellul lamented, "Since the days of Cain, there has been no beginning of violence, only a continuous process of retaliation. 11 26 Only in light of this clearly pejorative biblical view of killing, violence, and, by logical extension, war do the often-quoted scriptural passages about the seeming inevitability of war make any sense. For such a deterministic worldview is not truly biblical. Qoheleth the preacher proclaims "a time for war, and a time for 10

peace" (Ecclesiastics 3: 8). Daniel's apocalyptic prophecy of the seventy weeks of years includes a warning that in that eschatological era of "desolations" and "abominations," unfortunately, "to the end there shall be war" (Daniel 9:26). In another chilling passage, Jesus Christ Himself refers to "wars and rumors of wars," as if these are predetermined by divine plan (Mark 13:7). Roger L. Shinn of Union Theological Seminary, however, fortunately corrects this false impression.27 The "double affirmation" concerning necessity and the forestalling of the eschaton hardly requires a belief in the inevitability of war. There is instead, first, Jesus' perception that conflict is a part of life in this aeon, that insecurity and threats to peace are due to human sin, and, second, Jesus' implicit assurance that no human war is terminal, that destruction, in Shinn's words, "is not the last word on human existence, 11 that the kingdom of God transcends even those cataclysmic events and is, in fact, built upon the hope, courage, compassion, trust, and love of those faithful believers in Christ who endure until the end. That "end" is portrayed, ironically, with spectacular militaristic imagery in the final book of the Bible. The apocalyptic victory of Christ the Word of God and "the armies of heaven" over "the beast," "the false prophet," and their human minions of "the nations" is one of the most visual and hence memorable literary passages in all of Holy Scripture.

But this final battle, usually nicknamed

Armageddon in popular, especially Fundamentalist, Christian literature based on Revelation 16: 16, is hardly an armed struggle between humans in the usual military sense. As G. R. Beasley-Murray indicated in his New Century Bible Commentary on Revelation, "there is no battle"! Certainly there is no active participation on the part of the saints or the righteous on earth. Nor is the heavenly host of angels assigned any meaningful role aside from symbolic support: "The 'battle' resolves itself into a judgment uttered by the Word of God. 11 28 Thus the Lord who "curses" Cain in Genesis is He who alone at the end of this aeon of creation establishes His kingdom of peace and justice among His people.

Obviously, this biblical perspective on war reflects a unique Christian

worldview that cannot be harmonized easily with strictly secular perspectives that allow no role in human history for Him who is the Lord of history. Another way of expressing the crucial difference between "ethics" and "morality" is through the prism of "natural law." Natural law has played an

inte~

gral role in the Orthodox moral tradition-much as it has in Roman Catholic moral 11

theology-as, in Fr. Harakas' words, "a relatively low level morality" or "a sort of common denominator ethic" for all of humanity.29 In the patristic tradition perpetuated in Orthodoxy this "inborn moral law" was seen as "a first, preparatory step in God's relationship with men," which even sin did not obliterate.30 Natural law in the patristic tradition "is perceived to be rational, independent of positive laws and customs, universal and unchanging" and "not limited to the special revelation acknowledged by Orthodox Christianity, as found in Scripture and in Holy Tradition. 11 31

Thus natural law is "a very elemental moral law which

articulates the absolutely necessary modes of behavior for the maintenance of the human community"32 Although the precise content of this sine qua non for human morality, which I would prefer to term "ethics, 11 33 was open to dispute among the Church Fathers as well as modem moral philosophers, the former tend to identify the content of the natural law with the Ten Commandments, or Decalogue, of the Old Testament. Excluding the first four commandments for their explicitly theological flavor, the remainder of the Decalogue may serve as a very basic platform for public debate in American society on ethical matters such as defense policy.34 For example, the prohibition in the sixth commandment against "killing," which is better translated "murder" (Exodus 20: 13), forms the core of the justifiable war trajectory. This law of Moses militates against gratuitous killing self-aggrandizing aggression, while permitting reasonable self-defense and even insisting on capital punishment of certain wrongdoers.35 Through the "effort of unaided reason," human beings may perceive "the order existing in creation which man is bound to view as good and which claims ~bedience of him. 11 36 To be sure, refinement of the natural law beyond what Fr. Harakas elucidates on behalf of Orthodoxy is necessary if a natural law ethic is to prove feasible for the formation and analysis of public policy. The distinctions by contemporary Roman Catholic moral theologians between the "order of reason" and the "order of nature," and between formal and material norms, are invaluable and should inform any such appeal to natural law. 37 A detailed discussion of these distinctions is beyond the scope of the present study. Let it suffice to state here that the Orthodox moral tradition, and I dare say contemporary American society, would be more amenable to a natural law ethic governed more by the use of human reason than by the mere requirements of human biology, or "physicalism," 12

as some Roman Catholic moral theologians label this perspective.38 Similarly capable of appropriation is the categorical distinction between, on the one hand, formal, unchanging, absolute norms expressed in the virtue language of "being," and, on the other hand, material, concrete, contingent, behavioral norms expressed in terms of human "doing. 11 Thus "formal norms" insisting that humans be forgiving and loving toward enemies-norms that are derived from divine revelation rather than simple reason-hardly would pertain to public policymakers who serve in modern secular governments.

However, fruitful ethical

debate may center around "material norms" such as the need to protect innocent citizens from hann by others-a fundamental duty of liberal democratic government perceived through the use of reason alone. Despite "the effects of sin and the failure of men to use and cultivate their rational powers, 11 39 the use of reason by reasonable men is ultimately the only way by which Americans living in a secular, pluralistic society in Maclntyre's "after virtue" era may determine a common ground for implementing ethical public policy. A natural law ethic based on rational self-interest and a measure of common cooperation-what I prefer to term a civilizing ethic-would serve adequately as a fall-back position for Orthodox moral theologians and ecclesial communities who can not in good conscience expect, much less require, public policymakers to govern on the basis of a divinely-revealed, religiously-motivated morality. The latter-which Fr. Harakas terms the "Evangelical Ethic," but which I prefer to term a transfigurative morality-speaks to mankind's "greatest potential and its total fulfillment. 11 40 It is epitomized in the Sermon on the Mount, especially the formal norms expressed by the Beatitudes of Jesus.

This "higher," universally

normative moral law is revealed in full by the Word-made-flesh. It alone enables men and women to transcend their own limitations and to advance along the path of personal transfiguration and theosis. Thus the transfigurative morality is the completion and perfection of the civilizing ethic. The individual Orthodox Christian and the collective community of the Church are still called by God to live this higher, revealed, maximalist morality of the gospel. But those who do not necessarily share the faith in Christ that undergirds and finds dynamic expression in this morality will not adopt as their own the formal norms derived from that faith. Obviously, the government of the United States, for example, despite the personal religious commitments of certain of its 13

members, does not maintain a faith in Christ, nor can it under the longstanding circumstances of secularism and pluralism. Thus the most for which Orthodox Christians may hope from U.S. policymakers at this time is adherence to the "lower" ethic of the natural law. From the standpoint of this more moderate, restrained witness, the society would at least conform to the minimalist civilizing ethic until, or unless, it could be brought prophetically and pastorally to a full, open, public, official, and uncoerced acceptance of the true maximalist transfigurative morality of the gospeJ.41 A third caveat concerning the prospects of an informed, coherent, systematic Eastern Orthodox theology of war and peace is the dismal record of official ecclesial pronouncements on these issues so far, particularly in terms of all things nuclear. The nuclear question is arguably the preeminent moral/ethical issue of the last half of the twentieth century. In its contemporary nuclear context the perennial moral/ethical problem of war and peace has assumed a greater, unanticipated magnitude. For the first time in human history the continued existence of human life is itself jeopardized by human bellicosity. Whether there is more smoke or fire in this proposition, the popular perception of nuclear annhilation as a real danger cannot be ignored by any Orthodox moral theologian who, with wisdom and insight, would address the :fundamental and specific issues of war, violence, and peacemaking in the nuclear age. It is essential, however, for the same moral theologian to recognize the excesses and hyperbole that have come to mark much popular and scholarly reflection on the meaning of the nuclear age and the implications of nuclear-based defense strategies. A "new apocalypticism" gripped the United States beginning in 1982 with Jonathan Schell's doom-saying in The Fate of the Earth,42 which was originally serialized in The New Yorker magazine. For a far more massive audience a year later, the ABC Network served up its sobering television movie, "The Day After." George Gallup, Jr., has attributed "a new intensity for spiritual moorings" disclosed by scientific opinion polls to "a need for hope in these troubled times of nuclear threat" accompanied by "a note of desperation. n43 But this new nuclear apocalypticism is at least as non-religious in its origins as it is religiously motivated. Ernest W. Lefever and E. Stephen Hunt, for example, have exposed what they call "the apocalyptic premise" as a secular concept that presumes a godless universe on the verge of extinction; obviously this worldview lacks any semblance to the 14

biblical hope of "a new heaven and a new earth" (Rev 21:1) wrought by God's providential intervention in human history. 44 Some scholars of religion have created new constructs rooted in mythology and biblical imagery that purport to deepen our understanding of the enormity of what they personify as "the nuclear threat." In his presidential address at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion in December 1982, Gordon D. Kaufinan sounded a clarion call for students of religion to respond to "the new religious situation" wrought by the advent of nuclear weapons by changing 11 our religious symbolism" and "the frames of references in which we make our value judgments and moral choices. 11 45 The proposed changes must entail "a radical kind of deconstruction and reconstruction" of the "personalistic conception of God. 11 46

In other words, Kaufman, a Mennonite theologian at Harvard Divinity School, is summoning Christian and Jewish scholars to nothing less than a wholesale apostasy in order that they might "address today's actual human situation"! Moreover, he would collapse the task of theology in this quest for meaning in the nuclear age, once it is liberated from "the heteronomy and authoritarianism of tradition," into "religion studies 11 47_an interdisciplinary field within the humanities supposedly free from theological suppositions or bias. 48 Another practitioner of "religion studies," Ira Chernus, appears to have taken the lead in furnishing new images and myths in accordance with the exigencies of the nuclear age. 49 First, he catalogs the prevalent popular myths as the myth of the "heroic survivor," the myth of the "big whoosh" (that is, no survivors, with the mushroom cloud as its dominant image) and the "myth of fate." Then Chernus proposes newer, remythologized constructs that embody the "darker side" of human existence in order to jar our complacency in the face of the unprecedented threat to human survival posed by "the bomb." Three myths of a post-nuclear world have captured Chemus' imagination: (1) myths of the suffering dead "who are not annihilated but continue to exist in some kind of 'hellish' environment"; (2) the secular "mythology of the existential anti-hero, who is condemned to make decisions in a situation where no truly heroic action is possible";

and (3) the

mythic image of "the darkness of the underground labyrinth, where we must choose our path at every junction with no sense of where any potential path might lead. 11 50 In a subsequent study, however, Chernus, like Kaufinan in his momentous 15

address, allows his distinctive political bias to cloud his scholarly contribution. Neither furnishing advice to the disarmament movement nor gratuitously castigating the United States as "perhaps, at this particular moment, the most domineering and threatening nation in the world" appears becoming to scholars of religion whose expertise presumably lies elsewhere. 51 Certainly such purely political pronouncements do not fit the job description of the contemporary scientific scholar of religion. Among committed Christians, the moral and ethical dimensions of nuclear weapons have been a focus of religious criticism since the advent of the nuclear age with the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 by atomic bombs developed in the United States. The intensity of this criticism has waxed and waned in the five intervening decades, with the development of each new nuclear weapon system or with each major adjustment in U.S. defense policy evoking a temporary flurry of activity by the moral and ethical guardians of American society. 52 However, since the ethical debate over nuclear deterrence and nuclear defense was joined publicly and in full force by the Roman Catholic bishops in America beginning in November 1982, the battle lines in the struggle for the moral and ethical high ground have shifted markedly. The Roman Catholic hierarchy established a dramatic precedent with their "Pastoral Letter" on war and peace addressed both to their American Catholic flock and to defense policymakers. 53 The open, conciliar, albeit sometimes contentious, process through which the final document was produced in May 1983 was a bold stroke that captured the attention and seized the imagination of the mass media and hence the American public. To be sure, the controversy surrounding this extraordinary critique of U.S. defense policy reveals the risk they took to their moral authority as bishops in America's largest single religious denomination. And yet the immediate effects, at least, surely must appear to the majority of Roman Catholic bishops to have been well worth that risk. Their Pastoral Letter has become a standard point of reference for any serious discussion of the moral and ethical dimensions war, violence, and peacemaking in general, and of U.S. nuclear defense policy in particular. If imitation is truly the highest form of flattery, the United Methodist bishops in America, for example, have indeed rendered their Catholic counterparts homage by producing their own encyclical on war and peace in the summer of 1986.54 16

Moreover, the implicit "nuclear pacifism" of the Roman Catholic bishops, which rejects categorically all conceivable uses of any nuclear weapons but not necessarily non-nuclear defense, together with the less nuanced varieties of priestscholars such as Francis X. Winters and David Hollenbach, has eclipsed almost overnight both the traditional "just war" approach in Roman Catholicism-still valiantly maintained by a few American Catholic theologians led by theologians Michael Novak and George Weigel and Georgetown professor of government William V. O'Brien-and the always rare "absolute pacifism" of Roman Catholic activists in the style of Gordon C. Zahn and James W. Douglass. Similarly, among American Protestants, the old just/justifiable war advocates, whose dean for a generation had been Paul Ramsey of Princeton University, are becoming a dwindling minority led, nevertheless, by perhaps the most painstakingly thorough scholar currently working in this field-namely, James Turner Johnson of Rutgers University. "Vocational" pacifists like the late Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder and the "activist" nuclear pacifists who seem to control the religious journals and the public relations organs of the mainline Protestant denominations loom larger in the public perception of the Protestant religious community. 55 These predominantly leftist scholars and church leaders continue to set the agenda and to define the terms of the moral debate among Protestants in America. In this arena of moral and ethical concern, the Eastern Orthodox in America have been, for the most part, conspicuously silent. My previous book, The Price of Prophecy, 56 revealed how, when they have spoken, through occasional declarations of episcopal synods, the resolutions of national or regional clergy-laity assemblies, and the musings and political dalliances of individual bishops and Orthodox Church spokesmen, American Orthodox have tended merely to echo the prevailing arguments and modes of ethical reasoning of the mainline religious and political opponents of U.S. defense policy. By way of contrast, the Orthodox leaders in the Soviet Union and Romania in the Communist era were little more than mouthpieces for their respective regimes. Certainly the venerable Orthodox moral tradition has more to offer than either of these personal politicized perspectives. In particular, there must be a credible, more balanced, morally palatable way of forging a realistic and meaningful peace than the nuclear pacifist chic of the Western churches. The challenge to Eastern Orthodox moral theologians and bishops in America 17

in this context is clear: to enunciate such a balanced perspective in the shadow of the new apocalypticism but in light of their unique moral tradition. As familiar issues in international security are revisited by religious leaders, scientists, and military defense experts with all sorts of ideological proclivities, the stage is set for the Eastern Orthodox to enter the debate and to make a fresh, vital, but properly nuanced contribution.

PURPOSES AND PARAMETERS The specific purposes of the present study are as follows: 1. To construct a systematic social ethical matrix that sets the parameters of normative moral behavior as revealed through the historical experience of the Eastern Orthodox Churches. 2.

To apply that matrix to the general moral problem of war and peace,

yielding thereby two simultaneously valid fundamental moral trajectories through history:· a mainstream "justifiable war" perspective and an "absolute pacifist" perspective. 3. To elucidate the absolute pacifist trajectory through a careful examination of the key sources of Orthodox moral tradition. The scholarly method is interdisciplinary, incorporating elements of the classic disciplines of historical analysis and moral theology. This "historico-moral" method, for lack of a better name, is essentially descriptive, but I stand squarely within a particular religious community, and so my perspective is influenced considerably by-and is intended to reflect-a particular religious tradition. That tradition itself is presumed to be, in its fundamental direction, themes, and component parts, a reflection and product of divine revelation. Thus the method at its core entails a description of a confessional religious morality-in this instance, Eastern Orthodox Christianity-with viable options relating to a general moral/ethical problem-namely, war and peace. The method also derives several heuristic interpretative typologies from an inductive investigation of diverse historical and systematic sources that are deemed normative within the Eastern Orthodox moral tradition. The interpretations of the presumably revelatory tradition are informed at

18

once by (1) comparative analyses of non-Orthodox Western religious and secular perspectives on the moral/ethical problem of war and peace; and (2) eclectic use of selected philosophical and social scientific methods and categories. Examples of the latter include the historico-critical method of biblical studies-the so-called "higher criticism";

the sociology of religion, particularly the typological

categorization of ecclesial communities as functional institutions;

the moral

philosophical distinction between deontological and consequentialist ethics; and literary criticism of fictional literature. Notwithstanding the inductive means of deriving the interpretative typologies, the presentation of the argument is deductive, at least in appearance. Thus Part One of the book accordingly provides the sources and hermeneutical foundation. Chapter 2 presents fundamental concepts of religion and incarnational theology from an Orthodox perspective; five key Greek and Russian theological con-

cepts-theosis, askesis, philanthropia, mysteria, and sobornost'-that shape all of Orthodox moral tradition as a maximalist morality ultimately grounded in divine revelation; and the six specific textual components of that tradition that may be mined in the process of discovering the historic Orthodox positions on war and peace. Chapter 3 furnishes the transition from moral theological reflection to social ethics by outlining a typology of valid responses to political, social, and cultural realities in Orthodox Church history. The social ethical matrix is then applied to the particular problem of war and peace, yielding yet another typology that reflects the simultaneous moral validity of not one but two fundamental social ethical perspectives. Chapter 4 sets the stage for the historico-moral analysis of Orthodox pacifism by examining how peace and pacifism have fared in Western Christian and philosophical thought. First, we shall construct a typology of peace, and then we shall examine the works of prominent Protestant and Roman Catholic exemplars of the two major types of Western absolute paci:fism-"vocational" and "activist." Part Two of the book undertakes the challenge of demonstrating that there is, indeed, within the richly textured Orthodox moral tradition a valid, continuous, though not well-known, absolute pacifist "trajectory" through history.

The six

chapters in this section assemble and analyze the pacifist content of the various components of that tradition in decreasing order of authority and significance: 19

Chapter 5: Holy Scripture-that is, the complete early Christian Bible: the Old Testament of the Septuagint and the New Testament; Chapter 6: the writings of the Church Fathers, who, according to conventional Eastern Orthodox understanding, embrace the second century AD. through the Byzantine era, which ended in A.D. 1453; Chapter 7: the corpus of canon law approved by the Seven Ecumenical Councils from AD. 325 to 787, as well as other, lesser canons and laws such as those promulgated by the Emperor Justinian I; Chapter 8: hagiographic texts, particularly the vitae of ancient "soldier saints" and the zhitija of the "passion-bearers" ofKyivan Rus'; Chapter 9: devotional literature including liturgical texts and specialized spiritual texts on prayer, asceticism, and mysticism; Chapter 10: the works of modem Russian Orthodox theologians such as St. Tikhon of Zadonsk and the novels of Fyodor Dostoevsky, which reflect a distinctive Orthodox approach to the biblical virtues of self-abasement and nonresistance known under the technical term of "kenoticism." The concluding chapter outlines the four virtues that characterize the Orthodox pacifist option, assesses the relative values and disvalues of this moral stance, and suggests the range of pragmatic actions awaiting Orthodox pacifists who may wish to witness to their moral convictions in the public arenas of the United States. Five mitigating factors may limit the scope and effectiveness of this study, so they should be acknowledged at the outset. First, the dearth of previous critical literature means that the present work must be a pioneering venture that employs extensive-survey, rather than intensivefocused, analyses of a wide array of sources both historical and systematic. Second, the present work aspires to conclusions based on historical and geographic comprehensiveness, since Eastern Orthodoxy spans two millennia (without counting the pre-Christian era of the Old Testament) and several continents, particularly the territories that constituted the Byzantine and Russian empires. But, owing to the exigencies of space and professional competence, I confess a decided preference for Byzantine, Russian, and modern Romanian sources, supplemented by Western Christian (that is, Latin-Germanic) examples prior to the Schism in AD. 1054 as needed to complement or complete the argument. Third, the vast scope of this extensive-survey work mandates the use of se-

20

lected personages, events, and documents in both the systematic/theoretical Part One and the substantive chapters in Part Two.

Thus a certain continuity in

analysis and presentation may appear to be lacking, or at least the flow of argument may seem at times to be erratic or impressionistic. Fourth, I routinely resort to English translations of most primary and secondary sources, again owing to the vast range of those sources. But Kaine and Byzantine Greek, Old Russian, and French originals are consulted when, for example, the given source is deemed unfamiliar to the average Orthodox audience or general readership, or the source is interpreted in a uniquely revisionist manner. Thus a major constraint on this work is the dearth of untranslated sources from the two most prolific contemporary Orthodox cultures: Greece and Russia/ Ukraine. Fifth, the present work employs the methodological approach and critical apparatus of each of several cognate disciplines in a highly restricted manner, presuming, rather than demonstrating, their scholarly validity and confining such use to the sources at hand. This pertains to those insights, methods, and analytical tools borrowed, for example, from moral philosophy, as well as from theological sub-disciplines such as biblical studies, hagiography, and canon law. However, more detailed, intensive, critical analyses are provided for under-emphasized or neglected sources such as the vitae of certain "pacifist" saints that are deemed essential to the main argument. The methodological insight of this study-unanticipated by non-Orthodox unfamiliar with Eastern Orthodox theology, though not necessarily by Orthodox readers-is an affirmation, steeped in Orthodox mystical tradition, of the fundamental "antinomy" of the dual morality of war and peace within Orthodox moral tradition. There is no attempt to harmonize or rationalize conclusively the simultaneous truth of the two irreconciliable moral positions.

That which the pre-

sumably revelatory tradition reveals through history must be acknowledged and affirmed by an Orthodox moral theologian, notwithstanding his or her personal opinions or preferences. Such is the chief constraint of moral theology within that tradition and hence of this study as well. And yet in the present work the pacifist option receives a disproportionate treatment. This is due only to the presumed need to stress, as a historical corrective, the lesser known of the two viable Orthodox trajectories. A subsequent book may redress this seeming imbalance by presenting a similarly detailed case for the justifiable war trajectory in Orthodox 21

moral tradition, especially now that many contemporary Orthodox theologians seem determined to read it out of the historical record. 57 For the present study, however, living with such a moral paradox should not, fortunately, prove too difficult a task for Eastern Orthodox Christians, who exult in the theological antinomy of the Holy Trinity-that one God subsists at once in three divine "persons"-as a divine mystery that transcends human reason. The fundamental moral antinomy presented in this book, however, may prove more than a little unsettling to non-Orthodox readers. The book will achieve its ultimate purpose if, in filling a void, it becomes at least the starting point for consideration of what the venerable Eastern Orthodox moral tradition has to say about one of the most vexing moral conundrums in human experience.

22

PART ONE: CONTEXTS & CONCEPTS

Chapter 2

SOURCES AND THEOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS In the high middle ages of the Christian West, theology was widely respected

as the "queen" of the sciences, and philosophy was her handmaiden. In the modern world of the late twentieth century, theology, displaced in the academy by science, both "hard" and "soft," has been reduced to a Cinderella excluded from the academic ball altogether. For this reason it is always refreshing for a struggling theologian to discover a contemporary scientist such as Robert Jastrow, who not only acknowledges the limits of modern science but also has an abiding respect for the dethroned queen. An astrophysicist who has taught at Columbia University and Dartmouth College, Jastrow concluded in his book, God and the Astronomers, published in 1978: At this moment it seems as though science will never be able to raise the curtain on the mystery of creation. For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have sitting there for centuries. l

25

The Eastern Orthodox theologians, in particular, have been pondering ultimate things on that mountain top not for mere centuries but rather for nearly two millennia. It is to that venerable tradition of theological reflection that we now tum for sources and foundations of a morality of war and peace.

MAXIMALIST MORALITY Any authentic reflection on moral or ethical problems such as war and peace by an Eastern Orthodox moral theologian must be grounded ultimately in the In-

carnation of the Son of God as Jesus Christ. As the presumed fulcrum of human and cosmic history, the Incarnation provides at once the key to understanding the proper "religious" meanings of life and death and an immanent demonstration of the transcendent divine source of the good, the right, and the appropriate-and hence of all "morality" as defined in the previous chapter. In this chapter we shall explore the distinctive Orthodox perspective on "religion" as an object of study and then outline the unique Orthodox comprehension of incamational theology before presenting the theological and ecclesial context of the "maximalist" Eastern Orthodox moral tradition. This should serve as prologue to the formulation of a relevant Orthodox social ethic in chapter 3.

A. ORTHODOXY VERSUS "RELIGION" Although their particular views on "other" religions or human religiousness "in general" depend to a large extent on their ecumenical views, which in turn are grounded in specific ecclesiologies, Eastern Orthodox theologians seem to have reached a consensus in the matter of Orthodoxy versus religion. 2 In a manner akin to that of the Swiss Reformed theologian Karl Barth, among others in the Neoorthodox and Evangelical wings of Protestant Christianity, 3 Orthodox theologians usually proffer a dichotomy between their own religious tradition and all others on the basis of a decisive metaphysical-epistemological claim-namely, that Orthodoxy embraces the fullness of divine revelation, and that all other religious traditions are more or less correct in their truth claims in comparison with this normative standard. 4

26

The reasoning behind this seeming audacity is really quite sound, given the major and minor premises that it presupposes. First, it is believed (in large part because it was originally experienced) that God-the ultimate object (and subject) of religion-has been revealed in the Person of Jesus Christ.

Through this

concrete, unique, and unrepeatable divine Incarnation all that is ultimately necessary for life on earth and beyond death, both in terms of doctrinal knowledge and meaningful human behavior, has been revealed by God. While men and women in their continual grasping or, better still, groping for meaning can be said to be seeking after the Creator, God has acted decisively to end this quest by seeking after His human creation through the Incarnation. Christ represents, therefore, the "end" of religion in both the teleological and temporal senses of that word. Second, the presence of this Christ is believed to continue organically and without interruption in the fellowship of those who endeavor to live His life-in ecclesiological terms, the "Body of Christ" on earth, or the Church. This organic metaphor from 1 Corinthians 12 is affirmed so fervently that no division or schism can be allowed in the one Body of Christ. Consequently, the Orthodox Churches exclusively constitute this Body on earth in light of their uninterrupted continuity with the Tradition established by Jesus and His designated temporal vicars-the apostles and their successors, the bishops. The conclusion drawn from these two premises can be stated as follows: within the Orthodox Tradition alone may the person seeking after the ultimate meaning of life fully realize his goal, precisely because God has chosen this vehicle as the one perfect means of achieving personal communion with human persons. If "religion" can be defined tentatively as the various forms and experiences of

human striving for the ultimate divine reality, then Orthodoxy in effect is not a religion but rather a trans-religious opportunity for individuals-in a community firmly rooted in a historical but continuing Tradition-to experience the true God who has "reached down" to people: He who "was made flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1: 14). This conclusion does not necessarily lead to a deprecation of all religious experiences beyond the pale of Orthodoxy, much less to a categorical denial of any validity to "the religions." As the fullness of divine revelation, Orthodoxy does not presume to claim, notwithstanding the possibly self-serving triumphalistic flavor of the fundamental dichotomy, that divine truth resides within the Orthodox Tradition alone, or that other religious experiences are equally void

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or worthless. For the Spirit of God, who "blows where He will" (John 3:8), is not constrained even by God's own providential promises or actions in history. Nor does the perfect revelation in Christ preclude other, albeit lesser, revelations before, during, or after the Incarnation as an historical event. Indeed, the consensus of Orthodox theologians through the centuries has expressed an openness to the presumably limited value of the religious experiences available in heterodox Christian traditions, Judaism, and other non-Christian religions. A classic example from the patristic era is St. Justin Martyr's designation of Socrates, Heraclitos, Abraham, Elias, et al., as "Christians" before Christ. 5 Less patronizing and still more appreciative of others' religions are the personal positions of those Orthodox theologians who are engaged in contemporary ecumenical "dialogues" with Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Southern Baptists, Reformed Protestants, Jews, and Muslims.6 For the sake of convenience, however, this categorical distinction will remain in the background. For the Orthodox person, like his religious counterparts, also strives for God even while God "strives" for communion with him. And Orthodox Tradition, its presumably divine inspiration notwithstanding, exists in time and place and is subject, at least in part, to the vicissitudes of history and geography. These in turn give rise to observable features that may be compared phenomenologically to those of the "religions" properly speaking. Orthodoxy may not be reducible in the long run to a religion, but we shall treat it as one for the short term purpose of examining its moral theology and, specifically, its moral perspectives on war and peace in dialogue with Roman Catholic and Protestant communities in America.

B. INCARNATIONAL THEOLOGY & CHRISTIAN HELLENISM Although God has "reached down" to mankind through His self-communication, Eastern Orthodoxy teaches that the human experience of the divine, though more direct on occasion in the form of visions or spiritual perception and insight, is normally mediated through the historical experience of the religious community. To borrow a familiar metaphor, the "vertical" dimension of divine revelation is at least complemented by a "horizontal," or historical, dimension.

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Therefore, the Orthodox understanding of incarnational theology insists that the concrete and historical be taken seriously, especially in morality, where the primary concern is normative attitudes and behavior for specific Sitzen im Leben, or "life situations." In a broad sense, history itself is normative for Orthodoxy. This does not necessarily contravene the great Scottish philosopher David Hume's critique of the so-called naturalistic fallacy: "is" does not imply "ought. 11 7 From a theological vantage, "is" may imply "ought" when that which is known through common historical experience is deemed to be an expression of the divine willthe ultimate "ought." Specifically, all meaning in human life takes as its starting point the historic revelation of God as Jesus Christ: history before the Incarnation points toward that decisive event, and history since the resurrection of Jesus must be interpreted in light of that event. Indeed all of history is Heilsgeschichte, or "salvation history," and represents the divine economy with respect to mankind, from initial creation, through the in-breaking of the Son of God into history as Jesus (a male Jew who lived His human life in one time and place), to the parousia when the whole universe will be transformed, specifically transposed out of the historical confines of this aeon of creation. God's respect for His own created temporal order lends itself quite readily to a similar reverence by man for the concrete, specific, and material. The normative quality of history derives its special force from the concrete details of the Incarnation. Assuming logically that divine providence and mere chance are mutually exclusive, an Orthodox Christian perceives the time and place of the Incarnation as part of the divine economy. Together with other Christian communions, Orthodoxy shares a profound respect for and appreciation of the "scandal" of particularity that the Incarnation entails: that God would become fully human and grow "in wisdom and in stature" (Luke 2:52) until His life were cut short by an ignominious death.s That Jesus in His human nature was born into a Jewish home obviously points to the continuing significance of the Old Testament tradition of the Israelites, a claim universally supported among Christian communions. Not so universally affirmed, however, is the equally reasonable contention that a proper respect for the historical dimensions of the divine economy entails an acceptance of the general cultural worldview that prevailed during Jesus' lifetime and that subsequently informed so much of the thinking of the early generations of

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Christian intellectuals, or Church Fathers. Thus it is deemed no accident that Greek was the lingua franca of the Mediterranean world, that all of the New Testament was written first in Greek, that the earliest followers of the risen Jesus eventually broadened their mission to include the Gentiles, and that the philosophical categories used to define the faith for the long haul after the initial, intensely mystical, charismatic years were derived from Hellas. As the Son had "baptized" and "elevated" the ·prevalent Hellenistic/Roman civilization in the context of His Incarnation, so the Church was to transform the world in which it originally found itself The result, as Fr. Georges Florovsky, the most prolific Orthodox theologian in the twentieth century, was so fond of saying, was not a degenerate "Hellenization of Christianity" but rather a "Christianization of Hellenism." The pagan Hellenism of the "known world" was transformed by the early Church, infused with the transformative biblical spirit of the revelations to Israel both old and "new," into a "Christian Hellenism. 11 9 Since the Incarnation itself is not repeatable, this cultural process in the life of the Church is considered at once unique, definitive, and paradigmatic for all times and places. It is presumed, for example, that the thought-forms of the Hellenic and Hellenistic world, which served as the vehicles for the dogmatic formulations of the Seven Ecumenical Councils from AD. 325 to 787, cannot be surpassed for their philosophical utility. As a formal methodological principle, moreover, the "Christianization of Hellenism" also reveals the transformative mode that any Orthodox social ethic would need to manifest. Having thus stressed the normative quality of history as tradition, especially in its theological and cultural moorings, I must hasten to add that this tradition (usually capitalized as "Tradition") includes all of God's particular revelation in history such as the Holy Scriptures, and so is not as static or time-bound as may at first seem. True Tradition in the Orthodox sense is always a "living tradition"IO not to be reduced to archaic or contemporary customs or mores. The essential content is unchangeable, because that content is the personal revelation of God in and as the Living Christ, who is "the same yesterday, today, and forever" (Hebrews 13:8). But this Tradition grows and matures organically, or "changes," in the application to specific situations or in the appropriation of it by the Church in different times and places. Thus a kind of dialectic is involved that theoretically prevents simple repetition and stultifying rigidity. The dynamic transformative 30

method that gave birth to the Tradition in the first place allows for nothing less than a living Tradition to serve as both the starting point and the purpose-the alpha and the omega-of Orthodox thinking about the world on any level. As each historical situation is new, we must think anew: this dynamic principle of organic growth allows for truly creative theology and morality within the Tradition.

C. FIVE KEY THEOLOGICAL CONCEPTS The normative role assigned to the Incarnation also leads to a unique theological context for constructing a social ethic rooted in the moral theology of the Orthodox Tradition.11 As Fr. John Meyendorff, the late dean of St. Vladimir's Seminary in New York, observed, "Byzantine ethics were eminently 'theological ethics.' 11 12 Most specialists in Eastern Orthodox moral theology today would agree with this contention. For example, Christos Yannaras, a lay professor of philosophy at the Pantion University of Social and Political Sciences in Athens, has attempted to effect a synthesis between Orthodox patristic theology and modern existentialism. But the ethos or morality that he adduces from this synthesis is still very recognizable for its Orthodox theological emphasis on "personal distinctiveness, 11 "Trinitarian life, 11 "hypostatic realization of freedom, 11 and the transformation of man from "the image of God" to a being "in the likeness of God. 11 13

Similarly, Fr. Stanley Harakas grounds what he calls the "derivative

character" of Orthodox morality in the dogmatic tradition:

11

At the heart of Or-

thodox Christian morality are doctrines held by the Church which relate to the 'telos' of human existence with a perception of ultimate reality which is theological in the most significant of ways. 11 14 There is no possibility of a secular "morality" or a philosophical ethic that could claim ultimate value or even mere adequacy from the perspective of an Orthodox who stands squarely within the Tradition. Among contemporary Western Christian theologians, Karl Barth also insisted that for Christians ethics must be fundamentally theologicaI.15

Where the Orthodox would differ from

Barth is the precise configuration of his theological ethic. Although some recent Orthodox theologians such as Fr. Sergius Bulgakov have accepted the Western

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stereotype of Eastern Orthodoxy as aesthetic, mystical, and other-worldly, 16 Orthodox dogmatic theology presents an all-encompassing worldview, particularly a vision of the transfiguration of the universe. Both Fr. Harakas and the ArmenianAmerican lay theologian, Vigen Guroian, have provided useful typologies of the theological foundations for an Orthodox morality that should generate renewed interest in Orthodox moral theology and social ethics by ecumenical Western theologians as well as, I hope, the Orthodox themselves.17 As a preliminary observation, we shall modify Harakas' and Guroian's typologies in the direction of a more selective, streamlined set of five concepts deeply rooted in Orthodox incarnational theology. If these theological concepts do indeed reflect the core of the anthropological component of Orthodox Tradition, the conclusion seems inescapable that Orthodox moral theology is, to take a cue from Fr. Meyendortrs characterization of Byzantine "ethics," eminently social as well as theological. Together these concepts provide a firm theological foundation from which we may derive a social ethic pertinent to the problem of war and peace.

I. THEOSIS

If a selection from the spectrum of modes of moral and ethical reasoning must be made, then Eastern Orthodox morality is fundamentally, though not exclusively, teleological. In addition to the consideration of consequences and the proportionate relation of means to ends, there are within this particular moral tradition compelling principles and a sense of duty, which lend a deontological flavor, as well as a strong accent on virtuesl8 and character, an appreciation of motives and intentionality, and proper respect for the empirical context of moral decision-making.19 But the main thrust of the divine economy is oriented primarily toward the telos, or end, of salvation-of the human creation above all, but also including the entire created universe. "The reciprocal relationships of God and true human life," Fr. Harakas observes, "provide for an 'ought' based not on the 'facts' of a fallen humanity, but on a 'telos' or goal toward which we are called to strive in order to achieve our authentic humanity.20 The theological concept that epitomizes this fundamental teleology is theosis,

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or "deification." If "Incarnation" expresses the divine economy from the vantage of God Himself, then theosis describes that same economy of salvation from the perspective of humans who are summoned by God to become "divine," or

God-like, to be sure. In the second century St. Irenaios of Lyons introduced the theme of deification implicitly when he attempted to apply the probable reference to the angelic hosts in Psalm 82:6 to the human creation: "[W]e have not been made gods from the beginning, but at first merely men, then at length gods. 11 21 But the first codification of theosis appeared in the classic work by St. Athanasios,

The Incarnation of the Word. This fourth century archbishop of Alexandria said about Christ,

"For He was made man that we might be made God" (theo-

poiethomen).22 In a subsequent apologetic work St. Athanasios amplified this epigrammatic truth in terms of the emerging two-natures christology: For therefore did he assume the body originate and human, that having renewed it as its Framer, He might deify (theopoiese) it in Himself, and thus might introduce us all into the kingdom after His likeness.... For therefore the union was of this kind, that He might unite what is man by nature to Him who is in the nature of the Godhead, and his salvation and deification might be sure. 2 3 In more ample, measured form, the definition of theosis proffered by St. Maximos the Confessor in the seventh century is most useful: A firm and trustworthy basis for hope of the deification of human nature is God's Incarnation, which makes of man a god in the same measure as God Himself became a man. For it is clear that He who became a man without sin can also deify nature, without transforming it into the Deity, raising it to Himself in the measure that He humbled Himself for man's sake. 24 This is obviously a more developed version of the kenotic "descent" motifs that characterize the Pauline and Johannine christologies (Philippians 2:5-11 and John 3: 16, respectively). The added emphasis on the "ascent" of human nature toward God, which the Incarnation of the Son has empowered, is a peculiar feature of the Greek Fathers. The Orthodox liturgical tradition also frequently exults in the deifying work of Christ, conveying the patristic theological formulations to the faithful through

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popular hymns sung on various feast days according to the liturgical calendar. In these hymns the teaching is clear that, owing to the Incarnation of the Son of God, men and women may become increasingly like God without, of course, exceeding their own human nature and becoming God per se. The divine nature is unique and unattainable by mere creatures, since God is essentially "numinous" or "wholly other," as Rudolf Otto would have it.25 For example, canticle three of the first canon in the matins liturgy for the feast of the Transfiguration on August 6 (or August 19 according to the Julian or "Old" Calendar still in use by most Slavic Churches, the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, and the monasteries of Mt. Athos) proclaims: "Thou hast put Adam on entire, 0 Christ, and changing the nature grown dark in past times, Thou hast filled it with glory and made it godlike by the alteration of Thy form. 11 26 The Orthodox experience of the mystical participation of the human person in the life of God is neither a static contemplation of the "essence" of God nor a gradual merging of the many into the One, but rather an eternal dynamic progess that approximates the divine in a manner analogous perhaps to the mathematical concept of limit in calculus and analytical geometry.

This notion of epektasis

(literally, "tension"), or continual, inexhaustible progress toward perfection, is virtually synonymous with theosis and lends the latter a peculiarly optimistic quality. Since there is no fixed spiritual goal or destination the attainment of which represents a state of stagnant satisfaction, each person is motivated to persist in quest of an ever-improving, ever-deepening, and ever-fulfilling relation to the Holy Trinity. St. Gregory of Nyssa was one of the first Church Fathers to stress this point. In his fourth century encomium to Moses he concluded that since divine nature is "unlimited and infinite," the Christian "participant's desire itself necessarily has no stopping place but stretches out with the limitless. 11 27 Earlier in his life, however, St. Gregory waxed eloquent on this score in his

Commentary on the Canticle of Canticles: Thus though the new grace we may obtain is greater than what we had before, it does not put a limit on our final goal; rather, for those who are rising in perfection, the limit of the good that is attained becomes the beginning of the discovery of higher goods. Thus they never stop rising, moving from one new beginning to the next, and the beginning of ever greater graces is never limited of

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itself, for the desire of those who thus rise never rests in what they can already understand: but by an ever greater and greater desire, the soul keeps rising constantly to another which lies ahead, and thus makes its way through ever higher regions towards the Transcendent. 28 The eternal quality of this spiritual quest further mitigates the tendency toward comparisons or, worse, competitiveness with one's fellow Christians; it is especially liberating to realize that one can proceed toward deification at one's own pace, as it were! Despite the individualistic salvific implications of this concept, the emphasis of St. Maximos, for example, on the common nature-a typical feature of "substantialist" Greek theology-lends itself logically to a communal application, especially in terms of morality and ethics. In Jesus as God incarnate, God and man are united in the Person of the Son, or Logos, so that the common human nature might be deified as the hypostasis of human persons in community. 29 In other words, the Incarnation restores and sanctifies humanity in its original created wholeness and enables human beings, who are essentially social creatures, to transcend together their present moral and spiritual status in an infinitely ascending eternal process. Not only persons but also collective entities such as nations, societies, even the world in a global sense may participate in this dynamic process. Arguably the most significant term in Eastern Orthodox theological anthropology, theosis incorporates all other theological concepts pertinent to the divine economy: the process of deification is both the end and means of the created, particularly human, order. Thus more concrete terms such as transformation and especially transfiguration (or metamorphosis in Greek) may be employed to describe theosis as a process. As the One Who was Transfigured, Jesus calls all men and women and shows them the way to self-transcendence of their integral persons through a transparency· or openness to God's will for their futures both individually and collectively. The vivid, literally metamorphic imagery in the biblical event of Jesus' Transfiguration on Mt. Tabor (Mark 9:2-8 and parallel passages) points to the future hope that all Christians share that their transfiguration at the time of the general resurrection will include their whole persons, bodies and all. And yet this personal transfiguration begins now on earth, whatever the situation of a person or a society. Here the christological paradigm is the personal transfiguration of Jesus' 35

human will through His spiritual and moral lifestyle. His human will had to be brought into harmony with what He perceived to be the will of God as Father. The remarkable thing from a human perspective is that He succeeded perfectly in this synergy.

He withstood any and all temptations and, by the time of His

crucifixion, had reached a level of transcendence unknown perhaps even to His own limited human knowledge. And so with the resurrection of Jesus the biblical theme of transfiguration achieves a suitable climax. It is apparent that Jesus' humanity-that is, his body, mind, and will-and not His divinity is the object of His self-transcendence. In the words of the ancient Christian kerygma, it was God who raised Jesus from the dead (Acts 2:24, 32) as a vindication of His human faith in and obedience to the Father. Paradoxically, the self, by overcoming selfishness replete with antisocial expressions, attains a higher, more fulfilling, more personal existence-that is,

theosis. In Galatians 2:20, St. Paul sounds the keynote for this outlook: "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. " Extending this to a communal level, societies, political leaders, ·and national or ethnic groups also may, by overcoming parochial or chauvinistic pre-occupations, attain a higher, more fulfilling, more inter-personal existence.

2. ASKESIS

As an umbrella concept, however, theosis may be too general. More concrete theological concepts directly related to means are required. The first to be considered here is the spiritual practice of askesis. Fr. Harakas defines it appropriately as "the exercise of will toward growth in the direction of Theosis. 11 30 Fr. Florovsky even described asceticism as an "eschatology of transfiguration," insofar as ascetic "maximalism" is "primarily inspired by an awareness of the end of history. 11 31 The task of askesis is the dynamic activity of "working out" of one's self and creating a higher spiritual self It is through self-denial that a person reaffirms the self in communion with other persons. This "interior renunciation for the love of Christ," as Fr. Bulgakov wrote, "prevents the excessive attachment to this world, which was the way of paganism. 11 32 And yet as a way of overcoming sin and evil, askesis does not entail a misanthropic rejection of the world. On the

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contrary, as "health and equilibrium of soul," askesis allows for "an optimistic mentality, full of the joy oflife within the limits of earthly existence. 11 33 Nor is all askesis monastic in style, for in practical ecclesiastical situations less maximalist lay forms of prayer and fasting often are condoned by bishops. Even monastic askesis in its ideal manifestations, notwithstanding popular misconceptions, combines love for God and the world with self-denial and renunciation of excessive worldliness. An outstanding example appears in a work by St. Gregory Palamas, the fourteenth century spiritual teacher and Archbishop of Thessaloniki: He who purifies his body, by self-mastery, who by love makes anger and lust an occasion for virtue, and who teaches the mind, cleansed by prayer, to stand before God, will receive and see in himself the grace promised to the pure in heart.34 This passage also reflects a concern for conscious, rational self-control of the "passions," which are not arational emotions per se but those excessive irrational impulses such as anger that disturb the equilibrium of the spirit directed toward God. 35 Conquest of these "passions," therefore, is an essential ingredient in the Orthodox process of achieving this equilibrium, or apatheia, whereby a person is free from bondage to any emotion or thought or imagination that might hinder his drawing closer to God theotically. Thus askesis is by no means an extreme notion; instead it demands a balanced view of human personality in process toward theosis and fosters a properly eschatological orientation on the transitory nature of the world. The implications of this concept for social ethics, especially the self-limitation of nations, political authorities, and military institutions, will be made explicit in the next chapter.

3. PHILANTHROPIA

Any Christian morality that neglects to promote love as a priority hardly conforms to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Whether one uses either or both of the predominant terms for love in the ancient Church-agape and philanthropiaIove, as a Christian moral principle, is essentially deontological in its source and inner logic. A Christian who wishes to imitate God in His love for humanity ought 37

to love other persons freely, unconditionally, and without regard to consequences. In the present chapter, however, I wish to categorize love as one primarily teleological moral means, firmly rooted in incamational theology, to the supreme end of theosis.

Love in this context is the other-regarding complement to the

basically self-regarding practice of askesis. If askesis has any social ethical import, it lies in the potential for love that it nurtures. As a fundamentally self-regarding cultivation of virtues, askesis enables the struggling practitioner to generate the supreme other-regarding virtue of love. Although the term agape prevails in the New Testament and in other early Christian literature, the parallel term philanthropia gradually supplanted it in the third century.

From Origen to St. Theophylactos of Ochrid in Bulgaria in the

eleventh century, this ancient Attic term for love underwent accretions in meaning and utility, but the Greek Fathers understood it fundamentally as "one of the paramount attributes of God expressing itself toward His relationship with man, and that as a result man ought to possess the same attributes and to apply it toward his fellow man. "3 6

To be sure, as Fr. Demetrios Constantelos has amply

demonstrated in his magisterial historical study of Byzantine philanthropia, the Greek notion of philanthropia was "broadened and deepened" under the impact of the christologically-rich concept of agape.37 In any event, the Byzantine understanding transcended our simple contemporary notion of "charity." Philanthropia was an abstract concept and a political attribute directed toward needy individuals and groups and expressed in an astounding array of eleemosynary institutions. 38 But the new theological content in Byzantine Orthodoxy was unique in Greek civilization:

philanthropia ultimately was "intended to please or to imitate

11

God, 39 as He Himself acted above all through the divine economy of the Son. The unique christological basis of agapic-philanthropic love is also the source of its universal moral implications.

St. Maximos the Confessor pronounced

blessed the man "who can love all men equally . . . in imitation of God. 11 40 Specifically, For him who is perfect in love and has reached the summit of dispassion there is no difference between his own or another's, or between Christians and unbelievers, or between slave and free, or even between male and female. But because he has risen above the tyranny of the passions and has fixed his attention on the single

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nature of man, he looks on all in the same way and shows the same disposition to all. For in him there is neither Greek nor Jew, male nor female, bond nor free, but Christ who "is all, and in all. 11 41 Contrary to the revisionist interpretations of many contemporary moral theologians in the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches, 42 this kind of Christian love is distinguished not merely by its specific meaning and motivation for Christians, but rather by its unique content. For the Christian who seeks to cultivate the virtue of philanthropia imitates the God who would go so far as to die voluntarily for His wayward creation. This kind of ultimate love, together with its disregard for all contingent categories of human existence such as race, gender, or social class, is arguably unique in the history of moral and ethical reflection. Although St. Maximos directed his moral imperative toward monks whose brotherly communal love was deemed uniquely exemplary, the power of the message with its biblical inspiration cannot be restricted to monastic life. The enumerated categories are primarily social and include racial (or national) and economic relations, which ought to be transcended through non-discriminatory, universalizing love. The special import of the doctrine of philanthropia for the moral relations that ought to obtain between Church and peoples will become clear in the next chapter. 4. MYSTERIA If the communal or social dimensions of theosis and philanthropia are not readily apparent, the two remaining key theological concepts abound in obvious fraternity. The first is mysteria, a transliteration of the original Greek tenn meaning "mysteries," for which the Latin tenn sacramentum was ostensibly the equivalent. 43 In particular, the "holy mysteries" denote the Eucharist of the Divine Liturgy of which the transfigured bread and wine serve as "gates of righteousness" or "entrances into heaven," as St. Nicholas Cabasilas, a fourteenth century Greek theologian, suggested.44 A link between the heavenly or divine realm, as it were,

and the life of Christians on earth, the mysteria establish a vertical divine-human relation with each person in the present. They are the most perfect means by

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which the Incarnation is extended and the process of theosis recapitulated in the daily lives of Christians. Unlike the transformation of natural food into the "blood" of the human consumer, "The Bread of Life Himself changes him who feeds on Him and transforms and assimilates him into Himself 1145 The primary purpose of this mystical process is to bestow the new life of Him in whom men and women have their true being. The interior conformity of the will of the Christian to God's will for him that the mysteria effects mystically ought to take the specific form of desire for goodness and virtuous intentions.46 This trans-figuration ought to be manifest exteriorly in the moral fiuits of those desires and intentionS--namely, service to God and man. The personal experience of spiritual transfiguration is by no means individualistic.

Indeed, the mysteria are the nodal point of the common liturgical

worship of the Church. The cultic liturgy is a social event that can be celebrated only for and in the community, and it consequently acquires its own social ethical symbolism. Fr. Alexander Schmemann, the premier Russian Orthodox liturgical theologian of the twentieth century, outlined "the journey of the Church into the dimension of the Kingdom," beginning with the "real separation from the world" involved in "going to" Church, climaxing in the mystical, eschatological participation in the heavenly "new eon," and concluding with the return "into the world," so that the "Church might be a witness to it and transform the world by joy. 11 47 In an exclusive sense, the mysteria require the Church as the necessary context for their celebration and reception by the faithful. This is obvious also in light of the role of the ordained presbyterate (or priesthood) and the canonical requirement of a congregation of at least two persons in addition to the priest before a Divine Liturgy may be celebrated.

In the eloquent phrases of Nicholas Arseniev, the

Eucharist of the Divine Liturgy "has a central, living, mystic meaning, but for the whole community." For in the Eucharist, where "the divine mingles with the human, the terrestrial, . . . praise and sacrifice are offered to the Lord for the world and by the world. 11 48 Nowhere is this more evident in the Divine Liturgies of St.

John Chrysostom and St. Basil the Great than when the priest, having recalled the Words of Institution by Christ at the Last Supper, elevates the diskos (paten) and chalice containing the bread and wine that are being changed into the mystical Body and Blood of Christ and exclaims: "Thine own of thine own we offer unto

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Thee in behalf of all and for all. 11 49 The social or communal dimension of the

mysteria is summarized in the flow chart in Figure 1. Each stage is integral to the process of theosis.

Incarnation I theosis

1 Church

I mysteria

I personal transfiguration

1 service to God and man Figure 1: THE MORAL DIMENSION OF THE MYSTERJA

This dimension of mysteria is also reflected in the emphasis on a celestial brotherhood, or communion of saints. The Divine Liturgy mystically unites each community of faithful with the others on earth and, in a truly time- and spacetranscending manner, also with the resurrected Lord, the heavenly angelic "choir," and the triumphant saints. Ernst Benz, a German Lutheran scholar of Orthodoxy, noted the moral implications of this doctrine: "This sense of the mystical union of all the redeemed in their participation in the resurrected Lord is the innermost core of Orthodox collective and individual ethics, and is continually kept alive by the mystery of the Eucharist. 11 50 As the organic union with Christ, who is the perfect sacrifice of love for the world (philanthropia), transfigures the individual Christian into an other-regarding, self-sacrificing person, so the simultaneous union of Christians with one another in the organic communal life of the Church,

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epitomized in the mysteria, transfigures the Church into a self-transcending, worldtransforming body.

5. SOBORNOST

The other theological concept with unmistakable communal overtones is expressed by the Russian term sobornost'. Derived from the medieval Slavonic equivalent for kathalon in the Greek original of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed (A.D. 381), the word has had to endure numerous incarnations in English including "catholicity," "conciliarity," "harmony," "unanimity," and "universality," but it is best left untranslated. Fr. Bulgakov defined sobornost' as "the liberty in love which unites believers. 11 51 Benz concurred insofar as the term "explicitly upholds" a "genuine personalism" and brotherly love as "an act of freedom and elective spontaneity upon the part of redeemed man. 11 52 This concept eschews both collectivist authoritarianism and autonomous individualism in favor of "a communion of persons who are of one nature and will. 11 53 As Christos Yannaras asserts, this inter-personal communion is patterned after the "existential Prototype, the Holy Trinity." As a loving community of Persons sharing one essence, God provides an exemplary "mode of being" that can be realized by Christians through their transforming faith within "an ecclesial reality" alone.54 Not only do these emphases on the one human nature and the new mode of being owe much to platonic "substantialist" thinking; the notion of communion here presumes a platonic concern for objective truth. Sobornost' denotes less the principle of universality or catholicity in terms of quantitative geographical extent than the platonic idea of "that which exists as a particular phenomenon"-that is, an idea that exists in the Church as its foundation and truth. In Bulgakov's estimation, therefore, the

Eastern Orthodox Churches characterized by sobornost' "means that which is in the truth, which shares the truth, which lives the true life." This qualitative character reflects "the mystic and metaphysical depth of the Church and not at all its outward diffusion. 1155 The original proponent of the term, Alexei Khomiakov, a nineteenth century Russian lay theologian, confidently dismissed the usual geographic criterion for assessing the adequacy of the catholicity of the Church. The Church (by which he

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meant the Eastern Orthodox alone) is one, holy, and catholic because she belongs to the whole world, and not to any particular locality; because by her all ~an.kind and all the earth, and not any particular nation or country, are sanctified; because her very essence consists in the agreement and unity of the spirit and life of all the members who acknowledge her throughout the world. 56 From Khomiakov's standpoint, sobornost' described the unanimous unity of all the Orthodox faithful despite their otherwise pluralistic characteristics:

that is, the

depth, and not mere breadth, of true communion with the divine Truth within the religious community conceived as a single, though variegated, living organism. 57 Khomiakov's rendering of sobornost' combined a truly universal vision of the Church with profound ramifications for a social ethic of nationalism, as well as a qualitative insistence on agreement and unity. Only where the true faith, or more properly, the true Tradition, is manifest in the life of a community is the Church to be found. Fidelity to the presumably objective truth of the Orthodox Tradition is more important ultimately than the number and geographic dispersion of the supposed faithful. Ecclesiologically and morally, this means that Christians in and as the Church must preserve this truth as they endeavor philanthropically to transform the world or any of its constituent parts. Ecumenism, therefore, has moral limits. Empathy for and the possibility of identifying with the world on a global level, with various political structures, or with particular nations also have moral limits. As a theological principle of social unity, sobornost' serves then as a counterpoint to the effusive love created in the hearts of Christians by the mys-

teria: the transformation of the world into the eschatological Kingdom of God on earth must progress on the Church's terms, which are precisely those revealed to her by God through His providential formation of the Orthodox Tradition.

TEXTS AND HERMENEUTICS Both the five key theological concepts discussed above and the specific teachings of Eastern Orthodoxy on the moral problem of war and peace are re~ vealed through various textual sources.

If divine revelation is known directly

through the Word made flesh (John 1:14), Jesus Christ Himself is presently known

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indirectly through the "holy mysteries," icons, other highly spiritual personages such as the saints, and the written tradition of the Church. Any written text, therefore, simply records, reports, or testifies indirectly to direct personal experience of God the Holy Trinity. Even the Bible itself is deemed to be, in the apt phrasing of St. Augustine of Hippo, "the utterances of the Spirit of God through the mouths of men. n58 Holy Scripture is the Word of God in the words of men-the written and hence once removed version of the living incarnate Word of God. But the written texts are the principal, if not only, sources readily and commonly available to the contemporary Orthodox moral theologian. These, at least, are capable of documentation and verification by other moral theologians. Specifically relevant to the development of the Orthodox moral perspective on war and peace are six textual components that Fr. Harakas, for example, has labelled "revelatory" sources for the discipline of moral theology:59 Holy Scripture; patristic writings; canon law; hagiography; devotional literature, which includes liturgical and hymnographic texts, on the one hand, and mystico-ascetic writings, on the other; and the works of modem dogmatic and moral theologians and literary authors. These specific textual components of Orthodox moral tradition will be considered briefly in turn. In each instance, we shall first describe the textual source, then enumerate the actual documents, and finally indicate the manner of their interpretation and the hermeneutical constraints on their use.

A. HOLY SCRIPTURE The Bible of the Eastern Orthodox Churches is virtually the same as that of the Western churches.

The New Testament, for example, is identical for all

Christian communions, and the original Greek text consulted in this study is the United Bible Societies edition-the one most widely used in American seminaries and divinity schools. 60 The only significant textual differences arise from the traditional use of the Septuagint version of the Old Testament by the ancient Church Fathers and by Orthodox theologians through the centuries. Variations in the actual texts of the Psalms, for example, may have a direct bearing on a historico-critical interpretation of the views on war and peace in the Old Testament.

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Similarly, the inclusion of 1-3 Maccabees and the book of Judith in the Septuagint provides an additional source of pre-Christian divine revelation concerning the conduct of war by the People of God. But it should be noted also that modern Orthodox moral theologians, particularly those trained in Western non-Orthodox universities or seminaries, tend to resort more frequently to the Masoretic Hebrew text of the Old Testament or to English translations of this text, which dates from the middle ages. Wherever Old Testament texts are cited in this dissertation, the translation utilized is the Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha, except where it differs significantly from the Septuagint.61 More important in the long run than the question of versions and translations is the hermeneutics of the use of Holy Scripture in a modern work in Orthodox moral theology. Both testaments are regarded as parts of a single revelatory tradition, and yet the two parts are not equally yoked. As Fr. Georges Barrois reminded us, "There is only one revelation under two successive dispensations of the same divine condescendence toward men. n62 The tradition is one, but the stages of its development do indeed allow for gradations in the intensity of revelation and even for supercessionism. From the classic standpoint of the Church Fathers, who stood squarely within the mainstream of the developing post-biblical Christian tradition, the Law of the Old Testament was generally superceded by the fullness of truth in the New Testament. Much of the Old Testament teaching on worship and ecclesial polity "proved to be basically 'situation-conditioned', 11 as Fr. Florovsky concluded, insofar as the "types" or "prefiguration" in the Old Testament achieved their fulfillment in the New through the direct divine in-breaking into history.63 Thus "it is only in the light of Christ that the Old Testament can be properly understood and its 'mysteries' unveiled. 11 64 The appropriate hermeneutic of the Old Testament, therefore, is necessarily christological. But this hermeneutic does not necessarily neglect, much less deny, the historical character of the entire Bible. The Old Testament retains its particular value for Eastern Orthodoxy not as a system of beliefs or rules to be maintained without qualification, but rather as a stage in the history of the one continuous divine revelation. The ramifications of this limited but crucial value of the Old Testament era in the on-going Heilsgeschichte wilJ be apparent in chapter 5, when the frequency of ancient Israelite violence and warfare is placed in proper relief.

An appreciation of modern historical (or "higher") criticism of Holy Scripture 45

also delimits the contemporary use of the Bible by Orthodox moral theologians. Neither testament provides direct catechism-like answers or neatly-argued systematic position statell).ents on controversial moral or ethical issues, particularly those of more recent vintage such as genetic engineering or the use of nuclear weapons as a means of warfare. In the New Testament, for example, each of the distinct documents is highly contextual, so the application of any apparent moral norms to situations far removed in time and distance from the original historical context must be carefully nuanced; the respective situations, at least, must be closely matched or related more than tangentially. This contextual quality is more readily perceived in the epistles, but it also characterizes the four canonical gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Revelation to St. John, each of which was intended by its author(s) for a particular audience in his own historical era. Whether a particular issue appears in the New Testament depends on the actual historical conditions that prevailed in the life of the nascent Church, specifically whether the issue was of special concern to a New Testament writer or to his intended audience. For example, neither Jesus nor the New Testament writers explicitly address the dilemma of military service on behalf of the pagan Roman Empire, because the question was moot: neither Christians nor Jews at that time were conscripted or even permitted to join the Roman armed forces. Therefore, the best that one can do is to glean inductively various passages that seem in some way to relate to the problem at hand, while acknowledging at the outset that such an exegesis violates, to some extent, the historical integrity of each document and each specific passage. Another hermeneutical caveat was issued most succinctly by Fr. Florovsky when he warned against interpreting "the tension between Christians and the Roman Empire as a conflict or clash between the Church and the State. 11 65 For these are really modern distinctions, the result of the increasing secularization of Western civilization-and of the political power in particular-and an attendant withdrawal of the Church to the "spiritual" realm. From its inception the Church, like the old Israel, was at once a "church" and a "nation"-the People of God, a distinct and autonomous society. Similarly, the Roman Empire was far more than a merely political organism, when it claimed that it was the "ultimate solution of the human problem" and offered, therefore, not only a polity, peace, justice, and a set of values, but also a "religious," albeit pagan, way of life and, consequently, a 46

kind of "salvation" itself. Such a state was universal, omnicompetent, and absolute and required unconditional loyalty even to the extent of a religious devotion. 66 It was only natural then that these two totalistic socio-ecclesiastical entities-Church and empire-would come into conflict on a macrocosmic level, even as it might be expected that on a much smaller scale, particularly that of individual persons, there would be various degrees of compromise, collaboration, or accommodation between these two entities.

We shall freely use the terms Church, state, and

empire while interpreting relevant New Testament (and patristic) texts, but Fr. Florovsky's qualifications remain axiomatic for the life-situation of the early Church under the pagan emperors.

B. PATRISTIC WRITINGS The Eastern Orthodox Tradition in its grandest intellectual form may be described as the experience of the Word of God as interpreted preeminently by the Church Fathers. The second component of the unique Orthodox moral tradition is that patristic heritage, particularly the writings of those ancient and medieval theologians and ecclesial luminaries whose fundamental orthodoxy in doctrine and piety led the Church to proclaim them Church Fathers. This designation pertains equally to those writers whom some Western churches continue to honor (from the Apostolic Fathers to St. Gregory the Great) and those Eastern Fathers who lived during the remainder of the Byzantine era, preeminently St. Maximos the Confessor, St. John Klimakos, St. John of Damaskos, St. Symeon the New Theologian, St. Gregory Palamas, and St. Nicholas Cabasilas. Extant texts and translations are available in a wide variety of collections and critical editions, most notably the ten volume Ante-Nicene Fathers series and the twenty-eight volume

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers series,67 although the works of the Church Fathers of the post-Chalcedon Byzantine Orthodox Church are often untranslated into English or are found in separate critical editions. The general theological task of any contemporary Orthodox moral theologian who wishes to remain faithful to the mainstream Orthodox Tradition ought to be to acquire the "mind of Christ" by studying the consensus patrum.

Sometimes that is easier said than

done, especially when the task at hand is to discover the patristic conscience on an

47

issue of current moral concern. Several inherent difficulties surround the use of patristic literary evidence to determine the patristic conscience concerning the moral problem of war and peace. First, we must acknowledge the surprisingly small number of extant comments about the Roman military and the possible participation of Christians in it. Only Tertullian among the ante-Nicene Fathers devoted an entire text to the issue. Second, the primarily theological or pastoral purposes of these patristic texts often screen out the historical exigencies of time and place that lead to diversity in practice. Third, there may be a conflict between the true mainstream of living Orthodox Tradition and some of the more historically significant patristic writers who forsook Orthodoxy (for example, Tertullian) that does not appear clearly in the extant ante-Nicene patristic texts. 68 Fortunately, this problem is confined to the pre-Constantinian Church. Finally, and most importantly, the chief motivation(s) underlying the arguments of those pre-Constantinian patristic writers who opposed Christian participation in the Roman military may not necessarily have been the same for the Church at large or for the entire Church after the Edict of Milan in AD. 313. A case in point is the strident pacifism of Tertullian in his Montanist years, which closely parallels the views of the arch-heretic Marcion.

Conse-

quently, contemporary church historians tend to disagree among themselves over the issue of the motives among Christians for opposing participation in the Roman Army before the Edict. It would behoove us then to avoid choosing between the dangers of paganism and an aversion to bloodshed as a matter of principle, as some scholars have done recently,69 and to acknowledge the presence of both concerns among the various Church Fathers in varying degrees and in conjunction with differing perspectives on the nature of the pagan Roman Empire itself With the advent of the Christian Roman Empire, these four hermeneutical difficulties vanish, only to be supplanted by the major problem of reconciling the apparent discrepancies in the presumably unified patristic tradition before and after St. Constantine.

C. CANONLAW The corpus of canon law in Eastern Orthodox Tradition represents more than

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the rules and regulations of the self-government of the Orthodox Churches as ecclesiastical institutions. To be sure, that juridical quality cannot be avoided whenever canons, or "rules, 11 are promulgated. But the tendency to apply particular canons juridically and even legalistically ought to be checked by the original intentions of the patristic framers of those canons to provide moral guidelines for hierarchs and spiritual fathers alike in their pastoral relations with the Orthodox religious community. This canonical corpus, which the Church Fathers at each of the Seven Ecumenical Councils of the undivided Church compiled from universal and regional conciliar decisions and from individual Fathers' writings, is designed both to reflect and to enforce the ethos of the universal Church in particular pastoral situations. Thus the canons constitute an essential component of the Orthodox moral tradition, but one that requires as much sophistication and nuance in their interpretation and specific application as the lengthier, more developed arguments of the individual Church Fathers. Recourse to the original Greek texts of the canons pertinent to war and military service is, therefore, necessary. Also helpful is the widely-used English translation known as The Rudder, since it contains valuable interpretations of the individual canons by St. Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain, an eighteenth century Greek monk. 70 It is also necessary to consult the commentaries of the greatest medieval Byzantine canonists, John Zonaras, Alexis Aristenos, and Theodore Balsamon, who lived toward the end of the twelfth century. These, unfortunately, are not yet available in translation. 71 In accordance with the historical origins of the canons, we shall employ a henneneutic aimed at understanding the "spirit" of the law rather than a simplistic literalism. This hermeneutic operates at four levels:72 (1) the grammatical, or the interpretation and translation of the terms and meanings of the original text; (2) the logical, or the examination of the relations of the various component parts of a given canon; (3) the historical, or the discovery of the life-situation of the origin of the canon and its original purpose; and (4) the systematic, or the process of locating the canon in the whole canonical and dogmatic Tradition and its interrelations within that whole. Although this is the general integral approach, it has been adjusted naturally to conform to the contexts of the particular canons. For example, the historical causes of some canons are still shrouded in mystery, while others are so simple and straightforward as to obviate any detailed gram49

matical or logical analysis. Present in every case, however, are the twin problems of accurate translation of key terms and dogmatic import. A final preliminary note is in order. The analysis of the canons appropriate to this investigation of the moral problem of war and peace has been confined to those canons that ·support a pacifist moral position. Dual standards pertaining to clergy and laity prohibit any military activity by the former, while allowing the latter to engage in limited, justifiable killing as the circumstances warrant. The different moral and canonical expectations of the Church for clerics and monks, on the one hand, and laity, on the other, as well as the historical and doctrinal reasons for these are well-known and need not be rehearsed here.

A theological ex-

planation of the peculiar responsibilities of the clergy vis-a-vis the possibility of military service will be proposed in chapter 7. This explanation is the key to understanding the relevance of the entire canonical corpus to the contemporary moral problem of war and peace, especially in terms of the pacifist option.

D. HAGIOGRAPHY The rich hagiographic heritage of Eastern Orthodoxy is the fourth textual source of a contemporary moral theology of war and peace.

The lives of the

saints, or vitae, are remarkably diverse, but these literary creations all share a common theological and social purpose: the proclamation of spiritual and moral ideals for the edification and encouragement of all the Orthodox faithful, whether highly educated or theologically unsophisticated. The involvement of certain canonized Christian saints in military matters has been one component of the total picture of sanctity since the third century. That is not to say, however, that military prowess or even the condoning of particular military ventures was the chief consideration in the elevation of any individual to sainthood. Quite to the contrary, military involvement, when it occurs in the life of a saint, is, with relatively few exceptions, an incidental feature of that life and is always subordinate to more decisive virtues or activities such as martyrdom, the execution of justice, and defense of faith and people. But the perennial problem of war and human violence has perhaps provided an unavoidable life-situation on occasion even for those in whom the Church has perceived certain Christ-like

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qualities worthy of praise and emulation. Therefore, it is mandatory that chapter 8 collect and collate some of the accounts of the activities of those saints who questioned or rejected military service, violence, and even self-defense. The sources, most of which are quoted in translation, are predominantly vitae in the strict sense, but acta (records of activities) and secular texts also are consulted for the purpose of comparison or comprehensiveness. Various Greek and Latin soldier saints of the early Church loom particularly large in this investigation.73 But the Old Russian vitae of SS. Boris and Gleb of Kyiv (+ A.D. I 015) receive special attention as decisive archetypical examples of the pacifist trajectory in the unique Orthodox hagiographic heritage.74 Two other important factors impinge on the use of hagiographic texts by an Eastern Orthodox moral theologian: first, a preference for Eastern examples, and second, an ecumenical use of the title "saint." Although the Orthodox Tradition has not developed a canonization process as formal, centralized, and systematic as that of the Roman Catholic church, 75 the mutual respect and veneration for saints on the calendars of the several autocephalous (1'self-headed 11). Orthodox Churches and the ancient martyrologies terminates, according to a rigorous canonical interpretation, with the schism of any part of the Church. Consequently, Nestorian and Monophysite saints and Western saints whose lives post-date the official schism of AD. 1054 may not "officially" be honored by the Orthodox Churches. But a more economic interpretation of canonical tradition is desirable in accordance with the spiritual realities revealed to all Christians. Who among Orthodox Christian scholars can, in good conscience, deny the sanctity of St. Isaac of Nineveh (a seventh century Nestorian bishop) or such Western giants as Francis of Assisi and Jane Frances de Chantal? Finally, the most pressing question for modem hagiographers-namely, the historicity of the accounts provided in the various texts-is not germane to the present study. We shall consider hagiographic texts primarily as indications of the moral and theological values of the principal subjects and the communities that venerated them, including the hagiographers themselves. In this regard, the texts are deemed primarily moral, rather than historical, documents, although in at least a few cases their essential authenticity seems quite well established. The conclusions of Hippolyte Delehaye, the French Bollandist scholar, in his superb analysis of the most prominent Greek soldier saints need not pose any obstacle to 51

an evaluation of these and other vitae with military implications. It is not really germane whether St. Demetrios was truly a uniformed soldier or only a martyred deacon from Sirmium who achieved hagiographic renown as a soldier-martyr from Thessaloniki. We need not be distracted from the more decisive facts that he was venerated precisely as a soldier who forfeited his life for Christ and that this development tells us much more about the spirituality and moral theology of the Orthodox Churches and the ramifications for individual Orthodox Christians. 76

E. DEVOTIONAL WRITINGS The penultimate textual source of Eastern Orthodox moral theology is, in fact, an artificial category. It comprises literature of two distinct kinds that nevertheless share a common focus.

Both liturgical texts and mystico-ascetic writings by

masters of Orthodox spirituality afford the Orthodox faithful opportunities to practice and to express their personal piety and devotion to the Lord. Relevant Orthodox liturgical texts include the actual worship services of the Church, particularly the Divine Liturgies of St. John Chrysostom and St. Basil the Great.77 Special prayers such as the memorial service for Orthodox "warriors" and the rich hymnography of Byzantium and Kyivan Rus' also may be profitably mined in pursuit of the Orthodox justifiable war trajectory. Orthodox theological reflection normally would center upon the common liturgical experience. As Fr. Schmemann repeated often, the rule of prayer and worship is the rule of belief (lex

orandi est lex credendi) and not vice-versa, in contrast to much thinking in the Western churches today. 78 Christos Yannaras also establishes a direct connection between liturgy and morality: The morality of the Church is a liturgical morality, a liturgical ethos of unity and communion. . . . What makes someone a Christian is not his private virtue or ideas or convictions, but the fact that he participates organically in the life-giving body of Christ, being grafted into the liturgical unity of the Church. 79 The moral content of the Orthodox liturgical tradition is not as readily apparent as the dogmatic teaching that the Church proclaims through its worship. This is particularly true with respect to the specific moral problem of war and peace. 52

Nevertheless, the frequent liturgical petitions for peace and on behalf of the armed forces of the nation are worth noting briefly. Despite a preoccupation with "peace, 11 the liturgical component of the devotional writings considered in the present study tends to support justifiable war more than absolute pacifism, and so those texts will not loom large here. The other component of the category of devotional writings tends to support the pacifist option to the exclusion of justifiable war. What I label as mystico-ascetic writings is, to be sure, a subset of patristic literature, for the authors include some of the greatest Church Fathers such as St. Maximos the Confessor, St. John Klimakos, and St. Symeon the New Theologian, as well as modem spiritual exemplars such as the nineteenth century Russians, St. Theophan the Recluse and St. Macarius of Optino. The distinction is simple yet profound. The texts examined under the rubric of patristic writings per se refer directly and often in an expository manner to war and the military. The several texts considered under the rubric of devotional writings contain more far-ranging teachings on prayer, the conquest of the "passions" and the cultivation of the virtues, "spiritual warfare" against Satan, and spiritual harmony through "stillness. 11 80 These concerns may be described as eminently practical-primarily ascetic and mystical-rather than specifically theological or moral, although the distinction should not be pressed too far. For the Orthodox Tradition is essentially, and not merely tangentially, "mystical." Vladimir Lossky argued vigorously against any sharp differentiation in Eastern Orthodoxy between mysticism and theology, or "between personal experience of the divine mysteries and the dogma affirmed by the Church." For each is impossible without the other. Theology expresses in a general, formalized way for the common good of the faithful "the personal working out of the content of the common faith" that mysticism usually connotes. Lossky summarized this interrelation as follows: [W]e must live the dogma expressing a revealed truth, which appears to us as an unfathomable mystery, in such a fashion that instead of assimilating the mystery to our mode of understanding, we should, on the contrary, look for a profound change, an inner transformation of spirit, enabling us to experience it mystically. 8 1 And yet the unique mystico-ascetic component of the Orthodox Tradition gives

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rise, through its unusually unified collective witness, to a distinctive moral perspective. Perhaps no other subset of patristic texts has such unmistakable implications for the central argument of the present study on behalf of absolute pacifism in Orthodoxy.

F. MODERN THEOLOGY AND LITERATURE Taking a cue from Alfred North Whitehead's famous quip that all Western philosophy is a series of footnotes to Plato, an Eastern Orthodox moral theologian must admit that all Orthodox theology, especially the modern academic variety, is, or ought to be, thoroughly grounded in the sources of the Orthodox Tradition enumerated in this chapter-above all, the Holy Scriptures common to all churches and the Church Fathers, whom Orthodoxy, alone among the Christian communions, cherishes as the authoritative interpreters of the biblical revelation. Fr. Florovsky sounded the keynote for this theological approach when he asserted half a century ago "that in our day the Orthodox theologian can only find for himself the true measure and living source of creative inspiration in patristic tradition. 11 82 This does not require, however, a slavish restatement of patristic texts, but rather that the Orthodox theologian, whether dogmatic (or systematic in Western parlance) or moral, endeavor to reflect the consensus patrum, as noted above, in the substance of his teaching and the spirit of the Fathers in the style of his work. The ancient and Byzantine Church Fathers surely were no strangers to rigorous systematic theologizing, for most of their treatises and commentaries are far more erudite and philosophically nuanced than much of what passes for formal theology today. And yet the Church Fathers, most of whom were bishops, priests, or monks, never allowed their intellectual pursuits to outstrip the experience of the religious community known as the Church. While their minds soared to the far reaches of religious reflection and spiritual contemplation, their feet, as it were, were firmly grounded in daily pastoral life. Thus the way of the Church Fathers represents the normative Orthodox way of "doing theology, 11 as the late Romanian theologian, Fr. Dumitru Staniloae, argued: The Orthodox theologian therefore, has no other task in his work than that of interpreting the experience of God as lived by the

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community of the Church, an experience in which he himself participates. Only in this way will his theology be more than merely his own theology, and become a theology illuminated by the Holy Spirit who is at work in the Church guiding her teaching ministry.83 Therefore, the principal factor in contemporary Orthodox theological hermeneutics is the degree to which the theology of an individual writer merges his own creative intellectual effort with "the mind of the Church 11 84 as expressed through Orthodox Tradition. Fidelity to the spirit of that Tradition in terms of both method and results is what qualifies a modem work as authentic Orthodox theology, whether formal or informal. Among the writers of "formal" Orthodox moral theology who have addressed the problem of war and peace from a pacifist standpoint are St. Tikhon of Zadonsk (+ AD. 1783), the theologians of the peculiar Russian form of the christology known as "kenoticism" in nineteenth and early twentieth century Russia, and Fr. Stanley Harakas, whose works already have figured prominently in these pages. "Informal" theological contributions to the Orthodox pacifist perspective on war and peace might be better described as religious literary works. I have in mind, in particular, the fiction of the great nineteenth century Russian Orthodox novelist, Fyodor Dostoevsky.

As Nadejda Gorodetzky observed, "Works of fiction are

rightly considered the chief form of self-expression in nineteenth century Russia. 11 85 The religious impact of Dostoevsky on the Holy Russia of his century is matched in this century perhaps only by the role exercised by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in the spiritually sterile Soviet Union. In ways that should become apparent in chapter 10, Dostoevsky was arguably the most authentic modern Russian Orthodox "moral theologian" of war and peace.

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Chapter 3

TYPOLOGIES FOR ORTHODOX SOCIAL ETHICS There is probably not one Orthodox theologian alive today (the present writer included) who has never taken aim at St. Augustine of Hippo, albeit respectfully as befits the great fifth century saint and Latin Church Father, and fired a round of criticism for his excessive philosophical rationalism. But Christos Y annaras appears to be the most deadly shot of all. In his recent primer of Orthodox dogmatic theology, Elements of Faith, he lays at St. Augustine's feet the beginning of a "radical change in the understanding of the truth. 11 Yannaras specifically blames the Latin bishop for the following deviations in the Christian West: right reasoning replaces the dynamic indeterminacy of life; life enters the forecourt of 11 logic 11 (ratio), [sic] logic is raised to a final authority, either in the form of moral rules or as a command of social and political practice. Moralism and political totalitarianism, these two formal products of western European civilization, have their explicit roots in the thought of Augustine.! We may be tempted, after reading that barrage, to wonder how the bishop of Hippo ever attained sainthood in the universal Church (although, to be sure, there are still some Orthodox "traditionalists" who begrudge him even that title, preferring to call him only "Blessed Augustine!). And yet St. Augustine's contributions 57

to the patristic doctrine of war and peace are profound, the fruit of a very ordered mind. It is precisely his intellectual orderliness and organization that ought to attract contemporary Orthodox theologians who may be wont to paraphrase the American humorist Will Rogers' quip about the Democrat Party: "I belong to no organized religion: I'm Orthodox!" A systematic theoretical framework, building upon the foundational sources discussed in chapter 2, is, indeed, prerequisite to any serious work in contemporary Eastern Orthodox social ethics. 2 This is especially true concerning the application of Orthodox moral theology to the complex moral problem of war and peace. In this chapter we shall develop a mediating structure for relating the rich Orthodox moral tradition to three dimensions of contemporary social life: the world (in the global sense of all humanity), the state, and the nation. 3 Is there any basis for formulating an Orthodox social ethic in terms of these broad, yet very concrete categories? If so, then how uniform and universal is this social ethic and how authoritative for the contemporary faithful who live in vastly different societies and cultures? To what extent can this social ethic speak to the concerns of non-Orthodox living in the same societies, particularly the political, intellectual, and social elites whose influence is so determinative in shaping those societies? These are broad questions that demand nuanced, systematic, scholarly responses. Numerous Orthodox scholars have responded to various aspects of the total picture, but a panoramic, synthetic perspective is still lacking. This chapter represents, therefore, at once an initial systematic foray into

t~s

relatively unexplored

area and the framework of the main argument of the present study. The manner of presentation, it should be noted again, is actually the converse of the method by which I have derived the conceptual scheme. For empirical investigations into the initiatives and responses of the "national" autocephalous Churches, and the imperial Byzantine Church before them, have yielded a more nuanced, case-specific approach than a theologically-based, normative social ethic ordinarily might claim. Nevertheless, in what follows in this chapter we shall presume the theological and ecclesial context of the Orthodox moral tradition as outlined in chapter 2. The unique Orthodox understanding of divine revelation perceived in history and in Christian HeUenism in particular always undergirds the empirical analysis of historical events, trends, thought, and practices. Further, the 58

effort to construct a tripartite social ethical matrix that addresses each of the three macroscopic dimensions of social existence-world, state, and nation-is consciously informed by the five key theological concepts elucidated above. The crux of our argument, therefore, depends on this unusual blend of empirical investigation and moral theological reflection. Before we can construct the social ethical matrix, however, two additional concepts must be introduced.

''TRAJECTORY'' AND ''ANTINOMY'' Even a cursory examination of the history of Eastern Orthodox responses to the dilemmas posed by being "in" the world though not "of' it (John 15: 19) would reveal less than perfect consistency. When individual Christians, even Orthodox Christians, adopt conflicting moral positions, we may simply attribute the disagreement to personal fallibility. But how may we explain the paradox of apparently conflicting moral positions within Orthodox Tradition itself? Such differing moral positions may be situated in broad trajectories through history4-movements of thought and action from initially murky starting points (which themselves stand within previous trajectories) along dynamic historical lines that do not necessarily harmonize well and may seem mutually exclusive. And yet these trajectories may claim more or less solid support in the experienced Tradition of the Church; they reflect attitudes and practices that continue in force. 5 This does not imply an eclectic or loosely synthetic combination of disparate perspectives. For some of these social ethical positions are indeed irreconcilable on the order of reason and, taken together, pose insolvable paradoxes. Here lies the enduring value of the legacy of the formative centuries of the Church. For that legacy is a fundamentally antinomical one replete with paradoxes and "mysteries" that sometimes defy and transcend logical explanation. Fr. Sergius Bulgakov explained the antinomical process of conceptualization as follows:

An antinomy simultaneously admits the truth of two contradictory, logically incompatible but ontologically necessary assertions. An antinomy testifies to the existence of a mystery beyond which human reason cannot penetrate. This mystery never-the-less is

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actualized and lived in religious experience. All fundamental dogmatic definitions are of this nature . . . [T]he paradoxes of faith ... are inevitable, not because the divine reality is self-contradictory, but because when we "objectify" it all our judgments are in some measure falsified . . . There should always be a sense of tension between the two opposite sides of our paradoxes, driving us back to their source in our actual religious experience. 6 The most obvious and most significant antinomy in Orthodox dogmatic theology is the Divine Triad (or "Trinity" in Western parlance): one God in three consubstantial hypostases, or Persons. Perhaps the most obvious moral antinomy was that which allowed for the Christianization of the Roman Empire, resulting in the worldly Byzantine society and the concurrent proliferation of monasticismthe antinomy of "empire and desert," as Fr. Florovsky, the most prolific antinomical theologian in this century, christened it.7 The Orthodox acceptance of such seeming paradoxes, so much at variance with highly rationalistic tendencies in the West, recalls the spirit of the Old Testament book of Job, wherein the protagonist is content at the end of the narrative to accept an experience of theophany in lieu of a rational discursive explanation by God of the reasons for Job's misfortunes. Theophany, indeed, is a powerful, pervasive symbol in the Tradition. So instead of imposing a smoothly homogeneous superstructure, it may be advisable to rest content with the antinomies that leap from the pages of history, while duly noting their complex interrelations. The typical positions for each category of social ethics may be seen as both disparate and somehow reflective of the Church itself, not in a perfect or fixed proportion but with considerable variation according to time and circumstance. Yet this "shifting balance" means that the several types of social ethical expressions "will be in constant and unrelieved tension until the world truly and fully in God's good time becomes the Kingdom of God. "8 The historical record in fact supports this view, beginning in the New Testament era itself By stressing the sometime mystical, suprarational quality of Orthodox Tradition, I do not, however, wish to preclude an attempt to devise a conceptual apparatus that accounts for the diversity of social ethical positions in Orthodox Church history and helps us to get a better handle on the existential dilemmas of the presnt.

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An acknowledgement of antinomy does not necessarily diminish the possibility of a

coherent social ethic. After all, any typology is a heuristic device that tends to oversimplify the real, more messy world of human interaction. Within each of the antinomies that arise in Orthodox moral tradition a normative, or "mainstream, 11 trajectory may be detected that tends to mediate the otherwise dualistic antinomical structure: that trajectory offers, almost dialectically, a tentative resolution of the antipodal positions, without, however, laying claim to an exclusive universality that transcends the particular circumstances of time and place. This mitigating factor keeps us from identifying these normative positions as Hegelian syntheses, since the dialectic I propose here is not so neat or simple (if one can even use these adjectives with respect to Hegel). The fundamentally antinomical character of each typology persists, since the normative positions, as impetfect resolutions, remain in antinomical relation to their antipodes and represent not the only social ethical choices in their respective categories but the best usually of the three basic options. The normative positions are most likely to be useful as bridges between antinomical extremes, keeping the advocates of the latter from denying the moral validity of the opposing position. This mediating role also highlights the significance of the normative positions as the mainstream trajectories in the historical development of Orthodox Tradition. 9 The three typologies that follow represent an attempt to deal with the three fundamental levels of collective social life from the vantage of the moral theology of the Orthodox Churches. Other academic disciplines have lent their concepts and methods. We shall employ a sociological approach to the problem of social ethics on its broadest ecclesiological level-namely, the Church and the world, or humanity on a global scale.

The next sphere of relations in this concentric

scheme-that of Church and state-requires a political perspective. Finally, in order to focus on the smallest of the three units-the nation or ethnic group I 0-an anthropological, or cultural, perspective provides a starting point. For each of these spheres we shall consider a tripartite antinomical typology that includes two antipodal positions plus a third normative trajectory. A sprinkling of historical examples and contemporary Orthodox theologians will illustrate the various types and suggest the dynamic quality of these trajectories (as opposed to Weberian "ideal types"ll). As the starting point of each trajectory, we shall review one or two passages from the New Testament, at the risk of sometimes neglecting their 61

Sitzen im Leben, 12 to highlight both the antinomical nature of Church life from its inception and the dynamic process of social ethical development. The three typologies will, in the aggregate, lead to a three-dimensional matrix for an Eastern Orthodox social ethic.

THREE FUNDAMENTAL TYPOLOGIES A. SOCIOLOGICAL: CHURCH AND WORLD Typological explanations of the various ways that Christian groups have related to the world are a commonplace in Christian theology, both Orthodox and heterodox (or "Western" for short). H. Richard Niebuhr's five-part christological typology gained wide acceptance in the last generation, 13 but the most useful approach is still the classic sociological typology proposed by Ernst Troeltsch. Troeltsch detected three main types of development in Christian thought that were "foreshadowed" from the beginning and occurred alongside one another within the various Christian communities:l4 (1) the "church-type," which accepts the masses and is able to adjust to the world because of the objective "treasures" of grace and redemption; (2) the "sect-type," a voluntary society, a small group of believers apart from the world who emphasize law instead of grace, love within their own circle, and preparation for the coming Kingdom of God; and (3) the "mysticism-type," which represents liturgical and doctrinal ideas "transformed into a purely personal and inward experience" and, as a result, socially lacks a permanent form and an appreciation of the significance of historical Christian traditions and institutions. One Orthodox moral theologian who has utilized this typology is Fr. Stanley Harakas, who cautions, however, that this "triune view of the Church and the world" should not be perceived as a set of competing alternatives but rather as antinomical aspects of a total answer, all three of which are "fluid components ... in a dynamically balanced tension ever-ready to respond to the varying and unique conditions of each time and place in which the Church meets the world." 15 One important modification is, however, in order. Troeltsch's third type does not seem to fit with the others. It represents an individualistic attitude essentially devoid of a social content; it is, in fact, anti-social and can be 62

subsumed under the sect-type.16 Meanwhile, the first type is too inclusive and fails to allow for degrees of acceptance of the world. Accordingly, we shall use the following modified typology: sect-type, worldly-type, and church-type.11

1. SECT-IYPE This reflects a predominantly apocalyptic, separatist view of the Church in the world but having little to do with the world as presently constituted. Scriptural examples of this abound in the New Testament and include, above all, the so-called "synoptic apocalypse" of Jesus (Matthew 24 and parallels) and the book of Revelation, both of which are pervaded by harsh judgment towards the sinful world and threats of violent divine retribution. The Johannine communities on occasion also manifest a tendency in this direction. The Johannine kosmos, as all that is alienated from and at odds with God, is "not of the Father" (1 John 2: 15) and therefore can not be loved. In 2 Corinthians 6: 14-7: 1 a sharply dualistic passage appears suddenly in which St. Paul uses light/darkness and Christ/Belial contrasts, perhaps derived from Qumran, to accentuate the radical separation of believers from unbelievers. That this passage hardly fits well into the pragmatic Pauline tolerance for "the weak" in spirit and for the Gentile world generally is not especially problematic for the present study.

Similarly, the equally fervent

Johannine concern for the salvation of the world should not detract from the significance of the sectarian spirit manifested in 1 John. These New Testament passages, as well as the overtly apocalyptic ones, simply provide the seedbed for one social ethical trajectory. The motivation for this trajectory is a rejection of the world or a substantial portion of it. Ironically, this obtains whether the Church is suffering persecution from a hostile power or is allowed to exert a powerful positive influence in the society. Thus monasticism arose on the Egyptian fringes of the Byzantine Empire and developed into a permanent "resistance movement" in the Christianized empire, even as the Church itself had been an organ of dissidence in the pagan Roman Empire before the Pax Constantini (°Peace of St. Constantine") in A.D.

313.18 To be sure, monasticism at its best is not so much a categorical rejection of the world as it is an eschatological reminder to Christians in society that this aeon

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and this world will pass away, and that the Kingdom of God will be fully established only by God's direct intervention at the eschaton. Similarly, the Orthodox canonical corpus, which features a number of explicit prohibitions against clerics engaging in certain "secular" economic or political pursuits, 19 reflects dual standards pertaining to clergy and laity not as a sectarian rejection of the "secular," for such a sacred/profane dichotomy does not exist in Orthodox Tradition, but rather to safeguard the exalted theotic value of the mysteria celebrated and mediated by the clergy.

Nevertheless, both monasticism and the canons in

question may foster a degenerate reactionary dualism that conceives of the world in strictly negative terms, bereft of God's grace. A reasonable detachment from a world that suffers the effects of sin is the positive social ethical outlook contributed by the sectarian trajectory. This perspective is relevant and sometimes to be recommended when the Church must confront either of two threats: one from a demonic, aggressively hostile political power or cultural environment and the other from too cozy an identification of Church and culture. In the twentieth century the former has proved to be the rule for historically Orthodox peoples in Eastern Europe who suffered for decades under the tyranny of the Soviet Communists and their satellite parties, as well as the Greek Orthodox communities that continue to chafe under Turkish domination or the sporadic pogroms of Muslims in Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East. The opposite danger may arise when the Orthodox Church resorts to the mighty political arm of the state, as it is wont to do in officially Orthodox Greece and has begun in post-Communist Russia, to oppress religious or cultural minorities. At such times prophetic voices ought to remind Church leaders that the Church is not "of' the culture, or the state, or even the nation.

2. WORLDLY-1YPE

This designates a ready, often uncritical acceptance of the terms, or "agenda," of the world for the existence of the Church and defers as a matter of course to the existing structures of a society and its government. This type represents the other antipode in the sociological antinomy. Naturally, there are along this trajectory degrees of worldliness, some more extreme than others. But what social ethical

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positions of this type have in common is the tendency to ignore the latter half of the declaration in Jesus' high priestly prayer (John 17) that His disciples are "in" the world but not "of' the world. The positive value of this perspective is its respect for and appreciation of the created order, particularly man as a creature who retains the image of God and the potential for achieving His likeness despite the Fall of the protoparents. Man and, by logical extension, society and the cosmos are naturally good and worthy of love. The moral thrust of this trajectory may be summarized as follows: it is better to err lovingly on behalf of the world than hatefully against it. Scriptural starting points are difficult to find, perhaps owing to the adversarial relations in the New Testament era between Christians and, on the one hand, the Jewish establishment and, on the other, the Roman imperium. Although estrangement characterized the political relations, the Jewish and Greco-Roman cultures were gradually adopted by the Church and transfigured.

A uniquely

positive disposition toward Rome permeates the Lukan writings. The "salvation history" that St. Luke develops is effectively bracketed by gratuitous references to the reign of Caesar Augustus, the governorship of Quirinius of Syria, the Roman census (Luke 2: 1-3), and the arrival in Rome of the gospel according to St. Paul (Acts 28:16). For St. Luke the reality of Rome dictates the course of the divine economy. Similarly, his narrative of St. Paul on the areopagos in Athens (Acts 17:22-31) is a masterpiece of worldly-type evangelism:

St. Paul attempts, alas

unsuccessfully, to assimilate the divine Christ to the pagan Athenian pantheon epitomized in their statue to "an unknown god." In none of these instances does St. Luke (or St. Paul) seriously compromise the integrity of the gospel message, but one standard of reference for the Christian mission is the given worldly establishment. This quite simply is the worldly-type at its social ethical best.

An acceptance of the world on its own terms may demonstrate a kenotic philanthropia by the Church and its faithful or it may degenerate into moral

blindness to the danger contained in the third temptation of Christ. The less auspicious tendency within this trajectory certainly found fertile ground for much of the present century in the Orthodox Churches in Eastern Europe, where MarxistLeninist socialism reigned supreme. To be sure, there were degrees of compromise, even as the Orthodox Churches varied in their worldliness before the advent of Communist rule. But the assimilation to communism was unprecedented, in65

sofar as the driving force of Soviet communism was an atheistic messianic ideology that proclaimed a ruthlessly secular global vision, which was cosmic in proportion to the parochial nationalisms or petty politics to which the leadership elites of some Orthodox Churches in Eastern Europe formerly pledged allegiance. Typical of that unhappy trend was the bold summons in 1977 to a New Economic World Order by Nicolai A Zabolotsky, professor at Leningrad Theological Academy and member of the staff of the distinctly politically left-wing World Council of Churches. 20

Zabolotsky called for a prudential evaluation of "the

relative worth of the capitalist and socialist paths of development." But he had already professed his faith in the Marxist philosophy of history: "Slavery, feudalism, capitalism, socialism, or communism are all different stages in the development of human society, bringing with them their own particular problems of Christian service. 11 21 That sentiment was a long way from St. Paul in Athens, but I suggest that they share a place on the same worldly-type trajectory. The spirit is essentially the same, even if, by the time Zabolotsky expressed it, it had suffered considerable corruption.

3. CHURCH-TYPE This is by far the most common vision of the normative relations between Church and world and serves as the "mainstream" of sociological-ecclesiological thinking about social ethics in Eastern Orthodox Tradition. This type manifests a limited appreciation of the historical process and stresses the mission of the Church to effect at least a partial transformation of the world, despite its fallen character, in anticipation of the eschatological Kingdom of God. It is an inherently antinomical perspective that recognizes the reality of the Church as basically alien to the world as presently constituted but also affirms the necessity, however difficult, of bridging the chasm. Commissioned by the risen Christ to "make disciples of all nations" (Matthew 28: 19), the Church ought to respond to this divine imperative by striving to convert the world into the Church or, less triumphalistically, to share the foretaste of the heavenly Kingdom with all of the world, while suspecting that this mission will never meet with success. Where this type offers a decided advantage over the worldly-type is in the

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realization of the power of sin in the world. The church-type generally conforms more closely to the divine economy of the Son, the founder and "head 11 of the body of believers, in the central role assigned to philanthropia as a motivating force in relating to the world. The normative quality of this middle trajectory is evident from the outset in the Scriptural witness.

The flip side of Johannine sectarianism is a marvelous

mysteriological-liturgical approach to the cosmos. The frequency of divine descent-ascent motifs and the profoundly epiphanic use of matter as symbols of the immanence of the divine in the created, albeit fallen, world furnish a sound Scriptural starting point for the subsequent development of the Orthodox doctrines of the theosis of man and the transfiguration of the created order in general. The world and all of its darkness may be set against the Church and the "light" of revelation (Christ the Logos breaking into the world-John 1:9; 8:12), but this world is still called by a loving God to be transfigured and set on a new course toward God through His Church; the same God "so loved the world" (John 3:16) that He offered His Son in a free act of philanthropia on a truly cosmic scale. The Matthean and Pauline writings also demonstrate compassion for the world.

St.

Paul offers a uniquely mystico-moral perspective on the crucified Lord who, "reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them"

(2 Corinthians 5: 19), serves as the ultimate source and model of person- and world-transforming askesis: "[H]e died for all, that those who live might live no longer for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised 11 (2 Corinthians 5: 15). Lest there be any hesitation to direct this transfiguration toward the world, the divine imperative appears categorically throughout the gospels for the Church, the "salt of the earth" and "light of the world" (Matthew 5: 13f), the catholic community characterized by sobornost', to "let your light so shine before men" (Matthew 5: 16) that the world may return to the source of all good and perfect things. A classic example of this mediating type is St. Basil's canonical advice to Christian soldiers in the Byzantine Empire. Although St. Basil justified killing in wars, he still imposed the penance of excommunication for three years' duration, for the Church can never offer its unqualified approval to those who undertake such a bloody business.22 The key aspect for us is St. Basil's presumption of the unquestioned necessity of the soldier's profession. His compassion for the world 67

took the form of a qualified endorsement of participation by Christians in a profoundly noble, ascetic, self-sacrificing, even philanthropic act on behalf of the people of the Christian empire. Among contemporary Orthodox theologians, the church-type trajectory has achieved a rather stabilized consensus. In his own Troeltschian typology, Fr. Harakas clearly sets the church-type on center stage and affirms the necessity for "the Christian to contribute to the transformation of the world. 11 23 The antinomical quality of the church-type trajectory appears clearly in the "open attitude" urged by the late Greek theologian, Nikos Nissiotis: Orthodox ecclesiology does not accept the secular order without criticism of injustice. Without separating church and world . . . it allows the church to identify itself with the world, sharing all aspects of family, social and national life, yet on guard against every danger of conformism. The Orthodox ecclesiology can lead the church to a pluralistic solidarity with the suffering, the poor, a nation fighting for its freedom, in which laity and clergy are equally responsible; but not for a moment does the word that it preaches in this situation imply a passive acceptance of the given patterns of economic, social and national life. 24 Similarly, the Russian layman, George P. Fedotov, argued on behalf of "the path of 'condescension."' For the Church to change the social and political is "beyond its power," but the gospel "introduces into the world a new principle of religious sociality which is bound, like the leaven in Christ's parable, to leaven the whole lump. 11 25 Specifically, social reform of the glaring economic inequalities in the world, as urged by St. John Chrysostom and St Basil in fourth century Byzantium, is a primary mission of the Church for the world. This does not condone violence and class hatred, however, for "the only earthly remedy" that the Fathers could prescribe for their time was the moral virtue of almsgiving, which is both transformative and redemptive. 26

B. POLITICAL: CHURCH AND STATE Using the term "political" here to refer to the institutional exercise of power by the governing authorities within a geographic entity, we shall consider a highly

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schematic typology for an Orthodox political ethic. 27

1. SEPARATION-TYPE Separation of church and state, an American hallmark, is a comparatively recent phenomenon. In the history of the Church the only precedent occurred during the first three centuries of its existence, when, having been born into generally hostile Jewish and Roman political environments, the Church had to struggle to persevere under the intermittent persecution of the established authorities. Separation of church and state, which parallels the sectarian trajectory in sociologicaleccesiological practice, seemed necessary as a condition for survival to significant segments of the early Church. Two scriptural passages bear witness to nascent forms of this tradition and serve as origins for the separation trajectory. In Acts 2:44-47 (compare 4:32-37) the infant Church seems to tum inward and establishes its own polity, which includes a political structure headed by the apostles and a vision of pure socio-economic communalism. The larger political and social contexts fade from significance for this self-contained community. The exigencies of life probably led to drastic changes in short order as this community, pummelled by a hostile Jewish establishment, turned to the Gentile world, and the resultant influx of diverse peoples proved the long-term folly of strict separation from the prevalent structures in society.

This social experiment has never been repeated in Eastern Orthodox

Tradition except in the monastic communities, but even the latter are canonically subordinated to diocesan bishops who must deal with "secular" political authority. A more enduring biblical passage is the renowned "render unto Caesar" passage (Matthew 22:20f). This saying may have been little more than a clever evasion of a mischievous trap set by Jewish antagonists ofJesus, but the power of the saying has transcended its original context and provided a basis for· those who would justify some sort of dichotomy between Church and state. The separation trajectory appears most prominently in the works of theologians confronted by the political realities in the United States and the Soviet Union-a strange pairing indeed. In the 1920s, Metropolitan Antony Khrapovitsky refused to recognize the Communists as the lawful rulers of Russia merely because

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they happened to occupy the seats of authority. Since the Church "cannot bless anti-Christian, much less atheistical, politics, 11 Antony and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR) called for non-collaboration and even nonviolent resistance to the Soviet state. His political ethic, however, was conditioned by the nature of the political authority, specifically whether it is Christian or antiChristian. In the case of a Christian state, by which he presumably meant Holy Russia, the Church should "bless" its "political life. 11 28 Another ROCOR bishop, Gregory Grabbe, echoed this statement when he warned of the spiritual danger inherent in the subjection of the Church to "a non-religious state, 11 29 a more inclusive category that would include the United States. A radically different, far more optimistic view of the latter situation comes from Fr. Harakas. 30 And yet the end result of his virtual defense of the American tradition of separation is to place him on the same political trajectory. To be sure, his tone is positive, accepting the conditions of separation, whereas the thrust of the anti-Communist Russians was decidedly negative. Notwithstanding his sincere desire to help the Orthodox Churches to contribute to the political and cultural life of the United States, however circumscribed that contribution may be, Harakas may wax too hopeful when he suggests: "[T]he State can be considered Christian when its inner being is moved by the values, the spirit, the truth and the life of the Church and insomuch as the State permits the Church to act through its faithful as free citizens in a free state," which becomes then "a particular kind of 'Christian State. 111 31 Given the militant secularization trend evident, for example, in the U.S. Supreme Court and the public school establishment, Harakas' proposition that the United States is a "kind" of Christian state is little more than the wishful thinking of Karl Rabner, the late Roman Catholic theologian, about "anonymous Christians" writ large on a political scale. Ecclesiastical self-limitation in conformity with secular political standards is the primary characteristic of the separation-type, whether of the positive supportive variety or the negative reactionary style. Given the current political realities throughout much of the world, this trajectory may be the only realistic political ethic for some Orthodox Churches. 32

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2. COSMOCRACY-IYPE The relations of Eastern Orthodoxy with political structures through most of two millennia of history are usually described as theocratic: a close harmony of Church and state with an underlying religious principle. A better term, however, would be "cosmocratic, 11 insofar as the Church usually found itself in those situations subordinate to the worldly political powers. Even in "Holy Russia," for example, we could say with Ernst Benz that, beginning with the reign of Tsar Peter I, the "last vestiges" of the political freedom and autonomy of the Church were "snuffed out" on the basis of what Fr. Sergius Bulgakov perceived as a Lutheran concept of "the supremacy of the monarch in the Church. 11 33 The earlier Byzantine experience was quite majestic in theory but often dismal in practice as· a genuine theocratic harmony. But one might argue persuasively that the Church had already compromised its moral integrity in A.D. 381, when it allowed, even encouraged, the Emperor St. Theodosios I to issue his proclamation, De Fide Catholica. In that fateful document, the emperor placed the full political power of the Byzantine Empire behind the effort to force Orthodoxy upon the citizenry under penalty of being "completely barred from the threshold of all churches" and possibly exiled from cities as criminals against the theocracy. 34 The concept of the emperor as the political image of God on earth, which Eusebios first formulated in his encomium for St. Constantine, 35 reflected a theological understanding of structure and order in the universe under God's monarchy that owed much to a platonizing tendency in Byzantine thought. This iconic concept gave rise to abuses of imperial power over the ecclesiastical leadership, though never to the extent that the misleading term "caesaropapism" connotes. 36 The "theocracy' that Emperor St. Justinian I legislated in his sixth Novella ostensibly fostered "a happy concord" between the priesthood in its ministry "to things divine" and the imperial authority 11 set over . . . things human," both of which were deemed to "proceed from one and the same source. 11 37 But that only masked the "tragic flaw" in Justinian's theory that Fr. Alexander Schmemann described as the failure of the Roman state "to understand the Church's ontological independence of the world." The Church could not be the "soul" to the empire's "body," for that resulted in a relation "between two authorities, the secular and the

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spiritual, within the state itself" Thus was the Church disembodied, ghettoized, and relegated to the political sidelines as a spectator for "the victorious return of pagan absolutism. 11 38 Despite noble pretensions to a theocratic ethic, the Churches of the Byzantine and Russian empires allowed themselves to endure what were no more than cosmocracies. The cosmocracy-type has roots in the New Testament naturally, and the trajectory that originates there and· progresses through the "theocratic" centuries of Orthodoxy continues to dominate Orthodox political ethics. When St. Paul and St. Peter urge obedience to the "governing authorities" or "emperor" (Romans 13: 1-7; Titus 3:1; I Peter 2:13-17), little do they know, presumably, that their pastoral advice to particular communities confronting peculiar circumstances will be inflated into all kinds of justifications for political conservatism in support of whoever happens to be in power at the time. 39 The submission of the Church to the political structure has become routine for large segments of the Church on the grounds that divine providence is behind the actions of even the most heinous antiChristian rulers as a chastisement for the sins of the Orthodox. Some Orthodox hierarchs and theologians, particularly those in Communist-dominated states, welcomed the rule of atheistic Communists as if they were modern Byzantine or Russian emperors. Perhaps unequaled in his zeal for collaboration was Patriarch Justinian, who reigned in Bucharest from 1948, the year after the Communist takeover, until his death in 1977. Whether sheer sycophancy or genuine adulation, the following passage captures the flavor of the cosmocratic-type at its worst: The wisdom and realism of our state leaders, who interpret in the most perfect way the will of the people, gave us the possibility to create a new legal position of equality, reciprocal respect, and harmonious collaboration among the religious bodies in our country. . . . A perfect and permanent cooperation was set up between our state and the religious bodies .... 40 Even modem Greece, the last supposedly theocratic Orthodox state, is hardly theocratic in the ideal Byzantine sense. The state tends to dominate the inner life of the Church, which is not really surprising for a polity created after the Greek Revolution against Turkey in the 1820s and patterned after the Bavarian Protestant Territorial Church.41 Similarly, most of the Orthodox national kingdoms in the

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Balkans established in the nineteenth century were essentially cosmocratic, inspired by Western European concepts of nationalism and the nation-state.

Thus the

tenacity of the cosmocracy-type of political ethic must be acknowledged even as its relative value may be challenged.

3. SYMPHONIA-TYPE

Before we outline the characteristics of this elusive middle type, it is necessary to address the question of whether an imperial theocracy is essential to an Eastern Orthodox political ethic. The classic view is exemplified in a letter of Patriarch Antony IV of Constantinople dating from around A.D.1395: It is not possible for Christians to have a church and not to have an empire. Church and empire have a great unity and community; nor is it possible for them to be separated from one another. The only emperors that Christians refuse to acknowledge are heretics who have attacked the Church and introduced doctrines that are corrupt and alien from the teaching of the Apostles and the Fathers.42 Fr. Harakas, however, has pronounced the idea of an Orthodox Empire "dead," indicative of a "museum piece mentality. 11 43 Fr. Bulgakov also questioned the dogmatic connection between Orthodoxy and autocratic imperial power and concluded that the place of the emperor as "God's anointed" in the Church is not as essential as the apostolic hierarchy is to the existence of the Church. The royal image of Christ is not a political idea but one "wholly religious," which "may be realized in a democracy, by an elected representative of power, a president, quite as well as by an autocrat. 11 44 It would seem that the precise form of government is not integral to the Orthodox political ethic. After all, the emperor is no more, and while Jesus promises that the gates of hell will not prevail against the Church (Matthew 16: 18), He obviously says nothing about emperors. Indeed, the virtue of prudence and the bitter experience of this century might lead a contemporary Orthodox to agree with Lord Acton about absolute power corrupting absolutely and with the insight of the Protestant theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr: "Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary. 11 45 I would, however, register a caveat: a constitu-

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tional monarch who exemplifies Orthodox morality and spirituality may still offer a

better symbolic political point of reference for the Church than elected officials in a republican system beset with partisan politics. 46 Symphonia has been defined by Fr. Harakas as the principle "according to

which Church and State cooperate as parts of an organic whole in the fulfillment of their purposes, each supporting and strengthening the other without this causing subordination of one to the other. "47 The antinomical quality of this middle trajectory of political ethics is obvious: preserving the independence and sufficiency of the ecclesial and political governmental structures, while not separating the two into spiritual and secular authorities, is no mean feat. In fact, there is no pure manifestation of it in the practice of the Orthodox Church. Scripture is rather silent on this true theocratic possibility, owing undoubtedly to the peculiarly inhospitable political climate during the New Testament era.48 The only passage that may have served as a starting point for this trajectory is St. Paul's magnificent metaphor of the diversity within the Church as the "body" of Christ ( 1 Corinthians 12: 12-31 ). Divine assignment of roles according to function is the underlying principle here as in the theory of symphonia. But the Apostle clearly limits his image to the community of the Church. The classic presentation in Byzantium of the symphonic ideal, which basically remained that, was the Epanagoge ("Introduction") of St. Photios, patriarch of Constantinople in the ninth century during the reigns of Emperors Basil I and Leo IV. St. Photios defined the Christian emperor as "a legal authority, a blessing common to all his subjects, who . . . behaves like an umpire making awards in a game." He must be Orthodox and pious and "is presumed to enforce and maintain" the Holy Scriptures, ecclesiastical doctrine, and the civil laws. But he is bound to follow canon law!49 The patriarch of Constantinople (by this time the only Eastern patriarch free from Muslim domination) is described as "a living and animate image of Christ by deeds and words typifying the truth." His role is to protect and witness for the faith, care for the salvation of the faithful, alone interpret the Church canons, and supervise "all spiritual matters." In terms reminiscent of St. Paul above, St. Photios declared that the emperor and patriarch are "the greatest and most necessary" parts and "members" of the politeia. 50

Several

problems arise with respect to the continued utility of this stage of the symphonia trajectory. The role of the patriarch is too elevated for Orthodox collegial eccle-

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siology and, as British historian Steven Runciman observed, "more suited to a Roman pontiff than to a Byzantine prelate. 11 51 St. Photios also presumed an autocratic emperor and assigned too much of a positive religious role to him. Nevertheless, the principle of symphonia is rooted in Orthodox two-natures christology52 and may not be discarded by the Church without tending toward either of the extremes of separation or cosmocracy. The task ahead for Eastern Orthodox moral theologians who are concerned about the social ethical dangers inherent in those antipodal trajectories is to furnish a political theory in the symphonia trajectory that affirms the necessity of an organic relation between Church and state in countries where Orthodox Christianity is the majority faith (such as Greece, Romania, and Serbia), while safeguarding the religious liberties of nonOrthodox members of the given society. What is called for is nothing less than an antinomical vision of a "democratic theocracy."

C. CULTURAL: CHURCH AND NATION The last typology for an Orthodox social ethic concerns the relation of the Church to the more immediate social communities in which the autocephalous Churches are situated-in short, the problem of nationalism. This term has become the object of considerable scholarly reflection across disciplinary lines. One theorist of political culture, Daniel Elazar of Dartmouth College, has furnished a particularly useful, concise taxonomy of categories pertaining to this essentially modern phenomenon. 53 A nation, he suggests, is a community with a threefold sense of common descent, culture, and territoriality. 54 It should be distinguished from a state, which is a formal political structure, and a public, a less "organic" or close-knit body with a shared community of interests over an extended period of time. The latter category best expresses the shift in the last hundred years or so, particularly in the industrialized Western democracies, from the nation-state to the citizen-state in which all citizens within the territorial boundaries of a political state

share civil privileges and responsibilities and a loose sense of common identity. This contrasts sharply with the ethnicity that has tended to be synonymous with nationalistic sentiment and that derives its special emotive force from the physiological component of the modern nation-a sense of racial or "blood"

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communality among individuals, irrespective of where and under what political and civil circumstances they happen to be living. Applying this cultural-political scheme to the problem of nationalism in Orthodox social ethics, we shall consider three trajectories that parallel those in the previous typologies: ethnos, or nation; public, or citizenry; and people.

1. ETHNOS-TYPE

The Greek word for nation, to ethnos (literally, "a body of men"), seems wellsuited to depict this type with its dual overtones of nationalism and ethnicity in the modern sense. But the Holy Scriptures already provide a solid starting point for this trajectory. The struggle of the early Church over the ethnic question is legendary and has preoccupied Eastern Orthodox theologians in every era.

How necessary was

Jewishness to the Church, and to what extent, if any, could other nations (Greekta ethne) become part of the eschatological Kingdom of God of which a foretaste was possible in the Church? In some sayings of Jesus the priority of Israel as the

chosen People of God is presumed, sometimes in an exclusive sense as in the "lost sheep" passage (Matthew 10:5-7). St. Paul, the preeminent Apostle to the Gentiles, who refers to the Gentiles as "fellow heirs" (Ephesians 3:6) and whose pragmatic evangelism is exemplified in Athens, stresses in a highly problematic section of his most theological epistle the special relation that still obtains between the "chosen" Jewish nation and God and indicates that the Gentiles enjoy only a somewhat secondary status in the plan of salvation (Romans 11).

When the

mother Church in Jerusalem at last decides upon the conditions for admission of Gentiles into the community (Acts 15), the die is cast for a universal, ecclesiastical mission with the nations on a more or less equal basis. The condescending tone of St. James' decision at the Council of Jerusalem, however much of a moral and evangelistic breakthrough the act itself represents, still allows for a sense of ethnic superiority and has served as a formal model for subsequent positions along the ethnos-type trajectory. Ironically, the relative positions of the groups have been reversed, for the Orthodox Churches have tended to regard various Gentile nationalities as normatively Christian and the Jews as beyond the pale (often

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literally, especially in Eastern Europe), ethnically inferior at least, and worthy of condescension at best. In the history of nationalism in the Orthodox Churches the need, as indicated in chapter 2, to distinguish between "ought" and 11 is, 11 or normative ethics and mere historical description, is particularly acute. For the ethnos-type trajectory has been quite pronounced, even normal in the modem era, despite its antipodal place in the antinomical typology for nationalism.

As Bishop Kallistos Ware laments,

"Nationalism has been the bane of Orthodoxy for the last ten centuries. 11 55 But Frs. Meyendorff and Schmemann pointed to the Western romantic type of nationalism since the French Revolution with its excessive emphasis on "native" aspects and the principle of self-determination as the source of the divisive nationalisms that have emerged in the Orthodox Churches in the Balkans. 56 This phenomenon of glorified racial distinction contrasts sharply with the ecumenical trans-national vision of an Orthodox Empire in Byzantium and even in tsarist Russia; it was explicitly condemned as "phyletism" (Greek-e phyletismos, "blood union") by the Synod of Constantinople in 1872 and as "ethnoracism" by Patriarch Joachim of Constantinople in 1904.57 Another cause of Orthodox nationalism of the Balkan variety was the tragic experience of Orthodoxy under the Ottoman Turks after the fall of Byzantium in

AD. 1453. Forced to adapt to the millet system in this Muslim empire, the Balkan Orthodox peoples conquered by the Turks found their nationality officially identified by their Orthodox faith. 58 Since the Turkish political authorities preferred to deal with single administrative leaders for each millet, the chief hierarch of the Orthodox millet, the patriarch of Constantinople, became a virtual ethnarch, a ruler of the Orthodox 11 nation," whose duties included the fiscal, judicial, and political administration of the Orthodox "nation" within the empire. The scope of the patriarch's powers, ironically, was unprecedented even in the last centuries of the Byzantine Empire. This unique political leverage plus the persistent Hellenic chauvinism of the Greeks, among whom the patriarchs were numbered, eventually led to nationalistic reactions by the other historic Balkan communities against the domineering Greeks. Fueled by Western romantic concepts of nationalism, these nationalistic movements retained a vestige of the millet mentality, insofar as they fostered the development of nationalistic Churches, usually after the German statechurch model but self-consciously Orthodox nonetheless.

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The potential of the ethnos trajectory for deviating from the philanthropic spirit of Orthodox Tradition is best illustrated by the development of the "Russian messianic idea" and by episodes in the history of the Romanian Orthodox Church since the beginning of the nineteenth century. In both of these cultures the notion of a national "soul" captivated such otherwise insightful spiritual minds as Fyodor Dostoevsky in Russia and Romanian Bishop Andreiu Saguna in Transylvania. We may advance a persuasive argument for the direct continuity, along the ethnos trajectory, between the Russian messianic idea and, in Nicholas Berdyaev's judgment, "its own inevitable punishment" through degeneration into the internally oppressive and internationally aggressive national communism of Stalin's "socialism in one country. 11 59 Similarly, the virulent mystical nationalism of the Romanian Legion of St. Michael the Archangel, founded by Comeliu Zelea Codreanu in 1927, may be viewed as a manifestation of the ethnos-type trajectory at its worst. 60

2. PUBLIC-TYPE

The other antipode in this antinomy is the cultural trajectory that parallels the worldly and cosmocracy types. Instead of conceiving of the nation in terms of ethnicity or blood union, the public-type proffers the civil society as the standard cultural organizing principle. It tends to defer to whatever political structure and ethnic mix happens to be found within the territorial limits of a given society. Citizenship is the highest cultural social ethical value and is presumed to provide an adequate common identity for the people who claim it. The role of the Church, therefore, consists in supporting the civil authorities and civic culture for the sake of a broader worldly vision than mere ethnic nationalism can tolerate. The starting point for this trajectory is St. Paul's own proud Roman citizenship as related especially in Acts 21:39 and 22:25-29.61 That civic status not only enables him to escape harm on several occasions; it also affords St. Paul a three-fold personal identity in society:

Christian by faith, Jewish by ethnic heritage, and

Roman by citizenship. Likewise Orthodox Christians in the Byzantine Empire could claim a three-fold identity, at least theoretically. As the empire in its last centuries gradually shrank to the environs of Constantinople and Thessaloniki, a

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Hellenizing nationalism began to supplant the supra-national idea of imperial citizenship. The public trajectory was unmistakable in the social ethical positions of several Orthodox hierarchs in the Soviet-bloc countries. For example, in his controversial Declaration to the Soviet authorities in 1927 Metropolitan Sergius of Moscow explicitly recognized the Soviet Union as "our civil fatherland whose joys and successes are our joys and successes" and claimed that the Russian Orthodox could be "faithful citizens of the Soviet Union, loyal to the Soviet government. 11 62 Similarly, in the late, unlamented Communist era of Romania, Metropolitan Antonie Plamadeala (who, though increasingly ill, remains in office in Sibiu, Transylvania), insisted that the Romanian Orthodox Church is "always open to man and centered upon the history of the people it serves" because of "its natural and permanent relation with the people, with the nation which it had accompanied in a permanent ideological, social, and economic movement throughout history." That his concerns were primarily public rather than ethnic is evidenced by his concluding remark that the humanitarian orientation of "our socialist state" encouraged the Romanian Orthodox Church since the inception of that regime to contribute to and support "the building of a new life in our country and the enhancing of the spiritual and material welfare of the whole people. 11 63 Despite the obvious obsequiousness and unhappy political and moral consequences of those views, their proponents were indeed tapping into a legitimate social ethical trajectory. Fr. Stanley Harakas' determined defense of political separation and of the civic culture in the United States also reflects the publictype. 64 This may be the wave of the future in an era of large, pluralistic, multiethnic, even multi-national civil societies such as the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Indonesia, and the emerging European Community. The failure of the polyglot Hapsburg and Soviet empires may be attributed, at least in part, to the oppressive dominance of one nation over the minorities: Russians in the latter and Germanic Austrians (and Magyars in southeastern regions of the Dual Monarchy after 1867) in the former. A genuine public-type social ethic may attempt to make the best of a difficult situation in the complex civil societies that seem to be on the rise in an increasingly mobile world.

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3. PEOPLE-TYPE

One Eastern Orthodox theologian who has called for a revitalization of the biblical image of covenant in Orthodoxy is Metropolitan George Khodre.

Al-

though he has the divine-human covenant in mind, his advice ought to be heeded in terms of an Orthodox cultural social ethic.65 For the normative trajectory since biblical times, albeit not usually the "mainstream" in the actual history of the Church, has been that which exalts the Church as the "People of God" united in the new covenant of Jesus Christ. The New Testament speaks often and eloquently of this unique vision of humanity.

In the Matthean tradition (Matthew 28:19) the risen Jesus Himself

commissions His disciples to take the gospel to all nations on earth. The birth of the Church on Pentecost Sunday represents in St. Luke's account (Acts 2:4-41) a virtual reversal of the adverse consequences for human unity in the Tower of Babel myth (Genesis 11 ). Language and thus national or ethnic diversity are no obstacles for the Spirit of God or the Church in which henceforth He dwells. St. Peter uses Hebraic metaphors to assure the Gentiles that they, too, are "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people"; once they were "no people" but now they are "God's people" (1 Peter 2:9t). The "People of God" therefore knows no ethnic bounds. To underscore this universality, St. Paul proclaims to the Galatians in a magnificent, often-cited passage that through their baptism they, too, are "sons of God, through faith" in Christ: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3 :26-28). Among contemporary Eastern Orthodox theologians, two in particular, one Greek and one Bulgarian, have stressed the supra-national character of the Church as the People of God, which cannot be subordinated to any ideas of nation or public. Fr. Ioannes Karmiris points to the historic Orthodox principle of ecclesiastical organization: the local Church, whatever its familiar name, is based on geography and not nationality per se, so there ought not to be nations within a nation, as it were, or any elect, chosen, or "superior" nations among the many that claim Orthodoxy for their faith. The relation of Church to nation and state is "akin to that of the soul toward the body"-a familiar Byzantine simile. For Karmiris that means that the Church "pursues as its policy one that guides all people,

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nations, and states toward God, and unites, transfigures, and transforms them all into one 'people of God. 111 66 Stefan Zankov enunciated a similar vision in the 1930s, when the Bulgarian Church dwelled within an Orthodox kingdom. From a classic teleological perspective, he suggested that the highest end of a nation, as well as a person, is to seek God. That pilgrimage results in an "inner transformation" from a "kingdom of the natural and historical into the kingdom of the supernatural" as "one catholic whole" in union with others. Since the Church "is in itself non-material, transcendent, of divine origin, a divine-human being, 11 it ought to lead to God the nation in which it finds itself and "to make all peoples sons of God. 11 The Tradition may be adapted to each national context, but there ought to be no attempt to transform the "essence of Christianity," or the organic core of Tradition. Thus Zankov preserved the antinomical structure of the peopletype trajectory. 67 This antinomical trajectory actually requires that the Church walk a moral tightrope between identifying too easily with ethnic groups and ignoring them entirely in favor of a looser bond with the civil society in the modern state. A balance may be achieved, however, by focusing on both nations and citizenries as potential peoples of God. For any such social group consists in persons who, in a real sense, are the only moral agents capable of making social ethical decisions. It is human persons created by God, not institutions created by man, who are the object of the divine economy. Indeed, the people-type trajectory entails the cultural social ethical direction most harmonious with fundamental Orthodox moral theology. The theotic transfiguration of persons into the People of God, which transcends all social categories; the ascetic sublimation of our ethnic heritage to a more encompassing, other-directed identity; the philanthropic love that motivates us to foster synergistically the incorporation of all peoples into Christ; the liturgical piety of the People of God that insists on no social prerequisite-other than the status of sinner-for the "holy mysteries" that unite all organically with God; other than the status of sinner; the truly universal sobornost' implied in the peopletype that allows for no national or social captivity of the Church: all of these theological aspects reveal the true richness and normative value of the people-type trajectory of cultural social ethics in Orthodox Tradition.

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TRAJECTORIES FOR WAR AND PEACE For convenience, the three typologies for an Eastern Orthodox social ethic are summarized schematically in Figure 2 below: TYPES

WORLDLY

CHURCH

SECT

POLITICAL

COSMOCRACY

SYMPHONIA

SEPARATION

CULTURAL

PUBLIC

PEOPLE

ETH NOS

SOCIOLOGICAL

Figure 2: SOCIAL ETIIlCAL MATRIX

This chart illustrates the intricate relations that obtain among all the types in one matrix. The types in each vertical column are closely related as moral approaches to the various concentric dimensions of social life. The middle column contains the "mainstream" for an Orthodox social ethic, insofar as it attempts an antinomical resolution of the antipodal types. The left-hand column reflects an antipodal trend more radically inclined toward accommodation to the world and the givenness of the geographic, social, and political contexts of the Orthodox Churches, whereas the right-hand column reflects a more anti-world antipode that restricts the vision and activities of the Church. By no means, however, has the middle or "mainstream" set of trajectories been uniformly dominant in the history of the Eastern Orthodox Churches. In fact, it would be difficult to specify a unified social ethic in their collective history that ever conformed perfectly to this set of middle trajectories. Turning now to our primary focus, we may posit three fundamental positions on the moral problem of war and peace, as enumerated by Christians, whether Eastern or Western, throughout the nearly two millennia of our respective histories. These are most aptly described as "holy war" or "crusade," "just war" or "justifiable war," and "pacifism. 11 68 Although only the first of these might appear

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to enjoy a unique religious motivation, the others, in fact, are also often grounded in religious, as well as secular, thought and experience. Within the unique Eastern Orthodox moral tradition, moreover, these three fundamental positions may be viewed as particular applications of the three sets of social ethical trajectories elucidated in this chapter. Specifically, the following relations would appear to obtain, as illustrated in the flow chart in Figure 3 below:

WAR I PEACE TRAJECTORIES

SOCIAL ETHICAL TYPES

SECT - SEPARATION - ETH NOS --+ PACIFISM CHURCH - SYMPHONIA - PEOPLE --+ JUSTIFIABLE WAR WORLDLY - COSMOCRACY - PUBLIC --+ HOLY WAR Figure 3: A MATRIX FOR WAR AND PEACE

The third trajectory-"holy war"-is problemmatic from an Orthodox historical or moral perspective. What appears to differentiate the "war ethic of the crusade," as Protestant theologian Edward LeRoy Long, Jr., labels it, from the "justifiable war" trajectory is its explicitly religious content and lack of reasonable restraint. Long proposes four specific features: (1) religious motivation as the justification for military action; (2) the soldier's task is esteemed often to the point of effecting "extrinsic religious rewards";

(3) an erosion of restraints against

hostility toward the enemy; and (4) an absolutist spirit that mitigates discriminating judgments about involvement in and conduct of war.69 David Little of the U.S. Institute of Peace captures the extremism of this trajectory as follows: "opponents in a holy war or crusade tend to regard each other as cosmic enemies with whom compromise is improbable. 11 70 In short, "holy war" entails a religious extremism knowing no bounds on either means or ends. Though shrouded in religious language or the quasi-religious language of modern ideological movements such as Nazism and communism, the unrestrained quality of this kind of human enterprise from time immemorial was described best perhaps by Carl von Clausewitz as "total war"-literally whatever it takes to achieve the desired end of compelling the enemy to do one's will-in 83

contrast to "real" or political war, which consists in the "continuation of political activity by other means," with a reasonable proportionality of violent means to political ends.71 Clausewitz's terminology is especially fitting here. For the ostensibly "religious" motivation of the "holy war" certainly provides an unreal dimension to the sheer carnage and destructiveness in total war. The judgment of another classic strategist on this point cannot be gainsaid. In The Art of War, the seminal work that fueled the strategic thinking of both sides of the American Civil War, Baron de Jomini opined, "Religious wars are above all the most deplorable. 0 72 Although the history of Eastern Orthodoxy is checkered in this respect, it is safe to discard the holy war trajectory as non-normative in Orthodox moral tradition. It was an Orthodox emperor in Constantinople, Theodosios I, who in AD. 381, as indicated above, established the Church of the Nicene faith on an exclusive basis in the Roman Empire and thus commenced the intrusive role of the state in the minds and souls of free Christians, not to mention formerly free Roman citizens. 73 Although the "holy war" ethic never captured the imagination of the Byzantine Orthodox East, Eusebios' controversial encomium to St. Constantine the Great exulted the emperor's military conquests and forcible conversions of those who "defied God." As early as the fourth century, therefore, a uniquely Christian theological/spiritual foundation was laid for the forcible,

offensive extension of

Church and Kingdom by the ostensibly Christian civil authority. 74 Fortunately from a moral standpoint, this nascent crusader mentality, which in the West was nurtured and blossomed into full-blown aggression in the anti-Donatist crusade in the fourth century75 and later in the so-called Crusades to retrieve the Holy Land from Muslims, erupted only in isolated incidents and movements in the Orthodox Christian East. Sometimes those movements characterized the entire reign of a Byzantine emperor such as St. Justinian the Great.

His Pyrrhic anti-heresy

crusades in the sixth century sought to eradicate every trace of the various heretical sects such as the Montanists and of non-Christian communities such as the Samaritans in Palestine.76 Crusades sometimes arose when powerful leaders were stirred by religious vengeance or a desire for absolute uniformity of religious expression. An example of the former is the vengeful "holy war" against the brutal Persian invaders of Palestine waged by the Byzantine Emperor Heraclios from AD. 622 to 630. 77 The most massive movement of fratricidal Orthodox perse84

cution was the internal conflagration that erupted in Russia in the seventeenth century, when Patriarch Nikon of Moscow attempted to extirpate the "Old Believer" schism. 78 Also possibly falling under the category of "holy war" are the occasional military ventures to liberate captive Orthodox nations in the Balkans from the Islamic Turkish yoke, beginning with the ill-fated "Insurrection of St. Sava" in 1593, which was "directly stimulated" and formally blessed by Serbian Orthodox Patriarch Jovan JI,79 and the equally star-crossed rebellion of Michael the Brave of Romania in A.D. 1595 on behalf of the anti-Turkish "Holy League" headquartered in Vienna. so These feeble attempts at liberation finally succeeded on a grand scale in the nineteenth century as one Orthodox nation after another achieved national independence, invariably through some combination of military force and diplomatic negotiations.

The Serbs, for example, launched their "Second

Insurrection" in a little more than a decade on Palm Sunday, April 23, 1815, at the Serbian Orthodox Church in Takovo, where Milosh Obrenovich announced the beginning of war against the Turks81 with full clerical blessing.82 Similarly, the Greek War of Independence, which commenced in 1821, was regarded by the majority of Greek revolutionaries "as a holy war against Islam. 11 83

Although

successive Patriarchs of Constantinople, Gregorios V and Evgenios II, disavowed the rebellion against Turkish rule and excommunicated its supporters, 84 Bishop Germanos of Old Patras "raised the standard of revolt at the monastery of St. Lavra 11 85 on March 25, 1821, and personally assisted in the military capture of his city from the Turks. Meanwhile, numerous village priests in the Peloponnesos entered the ranks of the burgeoning Greek army.86 Finally, in the twentieth century, while "holy war" virtually has vanished from the vocabulary of the Christian West save perhaps for Northern Ireland, occasional instances of it have infused the public pronouncements of admittedly dubious "Orthodox" leaders. The Romanian Legionary Movement has been cited above as an example of the ethnos-type cultural trajectory at its worst.

In the present

context this movement also serves to illustrate the moral pitfalls of a fanatical "holy war" against imaginary enemies (the Jews) of a mythical people (the

11

new11

Romanians). The self-styled "Great Patriotic War" of the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany is another rare case of an Orthodox leadership overcome by an excessive crusader mentality.

The sycophantic hyperbole of Russian Orthodox 85

Metropolitans Sergius of Moscow, Alexei of Leningrad, and Nikolai of Kiev transmuted what might have been regarded at best as a justifiable war, albeit in defense of a morally unworthy regime, into an intemperate, racist, idolatrous crusade against the "German vermin" by "our glorious" and "God-protected" soldiers fulfilling their "sacred duty" to the motherland.87 While these sporadic crusades may have paled in comparison to the superior organization and intellectual underpinnings of the far more developed and widely-attested "holy war" tradition in Western Europe, the isolated Eastern Orthodox practice of "holy war," nevertheless, has matched its senior Western counterpart in self-righteous perversity. The few examples cited above are, however, the exceptions that prove the rule. As Nicholas Oikonomides concludes confidently, Byzantium "never knew a real 'holy war,"' and the Church refrained from blessing any killing as a "laudable act," from granting remission of sins to Orthodox warriors for their military service, or from recognizing fallen warriors ipso facto as martyrs-all of which were key features of the Islamic jihad and Western crusade. 88 The Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas (+ AD. 969) did push the Church to proclaim that at least some wars could be "spiritually meritorious," but the patriarch of Constantinople and the other bishops refused to countenance this prospect.89 Neither the presence of priest-chaplains nor the frequency of religious devotions in the army ought to cloud the issue. Since at least the time of St. Sabbas, whose father tried to recruit him for the military around AD. 460, chaplains conducted daily matins and vespers and heard confessions and provided the holy mysteries to soldiers before battle. 90

But even that enviable, overt piety did not degenerate into the kind of

religious fanaticism associated with holy war. The Byzantines maintained a proper perspective on war as something unholy.

An anonymous treatise on military

strategy dating from the reign of St. Justinian the Great (+ AD. 565) conceded that "war is a great evil and the worst of all evils"; unlike their enemies, "who clearly look upon the shedding of our blood as one of their basic duties and the height of virtue," the Byzantines resorted to war for defensive reasons alone, 91 certainly not, as George T. Dennis observes, as "a means of expansion and exploitation, a demonstration of one's superiority, or a contest which would bring the players glory and renown. 11 92 Angeliki Laiou of Harvard's Dumbarton Oaks Library recently delivered the coup de gras to the idea of holy war in Byzantium. The key difference between 86

holy war and justifiable war, she contends, is the legitimate authority. As the first Crusade against the Muslims in the Holy Land in A.D. 1095 demonstrated, holy war must be proclaimed by the Church, especially in the absence of a strong imperial presence. But in the Byzantine east, the emperor was the only legitimate authority capable of waging war; there was usually little danger of an imperial justifiable war sliding into an ecclesiastical holy war. Laiou points to a magnificent irony: in Byzantium the role of a strong emperor precluded holy war, while in the West, the absence of a legitimate emperor encouraged the papacy to fill the vacuum and even promulgate crusades!93 Lacking the historically and theologically consistent and hence normative role of a trajectory as required by the essentially antinomical Orthodox social ethic, "holy war" may not be considered a full-fledged trajectory and hence a viable moral option for Orthodox Christians in America or elsewhere. Regarding the moral problem of war and peace, the Eastern Orthodox Churches may claim only a dual instead of tripartite social ethic-the "justifiable war" and "pacifist" trajectories. Between these two moral options the essential social ethical antinomy remains, albeit a little more simplified than one might nonnally expect by now in light of the tripartite typologies presented in this chapter. Of the two viable moral options, the "justifiable war" trajectory is far more readily recognized in the historical experience and moral theology of the Orthodox Churches. With deep roots in the Old Testament military heritage of ancient Israel-a developing tradition that eventually imposed severe limits on the scope and means of Israelite military ventures-this trajectory is evident everywhere and at all times in Eastern Orthodoxy as the mainstream social ethical trajectory for the moral problem of war and peace. In the New Testament, concessions to empire and military defense seem, at least, to emanate from the epistles of St. Paul and St. Peter and from occasional utterances of St. John the Baptizer and the Lord Himself Patristic support is afforded preeminently by St. Clement of Rome, St. Irenaios of Lyons, Clement of Alexandria, the early Tertullian, Origen, St. Cyprian of Carthage, Minucius Felix, the later Lactantius, Aphraat the Syrian, St. Basil the Great, St. John Chrysostom, Synesios of Cyrene, St. Ambrose of Milan St. Augustine of Hippo, and St. Isidore of Pelusium. This represents a fairly even balance of Eastern and Western Church Fathers, although the most enduring 87

legacy for all of Western Civilization is the contribution of the great Latin doctor, St. Augustine. 94 His reflections on war and peace are noteworthy for their sheer volume, as well as their unsurpassed balance and nuance in the patristic era. Other Byzantine-era saints who endorsed war, at least on occasion, include St. Photios the Great, whose letter to the Khan Boris-Michael of Bulgaria in the late ninth century assured him that bravery in battle adorns a good ruler (though not as much as kindness toward his subjects), and St. Theophylactos of Ochrid, whose prudential advice for princes around A.D. 1085 urged that they, "while making peace, practice for war, exercising yourself constantly in preparation for every type of warfare. 95 The latter counsel may ring a proverbial bell for Americans familiar with the memorable dictum of President George Washington that the best way for a nation to preserve the peace is to prepare for war. The other sources of Orthodox moral tradition also contribute significantly to the justifiable war trajectory. The canonical corpus furnishes three complex-but frequently cited-rules for restraint in the justifiable military defense of one's community by laymen: canon 12 of the First Ecumenical Council, canon 1 of St. Athanasios, and canon 13 of St. Basil the Great. St. Basil's pithy remarks, in particular, epitomize the moral anguish and hesitancy even of those Orthodox teachers who would sanction war under certain circumstances. Hagiographic examples of military heroes. and heavenly protectors in battle abound, ranging from encomiums and vitae of St. Michael the Archangel St. Demetrios. St. Andrew Stratelates, and St. Sergius ofRadonezh to vitae of warrior princes in Orthodox cultures as far ranging as Serbia, Norway. France. and Russia. Perhaps the most notable of these royal warriors was St. Alexander Nevsky (+A.D .. 1263). His Solomon-like wisdom enabled him to oppose, by military might, the invading Swedes and Teutonic Knights from the West, while refraining from arms and even humbling himself before the vastly superior forces of the Mongol Golden Horde. 96 Orthodox devotional literature includes frequent liturgical petitions for the government and armed forces of Christian empires (and, mutatis mutandis, for the modern nations in .which Orthodox happen to dwell), a memorial service for Orthodox warriors, and hymnographic texts that extoll the military prowess of various saints or the heavenly intervention of patrons such as the Apostle Andrew and the Theotokos herself on behalf of beleaguered Orthodox armies. Among 88

modern theologians and religiously-oriented litterateurs, the recent patriarchs of Moscow. Metropolitan Antony Khrapovitsky, the great Russian novelist and Nobel laureate. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and Fr. Stanley Harakas, to name a few,

have advocated "justifiable war" in one form or another. Given the greater familiarity of Orthodox and non-Orthodox readers with this trajectory and a skeletal outline of its contemporary Orthodox expression that I have provided elsewhere,97 the second part of the present study will focus exclusively on the "pacifist" trajectory in Orthodox moral tradition.

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Chapter 4

PACIFISM IN WESTERN ETHICS The friendly portrayal of American Quaker pacifists in the 1956 feature film "Friendly Persuasion" is rare by Hollywood standards. When a Union Army colonel appeals to a Quaker meeting to allow the young men in that community to defend their Indiana farmlands against Confederate raiders, Eliza Birdwell, one of the ministers, responds with a self-confident but by no means arrogant assurance: "We Quakers are opposed to slavery. But we cannot free one man by killing another." When his first-born son decides to break with his pacifist upbringing and join the local pro-Union militia and is reported missing in action, Eliza's husband Jesse Birdwell, underplayed to perfection by the inimitable Gary Cooper, grabs his rifle to search for him. In the film's climactic scene, Jesse confronts a rebel faceto-face, who does not hesitate to shoot at him. But Jesse's courage in the face of fire propels him forward. He manages to overpower the soldier, but, remaining true to his pacifist principles, he refrains from lethal violence and allows the man to depart unharmed. It is a glorious display of non-violence in action. More typical of Hollywood's depiction of pacifists is another film starring Gary Cooper: "Sergeant York." This 1941 film is based on the true story of an east Tennessee farm boy who abandons his pacifism, joins the American doughboys in the First World War, and single-handedly kills or captures dozens of

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Germans in one skirmish, earning for himself more medals than any other U.S. soldier in that war. But "Sergeant York" is an example of Hollywood when it wishes to be merely patronizing toward pacifists and pacifism. In American popular culture pacifists are viewed by and large as impractical, morally inconsistent, self righteous, even self-serving free riders. The terms "pacifism" and "pacifist" were coined as late as 1902 by a Frenchman at an international peace conference as an antidote to the "militarism" that viewed non-violent peacemakers as cowards and traitors. As the historian Charles Chatfield explains, it was a defensive move to oppose "their own kind of international, peaceful patriotism" to the jingoistic, militaristic version then in vogue. By the close of the First World War, however, the term "pacifist" was reduced to a dishonorable epithet in the hands of the same militarists, particularly in the United States and Great Britain. I In the aftermath of the decisive victory of the Americans, British, and French on the Western Front, non-violence, nonresistance, and other expressions of anti-militarism seemed unnecessary and even absurd. The victors in the "Great War," as it soon came to be widely known, simply dictated the terms of "peace" to the losers, particularly Germany. Peace meant what the Western powers said it was, and that certainly had nothing to do with pacifism. In the long history of Western Civilization before and since that pivotal world war, peace has been as elusive to define conceptually as it is to describe in practice. It is an ostensibly universal longing of mankind, but a surprisingly rare state in the lives of human individuals and communities, including tribes, nations, cultures, civilizations, or "heavenly kingdoms" on earth. Nor is the history of the Eastern Orthodox Churches resplendent with moral behavior that comports with the ideals of peace. Nevertheless, those ideals still constitute the necessary starting point for any serious moral reflection on the possible recourse to and conduct of war by Orthodox communities. "Peace" is the moral standard by which all human social interaction must be judged. So it is imperative that we attempt to formulate a reasonable definition or, to be sure, set of definitions, before exploring how Roman Catholic and Protestant Christians in the West have articulated their versions of pacifism.

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A CONTINUUM OF PEACE "Peace" may be difficult to define, precisely because it is, like "love," such a complex concept, richly textured with multiple levels of meaning. We shall examine five of those levels, which form, more or less, a continuum of concepts of peace.

A. ABSENCE OF WAR Dictionaries usually offer a simple negative definition-"the absence of war"-as the first entry under "peace. 11 Even the sophisticated A Dictionary of

Political Thought by Roger Scruton resorts to what Sr. Marilyn McMorrow, RSCJ, dismisses as an inadequate "residual category" by proposing the inverse of war as the most immediate meaning of peace. 2 But the ways in which this state of affairs is conceptualized have varied considerably in the history of Western Civilization. Three main types appear most frequently. (1) The ancient Greek notion of eirene referred to the interlude between stages of what was otherwise continuous war among the city-states or between Greece and foreign invaders such as the Persians. Preeminently "a state of rest,"

eirene occurs infrequently in the writings of the ancient Greeks. 3 The conjunction of this term with the Stoic favorite ataraxia ("freedom from passion" or "calmness"4) by Epictetus, the first century philosopher-slave, was perpetuated in the emphasis of the later Byzantine Greek Orthodox on peace as apatheia, or the passion-less state that obtains when the soul or spirit is at rest and focused on the presence of God. (2) Peace by conquest, to use Roland Bainton's apt phrase, 5 was the chimera pursued by the idealists in ancient Rome beginning in the Augustan Age. Whereas Virgil, for example, envisioned a divine-like Augustus who would bestow on willing subjects the laws of Rome and bring peace to all peoples,6 the Pax Romana was designed instead to usher in an era of security in accordance with Roman law and enforced by Roman military might. Under this set of conditions, echoed in more recent history as the Pax Brittanica, Pax Americana, and Pax Sovietica, to name only three variations, peace might be better termed "pacification." Peace as

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the absence of war due to pacification of whole peoples also loomed large in the best political thinking within the Orthodox "empires" of the Byzantines, Serbs, and Russians. (3) The absence of war usually is taken for granted in grand utopian visions of human community. Perhaps the "utopian" dream of peace with the greatest longevity and most devastating impact in modem times is the Marxist-Leninist vision of the dictatorship of the proletariat-the total "peace" of communism. In the final eschatological age, according to this ideology, 7 when the socialist state that displaced capitalism withers away, all class warfare and interpersonal conflicts will cease, no worker will be alienated from the product of his labor or exploited by others, and universal harmony will prevail as each worker enjoys the aesthetic fruit of his own labor. Any wars conducted by "the oppressed and exploited" peoples of the world, to use Vladimir Lenin's phrase, 8 are mere preludes to what Mao Tse-Tung envisioned as "the era of perpetual peace. 11 9

B. UNIVERSALBROTHERHOOD Despite its acidic ideological flavor, the Communist vision of peace may, if only in the eyes of its proponents, reach beyond the mere absence of war to a genuine state of universal brotherhood or human harmony. That category, however, is more appropriate for the ethical views of peace propounded by the most famous religious humanist in nineteenth century Russia, Lev Tolstoy, and the supreme ethical rationalist in eighteenth century Germany, Immanuel Kant. Tolstoy's literary legacy may be better described, after W. B. Gallic, as "antimilitarist" than "effective pacifist. 11 10 For his view of peace was the naive optimism of a simplistic liberal pacifist, neither persuasive to the non-believer nor demonstrably efficacious in the history of Western Civilization. In his "Address to the Swedish Peace Congress in 1909," the year before his death, Tolstoy proposed the self-evident truth of the peace of non-violence, or the repudiation of "murder" defined as killing one's fellow man "in any circumstances or under any pretext. 11 11 This truth would prove "irresistible" when it is proclaimed in word and deed "without compromise, concession, or modification" not only by Christians, among whom Tolstoy numbered himself though not without serious objections by other

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Christians, but by "all reasonable men," or those "guided by the reason and conscience with which they are endowed. 11 12 Indeed, peace for Tolstoy was, as he observed earlier in his personal testimony, My Religion, "the ideal of human life existing in every human heart." 13 He envisioned a universal brotherhood of man, "the kingdom of God upon earth, 11 a "peace that is all-pervading, inviolable, and eternal," which depends on the personal efforts of men to practice what he perceived as the five commandments of the doctrine of Jesus Christ.14 These "commandments" mandate that one love his brethren as equals, become reconciled with them, and avoid various temptations that might disrupt this hannony. Tolstoy's view of peace, though blurry on the means to achieve this goal, was generally harmonious, ironically, with the ideals of the Russian Orthodox Church, which he had unceremoniously abandoned and which had so ceremoniously returned the favor. The Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church excommunicated Tolstoy in 1901 for renouncing the Church and her doctrines and particularly for his egregious mockery of the Orthodox sacraments and priesthood in the novel Resurrection, which was published in 1899. And yet the peace of universal forgiveness and reconciliation so beautifully

portrayed by Fyodor Dostoevsky through the characters Zossima and Alyosha in The Brothers Karamazov shared Tolstoy's pacific inspiration, if not his shrill, ideological impatience with conventional religious institutions and individuals. Kant's concept of "perpetual peace" was, like the whole of his ethics, grounded in the principle of the "categorical imperative." In his Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals he defined this principle generally as never acting "except in such a way that I can also will that my maxim should become a universal law. 11 The practical expression of this principle entails treating one's own person and other persons "never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end." 15 Persons are autonomous beings who enjoy a natural right to be left alone to chart their own courses in life. If someone wishes to sacrifice himself for others, he may choose to do so, but no one may so choose for him. Unless a person forfeits his right against interference from others, it is absolutely wrong to hann him in any way.16 On this foundation of non-interference, which was not really tantamount to absolute pacifism, Kant elucidated his vision of a perpetual peace among nations in a treatise by the same name.17 Although he shared a Hobbesian view of war as the 95

state of nature, Kant condemned war as "only a regrettable expedient for asserting one's rights by force within a state of nature, where no court of justice is available to judge with legal authority. 11 18 The thrust of the treatise was to outline how "a federation of peoples," or "a pacific federation" of nations, might formally and legally institute a state of peace.19 This vision of "a universal community" based on republican constitutions would entail an understanding that "violation of rights in one part of the world is felt everywhere. 11 20 Thus peace for Kant was the categorical imperative writ large. To strive for the peace of mutual human respect and autonomy was nothing less than "a pure concept of rightful duty" unencumbered by concern for the benefits or happiness that may or may not accrue to the state that fulfilled that duty.21

C. WELL-BEING OF THE C01vllv1UNITY If the Kantian case for peace provides a formal dimension to the concept of peace as a characteristic of ideal communal relations, the use of the Hebrew term

shalom in the Old Testament furnishes the material content.

In broad strokes,

shalom describes a state of well-being, wholeness, or even salvation among persons as individuals or in community, particularly the community of the people of Israel. Shalom refers, however, far more frequently to groups and consequently is, as Gerhard von Rad contends, "an emphatically social concept. 11 22 Several levels of peace as shalom are present simultaneously in the Old Testament:23 (1) Political security or an agreement of non-violence (2 Kings 20: 19 and

Deuteronomy 20: 10-12); (2) Material or physical well-being, as in the personal well-being wished others (Exodus 4: 18 and Psalms 128: 6), the health of individuals, ( 1 Kings 22: 17 and Isaiah 38: 17), or the economic prosperity of the nation (1 Chronicles 4:40 and Zechariah 8:12); (3)

The antithesis of wickedness, or the effect of righteousness (Psalms

34:14 and Isaiah 32:17); (4) The fruit of the covenant relation between God and Israel, which restores everlasting harmony to that relation (Ezekiel 37:26 and, conversely, Jeremiah 16:5);

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(5) The gift or blessing of God (Yahweh) such as rest and prosperity in the promised land (Psalms 85:8-12 and Leviticus 26:6); (6) An eschatological expectation of a final state of eternal communal harmony, a promise of the divine salvation of Israel from the nations, when the latter will no longer learn war (Micah 4: 1-4 and Isaiah 2:2-4), and justice and righteousness will prevail instead (Isaiah 32:16-18) under the rule of a humble king (Zechariah 9:9-10) or a peaceful messiah (Isaiah 9:6-7).24 Some of these usages have been perpetuated in the Orthodox moral tradition, especially the liturgical blessings in dialogue form as found in the Orthodox liturgies ("Peace be with you"). Noticeably lacking in the several uses of shalom in the Old Testament, however, is any clear meaning of personal or inner spiritual serenity.

D. SPIRITUAL SERENITY In the New Testament the same Greek word used by the non-Christian Hellenes to designate the absence of war, eirene, rose to a new level of religio-mystical meaning as the "peace of God, which passes all understanding" (Philippians 4:7).

In its New Testament stage eirene possesses a positive spiritual content:

"salvation in a deeper sense" than anything remotely like it in the use of shalom in the Old Testament. At least four levels of spiritual experience are touched by

eirene.25 (1) An ordinary secular use of eirene in the classical Greek manner as the absence of war or strife appears, for example, in 1 Corinthians 14:33, where peace is the normal state of orderly fellowship from which the contentiousness over prophecy has sidetracked the Church in Corinth, and in Luke 12:51, where peace refers to harmonious familial relations. (2) As peace with God and within the human community, eirene implies the healing or reconciliation of all interpersonal relations. In Ephesians 2: 14-17 peace denotes the reconciliation between Jews and Gentiles, whose erstwhile mutual antagonisms have ceased, thanks to Christ Jesus. Romans 14: 17 paints a vivid picture of the Kingdom of God as more than mere eating and drinking among the faithful; it consists instead of righteousness, peace, and joy among those who

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serve Christ. Similarly, in Matthew 5:9 Christ Himself reserves His blessing to "the peacemakers" (oi eirenopoioi) who settle disputes between contending parties.

(3) Peace also describes the restored relation between God and man, or man's eschatological salvation, which is already present as the power of God. In 1 Thessalonians 5 :23 peace entails the salvation of the whole man, body and soul. Men have this through Christ (Romans 5: 1), so peace is the new life in Christ that one obtains by setting "the mind on the Spirit" rather than the flesh (Romans 8:6) and that rules in the heart of the new creature in Christ (Colossians 3:15). But this peace is ultimately a gift from Christ and is linked to the presence of the Holy Spirit bequeathed upon the disciples directly by Christ (John 14:15-29; 20:19-22). (4) Finally, the New Testament assigns a unique Christian value to eirene as the spiritual serenity or peace of soul of distinct persons apart from the collective society, which transcends even the most profound meanings of shalom in the Old Testament. In Galatians 5:22 peace is one of "the fruits of the Spirit" for faithful followers of Christ. Philippians 4:7 assures the Christians that the "the peace of God" will keep their hearts and minds properly focused on Christ. In John 14:27 Christ offers the gift of spiritual peace to assuage the fear and uncertainty of His disciples. The "joy and peace in believing" is the keynote in Romans 15: 13. This spiritual peace can not be achieved by political or military means, nor can it be coerced, taken, built, arranged, negotiated, taught, or discovered by chance. It is found only within the human spirit created in the image and likeness of God and is known only through prayer to the God of peace. As St. Paul advised and the Eastern Orthodox moral and spiritual tradition has stressed in unbroken continuity, "Have no anxiety about anything but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God" (Philippians 4:6).

E. THE TRANQUILLITY OF ORDER The Latin genius for precision, taxonomy, and system expanded the concept of peace in a way that combined the best elements of the eschatological communal well-being promised in shalom and the personal spiritual serenity guaranteed by

eirene in the New Testament. What George Weigel has labelled the "Catholic

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tradition of moderate realism" has been thoroughly grounded in "the peace of dynamic, rightly ordered political community. 11 26 But this tradition is not the province of Rome alone. St. Augustine of Hippo first proclaimed peace as tranquil/itas ordinis ("the tranquillity of order") in his classic early fifth century work, The City of God: The peace of body and soul is the duly ordered life and health of a living creature; peace between mortal man and God is an ordered obedience, in faith, in subjection to an everlasting law; peace between men is an ordered agreement of mind with mind; the peace of a home is the ordered agreement among those who live together about giving and obeying orders; the peace of the Heavenly City is a perfectly ordered and perfectly harmonious fellowship in the enjoyment of God, and a mutual fellowship in God; the peace of the whole universe is the tranquility of order-and order is the arrangement of things equal and unequal in a pattern which assigns to each its proper position.27 When the Roman Empire in the West, which St. Augustine personally witnessed under assault by the Vandals in A.D. 410, finally succumbed to the Ostrogoths in A.D. 476, this Augustinian preference for order and harmony had already found a more permanent home in the Byzantine East.

The political-moral doctrine of

symphonia, which we reviewed in the previous chapter, grounded the harmony (eirene) between sacerdotium and imperium, or church and empire, in a tranquil-

lity of order. In the medieval West of the thirteenth century, St. Thomas Aquinas, the great Dominican friar at the University of Paris, advanced St. Augustine's ideas of justice and the common good, but subordinated them to the overarching condition of caritas, or mutual love. The proper telos, or intent, of any just war must be peace, so that the community might be able "to promote the good and to avoid the evil, 11 particularly through the establishment of equal justice for all peoples concerned. 28 But the emphasis on caritas, as Weigel observes, transformed tranqui!Utas ordinis from the fundamentally negative, punitive, and remedial quality of

St. Augustine's concept to a positive vision of a truly virtuous commonwealth in the Latin West: "[C]aritas ... was the instrument by which civil peace could flower into virtue in the governed community" through "its capacity to create

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those conditions under which human beings can act on their best instincts for truth and goodness. 11 29 Pope John XXIII pithily summarized the distinctive Roman Catholic tradition of tranquillitas ordinis30 in his magisterial encyclical letter, Pacem in Terris, which he promulgated in 1963: Peace will be but an empty-sounding word unless it is founded on the order which this present document has outlined in confident hope: an order founded on truth, built according to justice, vivified and integrated by charity, and put into practice in freedom. 11 31 That the foundation of these lofty words-the "order" to which Pope John alludes in the brief quotation-is the divinely-established· natural law32 suggests that this vision of peace as the "tranquillity of order" is quite amenable to the Eastern Orthodox moral tradition, given its shared emphasis on the natural law as the source of a "minimalist" ethic.33 Further, what Weigel observes about Aquinas could be said about the vision of a virtuous commonwealth in Byzantium, where, centuries before Aquinas in Paris, the virtue of philanthropia moderated and even transfigured St. Augustine's "remedial" approach to peace. More recent Roman Catholic reflection on peace has amplified Pope John's explicit linkage of peace with justice. The late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago, for example, defined peace rather broadly as "the primacy of the common good, defined in terms of human dignity and human rights; social and economic development; and solidarity between diverse peoples and nations. 11 34 That may be a bit of a stretch. The last two items in that litany are vague and elusive, and they may hint at a distinctly left-leaning political agenda. Similarly, Yale political scientist Bruce Russett points to "the phenomenon of democratic peace," which indicates that democratic states are "unlikely to engage in militarized disputes with each other or to let any such disputes escalate into war ... 35 Whatever intrinsic value such political perspectives may or may not have, they do, for good or for ill, extend

St.

Augustine's

concept beyond his-and Byzantium's-historical

circumstances. While all five concepts of peace sketched above find expression, more or less, in the Eastern Orthodox moral tradition, the most profoundly systematic and hence most potentially useful one to a contemporary Orthodox social ethic of war 100

and peace--"the tranquillity of order"-is probably the least familiar to contemporary Orthodox theologians and faithful alike. On this score, the Roman Catholic West, with its greater indebtedness and devotion to St. Augustine of Hippo, may have something of considerable value to share with the Orthodox Christian East.

TYPES OF PACIFISM A. PHILOSOPHICAL DISTINCTIONS It is a truism that not everyone who desires peace, or even endeavors to govern his moral or ethical behavior according to any or all of the five ideal-types of peace discussed above, is a genuine pacifist. And yet the "pacifist trajectory, 11 particularly as it takes shape in Eastern Orthodoxy, is more profoundly simple than the proliferation of types of pacifism in Western history might lead one to expect. Therefore, some philosophical distinctions may prove helpful in ferreting out the genuine from the pseudo pacifisms. A concise, universally acceptable definition of pacifism is almost as difficult to achieve as a corresponding definition of peace.

But Douglas P. Lackey

provides a useful starting point-"the view that it is always wrong to use violence to obtain any end. 11 36 Hence it is always wrong knowingly and willfully to kill a human being or to engage in war on any side for any cause. Although it may offend the sense of justice of critics such as Elizabeth Anscombe, "pacifism teaches people to make no distinction between the shedding of innocent blood and the shedding of any human blood. 11 37 Jan Narveson expands this proscription to preclude the use of force "to resist, punish, or prevent violence. 11 38 M. Jay Whitman has couched the ethical imperative of pacifism in terms of "the pacifist's rock-hard priority rule":

11

[T]he one supreme moral obligation is to the negative part of the

principle of benevolence (i.e., we ought never to do evil). 11 39 This priority rule, with its strict obligation never to use lethal physical force, must always prevail over other prima facie obligations of contract, justice, etc.

Thus the only logically

consistent pacifism is an "absolute" or universally applicable type that enjoins the use of physical force upon everyone without exception. No one may claim a right of self-defense via violent means. 101

Nevertheless, "relative" types of pacifism continue to win adherents, who, despite their aspirations to pacific behavior, betray mixed motives and confused values and consequently may be said to employ the term pacifism disingenuously.40 Among the many relative, "partial, 11 41 or "contingent"42 types of pacifism are those which restrict the obligation of non-violence to a limited class of persons. The class may comprise only those "selective conscientious objectors" who feel that the perceived injustice only of certain wars would preclude their participation. 43 Or the understanding of pacifism may limit the use of violent force to occasions of one's own self-defense,44 or, conversely, to instances other than self-defense, when what is at stake is the security of other persons who are unable to defend themselves. 45

Or the class of pacifists may be restricted to self-

acknowledged pacifists, properly speaking. Despite the seeming tautology, this kind of pacifist perspective simply posits that only those who choose this ethical position on the problem of war are so obligated to abide by its precepts, whereas no one else in society has this duty.46 Another variation on this theme is the classic argument of the Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr in his early socialist years that individuals motivated by "a pure religious idealism" may choose to act according to "the highest canons of personal morality"-namely, nonresistance and self-sacrifice-and must try to do so if they wish to heed the commands of Jesus Christ Himself But collective societies charged with responsibility for the people's interests as a whole could not possibly act in accordance with "pure love." For every attempt "to transfer a pure morality of disinterestedness to group relations has resulted in failure," owing to the inevitable "selfishness of human communities." In a neo-Weberian paean to the inherently dirty business of government Niebuhr concluded, "We cannot build our individual ladders to heaven and leave the total human enterprise unredeemed of its excesses and corruptions. "47 There is no such thing as a "pragmatic pacifism. 11 48 This dualistic distinction between the morally pacifist individual and the immorally pacifist collective society has been echoed, amazingly, by the Roman Catholic bishops in America, whose 1983 Pastoral Letter, The Challenge of Peace, proffered "a pacifist option for individuals" but not for governments, encumbered as they are with the duty to defend their citizens "by armed force if necessary as a last resort. 11 49 "Relative" would also describe the conditional "pacifism" that requires bi102

lateral instead of unilateral disarmament in international arms control negotiations. 50 Any pacifist who would allow for this negotiating position even for a limited interim would, in effect, undermine his witness on behalf of an absolute moral obligation. James Turner Johnson suggests that what he terms the "utopian" pacifist trend in international relations posits that humanity is capable of perfection, but until that eventuality the use of some military force may prove necessary.SI Johnson, a staunch defender of the justifiable war trajectory, may, however, be willing to yield too much.

The term "potential pacifism" is probably a more

accurate description of an ethical view that condones violence, if only for a season. Underlying motivations also serve to differentiate the types of pacifism. James F. Childress of the University of Virginia recently presented a useful typology of pacifism according to the respective "modes of reasoning. 11 52 Absolute pacifism, or what Childress terms "legalistic-expressive pacifism, 11 53 tends to be supported by deontological concerns such as the presumed infinite value of each human life; the unsurpassed right to life of each person; the principles of justice, particularly fairness and equality;S4 the divine commandment in the Decalogue against murder; the norm of agapic love; or the Christian duty of discipleship, particularly the imitatio Christi. 55 Relative types of pacifism, however, seem to be motivated primarily by pragmatic or consequentialist interests such as the tactical utility of unilateral disarmament in causing the potential enemy to disarm, 56 or the calculated value of pacifist personal practice or pacifist public policy in producing "a net balance of good over bad effects in the world. 11 57 Childress lumps these together somewhat awkwardly as "consequentialist-pragmatic-utilitarian pacifism. 11 58 That is not to say that prudentialism-or even the virtue of prudence-has no place among absolute pacifists; one of the most disturbing features of the socalled peace movements in contemporary Western societies is the omnipresent naive assumption, derived more from religious hope than empirical evidence, that pacifism at all levels and of all kinds will eventually succeed in establishing perfect peace on earth. Historically, however, and especially within the Christian family, absolute pacifists have paid more heed to principle than to consequences.

B. NUCLEARPACIFISM The priority of feared consequences is most evident among the advocates of 103

the final category of relative pacifism that warrants mention here-nuclear pacifism. This type is emerging presently as the most widespread and influential version of "pacifism" in the public eye in the nuclear age and perhaps in the history of Western Civilization. And yet even a cursory examination of this moral/ethical position would reveal that it is not truly a type of pacifism, but rather it arises from application of the justifiable war trajectory. In an insightful analysis of this phenomenon, Edward J. Laarman proffers the following characteristics59: (1) a theoretical affirmation that some wars may be justifiable; (2) an a priori judgment that any large-scale use of certain types of weapons is unethical/immoral; (3) an a priori judgment that any threat to use such weapons, whether in self-defense or in retaliation, is unethical/immoral; (4) an insistence on unconditioned action including unilateral nuclear disarmament by one's own government. Perhaps the best way to describe the impact of nuclear pacifism on the moral and ethical debates about war and peace in the nuclear age is that this congeries of perspectives-for surely there are many variations on the fundamental typologyemploys the criteria of the justifiable war tradition as a means of achieving what amounts to a relative pacifist end-namely, the voluntary abandonment of all nuclear weapons and most, if not alt, strategies of nuclear deterrence and defense. Thus Childress has aptly dubbed it "technological pacifism. 11 60 Deonotologists like Thomas Donaldson emphasize the allegedly indiscriminate and/or disproportionate character of strategic and most tactical nuclear weapons, which inherently exceeds the limiting conditions of the right to self-defense.61

Meanwhile, Daniel A.

Dombrowski argues on behalf of the "duty" that men of good will have to adopt nuclear pacifism (as well, curiously, as "anti-war" pacifism and "anti-violence" pacifism).62 Advocates of "possibilistic consequentialism" like Robert E. Goodin reject nuclear deterrence, owing to its probabilistic reasoning whereby nuclear powers gamble recklessly with the lives of millions that their deterrent will not fail and lead to a strategic nuclear war. 63 Utilitarians like Thomas P. Lackey argue for unilateral nuclear disarmament as the least potentially costly policy in terms of human survival by applying various game-theory models, or what he labels "principles of choice or moral calculation. 11 64 Veteran defense strategists of the "ethical realist" school like Robert S. McNamara now reject any actual use of nuclear weapons in combat, whether initial or retaliatory, while allowing somehow 104

for their continued value as deterrents. 65 Whatever the variants of ethical reasoning among de facto nuclear pacifists, the one overriding concern that all of them appear to share is not universal peace or non-violence as an ethical ideal-and certainly not nonresistance--but rather the perceived threat to human survival posed by nuclear weapons as a distinct class of weapons with uniquely destructive power. The common underlying motivation, therefore, of most, if not all, nuclear pacifists, or what absolute pacifist Stanley Hauerwas labels derisively as "survivalists, 11 66 is a fear of death on an unprecedented scale as a result of the actual use of nuclear weapons. Lackey, oddly enough, admits as much in his reply to a criticism of his utilitarian argument: 11

[I]t has always seemed to me that red is better than dead because the red can choose to be dead but the dead cannot choose to be anything at all. 11 67 Avoidance of the non-preferred consequence becomes the emotive goal of nuclear pacifists, and elimination of all nuclear weapons-presumably including those of the highly discriminate, limited-yield tactical variety-serves this end. Among Western Christian ethicists and moral theologians, nuclear pacifism is in the ascendancy.

Protestants dating as far back as the distinguished Swiss

Reformed theologian Karl Barth have, since at least 1960, professed one or another version of nuclear pacifism. 68 In more recent decades, whole Protestant denominations have adopted this moral position. The American Baptist Executive Ministers, which is about as representative a body of Baptists as their polity permits, endorsed a document in December 1981 that declared, 11 [T]here is no justification for the use of nuclear weapons on any people under any circumstances.1169

Similarly, the Thirteenth General Synod of the United Church of

Christ voted in July 1981 to adopt a "Peace Priority Goal Statement" that included a resolution that "the development and use of nuclear and biochemical weapons be recognized as completely contrary to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 11 70

The

metamorphosis of one man's thinking about this issue is chronicled in the works of the late John C. Bennett of Union Theological Seminary in New York. Whereas in 1965 he wrote confidently, "Nuclear pacifism is not a possible position for the government of the United States," more recently he gravitated to a conditional

toleration of nuclear "deterrence" as an interim policy at most, accompanied by "unilateral initiatives" of weapons abandonment by the United States, without, however, condoning any actual use of nuclear weapons.71 105

Roman Catholic expressions of nuclear pacifism may claim a similar pedigree, stemming from a slim but influential volume published in 1959 in London entitled,

Morals and Missiles: Catholic Essays on the Problems of War Today. 72 Despite a decline in nuclear pacifism among Roman Catholics beginning in the early 1960s,73 this view reemerged in the 1980s as the cutting edge of American Catholic thinking about war and peace. One may suspect with confidence that most of the Catholic moral theologians who teach in American Catholic colleges, universities, and seminaries own some version of nuclear pacifism. Perhaps the most prolific exemplar of this moral position is Fr. Francis X. Winters, S. J., of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. He has radically changed his views on this topic since he proposed "an alternative strategy" in 1975 that he called "counter-strategic defense": only strategic Soviet forces such as Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs), air fields, and railroads serving missile sites ought to be targeted, and then only as "the upper-level of the minimal force necessary to defend the United States" in accordance with the criteria of the just war. 74 Within only two years, Winters was able to conclude that "any serious threat or use of nuclear weapons is immoral," urging instead the development of a conventional weapons alternative to current U.S. nuclear defense policies.75 By 1981 Winters concluded that Roman Catholics in the U.S. government with its policy of nuclear deterrence faced resignation of office as "their only morally viable option. 11 76

His claim in 1984 that a consensus exists among the Catholic hi-

erarchies in Western Europe against the military legitimacy of nuclear weapons remains, however, subject to the shifting winds of political change and the vicissitudes of death and appointment in those hiearchies. 77 Winters' own brand of nuclear pacifism no longer seems as extreme as it did in the early 1980s. The implicit or at least incipient nuclear pacifism of the widely influential 1983 Pastoral Letter of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops in America, in which they reject any conceivable use of nuclear weapons, while allowing for an interim policy of deterrence as a step toward eventual total nuclear disarmament, has catapulted this kind of relative "pacifism" to the forefront of American Catholic moral thinking about war and peace.78

To be sure, their

conclusions were inspired more directly by Fr. J. Bryan Hehir's "bluff' rationale for continued possession ad interim of the U.S. nuclear arsenal together with an undeclared or "ambiguous" policy of non-use under any circumstances.79 106

Notwithstanding these shades of difference among the varieties of nuclear pacifism presently advocated by influential Roman Catholics in America, the unyielding rejection of nuclear deterrence and defense by Winters is squarely within the parameters of mainstream Catholic social ethics. Nor has the onrushing tide of nuclear pacifism left the Eastern Orthodox untouched. At an anti-nuclear "peace 11 conference in Moscow in May 1982 chaired by Patriarch Pimen of Moscow, the world religious leaders who served as "delegates" issued an "Appeal, 11 which declared that "there can never and under no circumstances be any justification for a nuclear war, which represents the gravest threat to mankind today." The "Appeal" also urged that "religions of the world should condemn with one voice as a moral evil the production, development, testing and deployment of all types of nuclear weapons by any quarters. 11 80 This statement emanating from Moscow, like others during the heyday of the Soviet era, may be dismissed as more or less disingenuous, a product of collaboration with communism rather than a serious moral position grounded in Orthodox Tradition. But the moral integrity of Fr. Stanley Harakas is beyond question, so his support of what appears to be a nascent form of nuclear pacifism lends some credibility to this moral position among the Eastern Orthodox in America. He refers to "the increasingly apparent impracticability" of "the same nuclear deterrences" of the cold-war era that continue to dominate the current ethical debate. 81 Nuclear pacifism may yet become a force with which the Orthodox must reckon. We should, however, hope that any pretense to the venerable label of "pacifism" will be dropped by its advocates. This is one instance where half a loaf is not better than none.

C. ABSOLUTE RELIGIOUS PACIFISM The varieties of religiously-inspired absolute pacifism are yet more numerous. John Howard Yoder, the late Mennonite theologian and dean of American pacifist theologians, catalogued almost two dozen types.82 Focusing on intentionality, Joseph L. Allen of Southern Methodist University differentiates "witnessing" pacifism-which seeks, deontologically, to remain faithful to the fullness of the Gospel-from "pragmatic" pacifism, its more consequentialist cousin, which

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aspires to effecting positive radical changes in the social and moral order. 83 Lisa Sowle Cahill of Boston College offers a remarkably similar dyad. She contrasts "obediential" or "fiduciary" pacifism to "compassionate" or "empathetic" pacifism, but she also contends that these are complementary, instead of exclusive, versions of pacifism as an expression of Christian "discipleship"-"a practical embodiment of a religious conversion experience, a way of life, not a theory. 11 84 For the limited purposes of the present study, however, the more streamlined typology of Edward LeRoy Long, Jr., should serve as an adequate framework in which to situate the fundamental pacifist options in Western moral theology. These may also help us better to understand the Eastern Orthodox pacifist trajectory. Long posits two basic categories for "the Hebrew-Christian West" with its biblical tradition. 85 For each type we shalJ list Long's criteria and analyze the views of one of its most influential Western advocates and one other exemplar of that moral position.

1. VOCATIONAL PACIFISM

From Long's perspective, this type of absolute pacifism is •

Grounded in obedience to the teaching of a leader or in acceptance of the principles of a community dedicated to non-violence apart from considerations of practical and social consequences;

•

Expresses a total commitment to a moral ideal that presumes that the individual will judge all his actions by the standards of a love ethic;

•

Generally does not obstruct the war efforts of conscientious participants, preferring instead always to trust in persuasion. 86

Though obviously endemic in the Protestant "peace churches" including the Mennonites, Quakers, and Brethren, this stance has been adopted by isolated Roman Catholics such as those who manned the Catholic Worker Movement led by Dorothy Day beginning in 1933.87 The preeminent Catholic vocational pacifist is Gordon C. Zahn, an emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Massachusetts. The staunch just warrior George Weigel has lauded Zahn's "traditionalist Catholic pacifism" as "a refreshing oasis in the desert of activist polemics, 11 88 but Zahn's brand of pacifism

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seems to reflect the religiously deontological quality of the vocational type more than a militantly consequentialist-activist spirit. In a typical article in 1983, this prolific pacifist clearly grounds his moral objection to war and violence in "the teachings and example given us in the life of Jesus Christ. 11 89 What he terms the "spirituality of pacifism" finds its core perceptions in the relations that obtain between God and humanity. These unique Christian perceptions include, first, "God's benign and loving concern for his creation and the infinite willingness to forgive"; second, "a fully reasoned and freely willed surrender, ... full dependence-even more, complete abandonment-to the will of God . . . always tempered by the equally thorough confidence that good will prevail" in "God's time and in God's way"; and, third, "the eschatological context" of "the post-Christian era" in which Christians have nothing to fear except the temptations that may turn them away from the true security of Christ's conquest of sin and toward "the continued escalation of the propensity for evil" marked by "the insane rush for security through new weapons of ever-increasing destructiveness. 11 90 Zahn's attempt to sketch the policy implications of these core pacifist perceptions entails the usual rejection of nuclear deterrence, including the production and mere possession of nuclear weapons. He also typically asserts "the primacy of religious commitment over national identities and loyalties. 11 91 But the truly vocational flavor of his pacifism as a high "calling" is evidenced, above all, in his acknowledgement that taking risks for peace might result in "the possibility of national defeat, the loss of freedom, and a host of other sacrifices and hardships." The Christian in particular "might be faced with a return to the catacombs and suffer the persecution, even martyrdom which, the bishops remind us, we must be prepared to regard as 'normal. 111 92 Zahn smooths somewhat the rough edges of this dauntless position by comparing it favorably to the alternative risk of "the final holocaust" and by reminding his readers of the historic endurance and resiliency of the Church throughout centuries of anti-Christian hostility and· persecution. But his realism is as refreshing as his moral consistency as an absolute pacifist is inspiring. Perhaps the most influential Protestant vocational pacifist in recent decades, particularly in mainstream ecumenical circles, was John Howard Yoder, the late Mennonite theologian at Notre Dame. Yoder vigorously took equal aim at the weakness of "the just war rhetoric" as a spirituality rarely practiced in history93 and at the inadequacies of "nuclear pacifism" in an age of horrific warfare at every 109

conceivable level besides nuclear. 94 But he was more persuasive when he staked his positive claims to Christian revelation from an absolute pacifist perspective. Yoder's social ethic of nonresistance grounded in Matthew 5 :39 clearly eschewed any calculation of rights and merits, the usual basis for arguments that would justify the taking of human life. "Perfect love" entails, instead, "creative concern for the person who is bent on evil, coupled with the refusal of his goals. 11 The unique Christian prohibition agafost killing is centered in "the fellowship between man and man, as a mirror and as means of fellowship with God." Thus the Christian who would follow the example of Jesus Christ is freed from the usual sinful human need to coerce others through the exercise of political power and violence. Instead of efficacy, Christians are called to obedience to "suffering servanthood" in a world that they do not and ought not to attempt to control; their obedience is to "the hidden lordship ofHim who was crucified and raised. 11 95 This skeletal outline was en.fleshed in Yoder's classic work, The Politics of Jesus. There he proclaimed in unmistakably deonotological language, which he admitted tends to alienate "modern man," a "vision of ultimate good being determined by faithfulness and not by results. 11 96 The key theme in this work is "revolutionary sub-ordination, 11 which is derived directly from the messianic work and hence moral example of Jesus. "Subordination," as Yoder carefully observed, "means the acceptance of an order" that is neither the old regime unaffected by Christ nor a new world that violently displaces the old: 11 [R]ather the old and the new order exist concurrently on different levels." The revolutionary dimension consists in "willing servanthood in the place of domination." The subordinate person-in this instance, the faithful Christian-accepts his status "without resentment," while prophetically challenging those in superordinate positions-in this instance, the political and military powers-to abandon the use of domination and coercive force.

The Christian at once opts out of "the interplay of egoisms"

disguised as "justice" or "vengeance" and maintains a posture of nonresistance to "the historical process in which the sword continues to be wielded. 11 97 And yet that process does not reflect the authentic meaning of history, for the Christian realizes that "the cross and not the sword, suffering and not brute power" is truly determinative of human history from the divine perspective made incarnate in J esus, the Son of God. 98 Through His self-emptying obedience to the Father on the cross, Jesus renounced not only all expressions of violence, but especially the no110

tion of lordship, "the obligation to be effective in making history move down the right track, 11 "the compulsiveness of purpose that leads men to violate the dignity of others. 11 99 Once again the value of efficacy through calculation is eclipsed by the overwhelming meaning of the symbol of the cross-suffering obedience.

This

obedience, which reflects "the character of the love of God, 11 is so disconnected from any anticipated results that it is "willing to accept evident defeat rather than complicity with evil." 100 The mandate for absolute pacifism follows directly from this existential premise: That Christian pacifism which has a theological basis in the character of God and the work of Jesus Christ is one in which the calculating link between our obedience and ultimate efficacy has been broken, since the triumph of God comes through resurrection and not through effective sovereignty or assured survivat.101 This is, in short, the highest, most ennobling and consistent kind of faithfulness, which trusts in God as the Lord of history, but which motivates the Christian to self-sacrifice, if necessary, even without the slightest guarantee that he, or his community, the Church, will be vindicated in his lifetime. Nevertheless, Yoder's social ethic of nonresistance did leave some room for the inevitable human preoccupation with desired ends-enough room to mitigate somewhat the impact of his deontological witness on behalf of vocational pacifism. In a little essay written for a volume of anti-nuclear essays by peace activists, Yoder referred to the nuclear dilemma in a kind of postscript to an application of his social ethic of nonresistance to the theme of disarmament.102 As usual, he posited the "disarming" of the Christian as an individual in the "love of Christ within his or her life" that drives the Christian to love his neighbor as Christ loved us. On the basis of this intuitive/experiential knowledge, the Christian is impelled to lay aside all "carnal" or

11

earthly arms, 11 not only the "hideous," immoral

weapons "now being devised, 11 which seem so powerfully dangerous but are, instead, from the vantage point of the victory of the Lamb that was slain, "too weak" and ultimately impotent. Yoder could dispense with all such weapons, as well as the various theories of civilization, rational self-defense, and deterrence of aggression that purport to justify their production, because of his hope in the "ultimate victory of faith that overcomes the world, 11 a biblical theme that resounds

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in virtually all of his works. In light of this hope, which seems to conflict with his insistence on a total disregard for efficacious results, one may argue that, assuming faith is rational, Yoder succeeded only in broadening the parameters of an essentially consequentialist argument so as to encompass a supernatural or post-mortal realm. He effectively extended the range of consequences to the "eschaton," when perfect divine justice will prevail over imperfect human reckoning, and the voluntary suffering involved in nonresistance to evil presently expected from men will prove to be ultimately meaningful, redemptive, and worthwhile. On this super-cosmic scale, the exigencies, if any, of nuclear deterrence appear quite inconsequential.

2. ACTIVIST PACIFISM The other major type of Christian pacifism, according to Edward LeRoy Long, Jr., is •

Grounded in a belief that the renunciation of violence is not only morally and socially imperative, but also politically effective;

•

Specifically advocates the use of non-violence as a morally legitimate form of social change and resistance to evil;

•

Openly resists war and national military operations and denies by implication the possibility of a pluralistic Christian witness on the legitimacy of war.103

Not only do contrasting objectives separate the activist and vocational varieties of absolute pacifism. While both types consistently extol the virtue of non-violence, the issue of "nonresistance" poses a great strategic divide. Most Christian activist pacifists in the West tend to view violence as multi-layered, not necessarily confined to physical harm to persons or things. A quarter of a century ago, Robert McAfee Brown sounded the keynote for this expanded view of violence, when he insisted that violence "violates the personhood of another in ways that are psychologically destructive rather than physically harmful." 104 The activist pacifist, as Long correctly observes, eschews and usually disdains nonresistance as inadequate at best and counterproductive, even self-defeating, at worst. And so the activist advocates non-violent resistance to evil, taking a cue from

112

Mohandas K. Gandhi's teaching about satyagraha ("soul-force").105 For example, Walter Wink of Union Theological Seminary points to "Jesus' Third Way" between "fight" and "flight." The Lord's injunction in Matthew 5:39 to "repay no one evil for evil" ought, Wink argues, to be translated as "do not mirror evil." Jesus Christ, who engaged the principalities and powers of this world, did not teach nonresistance, but rather disavowed violent resistance in favor of non-violent resistance.106 More blunt than Wink's is Gene Sharp's recent case for "nonviolent struggle" as "a higher synthesis" of the better components of both pacifism and justifiable war. He defines it as "a technique for mobilizing and applying the power potential of people and groups for pursuing objectives and interests by non-military 'weapons'-psychological, political, social, economic, and spiritual."

What he

means in particular is various forms of "protest, non-cooperation and intervention without physical violence" such as Gandhi's struggle for the independence of India from the British Empire, the civil rights movements in the United States and the Republic of South Africa, and the velvet revolutions in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and the Soviet Union in the 1980s and early 1990s. 107 The practical problem with non-violent resistance is keeping it genuinely nonviolent. William R. Marty sees a dangerously slippery slope in place here:

"The

interpretation that allows 'resist not evil' to become 'resist evil, but nonviolently,' can as easily become 'resist evil, even sometimes with force, if that is what love requires. 11 • 108

Unlike the purer, more pacific spiritual state that a pacifism of

nonresistance may engender in the vocational pacifist, resistance of any kind may reflect or actually foster a violent spirit-to use the term in its more expansive, liberal mode-that finds the threshold between physical violence and non-violence much easier to cross. In that case, as happened when the major American pacifist organizations like the American Friends Service Committee began to justify the physical violence of the Viet Cong toward the American "oppressors" as righteous resistance, the moral compass of the activist pacifist spins out of control. Then George Weigel's damning critique has real currency: Just as there can be no such thing as demi-virginity, surely there can be no such thing as demi-pacifism. One either abjures violence-the deliberate infliction of pain, suffering, and even death-in the pursuit of political ends, or one does not. If one does abjure violence, then one cannot make common cause with

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the violence of others.109 A fourth characteristic not mentioned by Edward LeRoy Long, Jr., in his delineation of activist pacifist morality is an ascerbic, often shrill criticism of U.S. foreign policy and even dominant American values in general, blended with a generally uncritical posture toward the Soviet Union (before it disintegrated in 1991) and the history of Communist activity in international relations. Also typical of this perspective is a penchant for hyperbole and misstatement of empirical facts pertaining to weapons systems and defense policy. Combined further with Long's third feature, the result is a particularly volatile mix. This proclivity among activist pacifists reveals what must seem to non-pacifists as a dangerously intolerant, selfrighteous, crusader mentality in the service of various left-wing political agendas. A good case in point is the innovative, often insightful study by Dale Aukerman entitled, Darkening Valley.

Ostensibly approaching the two nuclear

superpowers in 1981 with a measured equanimity, this Protestant activist betrays a rabid anti-U.S. bias that skews his reasoning to the extent of obscuring some otherwise potentially convincing arguments against the enormity of nuclear war and deterrence and the immorality of war at any level.

The following passage

mirrors this disturbing political myopia: Ifl think of the various dangers that threaten the life and security of my family, I don't think first of a berserk murderer or of communist divisions. I think rather of the United States military overlords, the American initiation of and continued leadership in the nuclear arms race, the Cuban missile crisis, an accelerated arms buildup oriented toward readiness for a [nuclear] first strike.110 The moral credibility of Aukerman's pacifist witness is at worst tarnished but not compromised by these gratuitous, Orwellian politicisms. The "biblical perspective" expressed in several chapters in particular warrants the attention of Eastern Orthodox and other moral theologians and public policymakers alike, if only for the compelling use of argument by analogy. Aukerman's approach to nuclear deterrence, though far from systematic, is logically derived from the divine revelation in the Bible, which provides for Aukerman a set of a priori principles encapsulated in sayings and narrative tales.

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His

particular deductions are by no means the only logical possibilities, but the way he derives his absolute prohibition against nuclear deterrence is at once logically consistent and, given the presumption of a normative authority assigned to the Holy Scriptures, the strongest prima facie position for a Christian. The phenomena of blessing and cursing represent the antipodes of human behavior and attitudes toward one another.

Citing various passages from both testaments

(especially Ecclesiasticus 21:27 in the Septuagint and Romans 12:14), Aukerman shows how the former is what God wills for man, while the latter is contrary to that wiU.111 For cursing reveals an inner turmoil, disease, and self-destructive capacity and entails an attack on the existence of other persons. Thomistic moral theologians might describe the act of cursing as Aukerman presents it as an "inherently grave matter" and ipso facto immoral. But Aukerman's chief insight is the leap he makes from these biblical injunctions with their underlying human meanings to nuclear weapons as curses: "Hydrogen bombs and their missile carriers can be seen as an extraordinary concretization of human cursing. 11 112 Cursing works as an appropriate metaphor for Aukerman, because he apparently presumes, albeit incorrectly, that nuclear deterrence must assume the qualities of what came to be known in the 1960s as "mutual assured destruction": Cursing as fearful reciprocity is there. Each side is set against the other with technologically concretized curses poised against their counterparts. Each side counters the doom promoted by the other by promoting the doom of the other-and thus the endless escalation. The horror of all that has, till now, not been fulfilled. But the counterpoised curses merge toward one engulfing curse.113

If Aukerman is correct in his judgment that the teachings of Jesus Christ and His crucifixion point to murder as "the central negative motif in human history," his conclusion also is inescapable:

a nuclear world war "would come as the

greatest crucifixion of humankind and as such, the worst recrucifixion of Christ. 11 114 Like Yoder and the vocational pacifists, however, Aukerman points to Jesus' defenselessness on the same cross as the model for the defenselessness of His people: "Christians are bound together in a corporate vulnerability derivative from his." Consequently, the way for Christians to defend themselves from the Powers of Darkness, whatever their origin, is not to band together in military de-

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fense, but rather to "stand together in shared vulnerability." Taking his inspiration from Revelation 12: 11, as we also shall do so in the next chapter, Aukerman declares that Christ already has established "the supreme defense of us all." Although it may seem paradoxical, the way is clear: "When Christians confirm that triumphal defense by Jesus, even to the point of letting their life blood be added to his, the main imperiling attack is countered and overcome." 115 Among Roman Catholics in America, activist pacifism flourished in the turbulent decade of the 1960s in connection with the protest movement against U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. Radical pacifists such as the priest-brothers Philip and Daniel Berrigan introduced new tactics including direct action and selective use of "symbolic violence" against property that gave pause to traditional vocational pacifists led by Gordon Zahn.116 With the renewed emphasis on issues relating to nuclear war and deterrence in the 1980s, activist pacifism was on the rise again in predominantly leftist Catholic circles. One figure who has maintained a consistent witness in this vein for a generation is James W. Douglass, a creative thinker and doer who blends Jungian psychology, Eastern religious mysticism, and radical Catholic theological insights with a determination to act prophetically and conscientiously that knows no political bounds.

From lobbying for pacifism at the Second Vatican Council to

leading the anti-nuclear Ground Zero Center near the Trident submarine base at Bangor, Washington, almost as often in jail as on the outside, Douglass continues to demonstrate the fervor that has captivated even influential hierarchs of the Catholic Church, most notably Archbishop Hunthausen of Seattle-himself the subject of much controversy prior to his retirement, owing to his radical anti-nuclear posture as much as his other irregular episcopal activities.117

Three of

Douglass' books and a short article on war and peace illustrate more faithfully than one might normally expect from a typology the four characteristics of activist pacifism elucidated above.118 First, Douglass demonstrates an unrelenting optimism in the prudential efficacy of his brand of pacifism rooted in an uncompromising faith-stance.

For

Douglass, non-violent resistance, as distinguished from Yoder's social ethic of nonresistance, is redemptive, insofar as it leads the aggressor to recognize the humanity of those whom he oppresses and hence to be reconciled with them.119 Reliance on truth and self-emptying love modeled after God's love for humanity, 116

instead of power and violence, is the proper means of liberation for everyone.120 "A lived faith, 11 Douglass guarantees, "will stop the Bomb. 11 121 Christians do not so much face a dilemma between 11 a security founded on exploitation and missiles" and oppression by the Soviets or any other worldly power as they confront a decision whether or not to have faith in the resurrection power of Christ and to act on it. "If faith can move mountains, it can stop nuclear war and create a just and nuclear-free world. 11 Through a process of resisting the inclination to kill and accepting the cross of love, "the kingdom of God can be realized now in inconceivable ways. 11 122 Second, Douglass urges and models activist tactics that incarnate what he believes is non-violent, if not legal, resistance to the evils of nuclear weapons and military defense in general. He believes that such behavior is morally legitimate, if not always legally sanctioned.

His campaign of "grass-roots nonviolent direct

action" at the Trident submarine base began in January 1975, as a joint CanadianAmerican venture and incorporates acts of civil disobedience, ranging from leafletting workers to prayer and fasting while trespassing on government property after cutting down sections of the security fence.123 Although Douglass offers no detailed ethical justification for these tactics, 124 he links the willingness to accept the ultimate penalty for these illegal acts-namely, jail sentences-to the classic monastic spirit. "Civil disobedience is a way of prayer into the kingdom." The need for a "radical commitment to contemplative prayer" that stands in judgment of "the moral sin of our society"-that is, preparations for thermonuclear warcan be met best by that place which corresponds today to the fourth century desert birthplace of monastic spirituality-namely, "the metropolitan wilderness of jail. 11 By "transforming our jails into monasteries, 11 Christians may realize "that radical poverty of self that lays the foundation for peacemaking, the struggle for justice, and learning to live with the poor of the world. 11 125 Third, the intensity of his activist pacifist convictions leaves no room for alternative moral views on the value of war in general and nuclear defense in particular. Notwithstanding his affirmation of metanoia ("repentance") as the wellspring or "inner-dimension" of non-violence (although, his understanding is not, to be sure, necessarily uniquely Christian in inspiration), 126 Douglass is typically haughty in his proclamation of his gospel of non-violent resistance. The only lifea:ffirming choice open to humanity in these apocalyptic times, he insists, is "a 117

global partnership of peoples, a world community based on a revolutionary transformation of values. n 127 Included in these values apparently is some form of new socialist world order that would radically change the institution of private wealth.128 Since the product of war is suffering and death, which are diametrically opposed to the gospel of peace and life, the Church must repent for having capitulated to Caesar through acceptance of the just war ethic beginning with the reign of the Emperor Constantine.129 Fourth, Douglass allows his political bias and penchant for overstatement to cloud his vision of international reality. He may be forgiven for his exuberant resort to hyperbole in comparing a U.S. Trident submarine base to Auschwitz or Buchenwald, 130 or in presuming that the American media have been fed a constant diet of "CIA-planted propaganda on enemy arms build-ups. 11 131 But his imagery exceeds the bounds of factual truth and common decency when he makes odious comparisons directly between U.S. defense policy and the Nazis' final solution to "the Jewish problem." The United States has developed "a fortress mentality" in its desire "to keep millions of people in our economic empire." The United States aims its "tens of thousands of nuclear missiles at the rest of the people in the world." Wishing to save the American way of life at the expense of the lives of everyone on earth, "We have become Hitler in his last days, now armed in his final bunker with the means of destroying the world." 132 (Such a reductio ad Hitleram, to invoke Leo Strauss' brilliant phrase, probably betrays a bankrupt substantive argument.) Meanwhile, Douglass has praised Fidel Castro and Che Guevara for living exemplary lives "in which belief was made flesh in action and in a struggle with the powers of oppression to the point of suffering love and death." 133 And at the height of the Vietnam War he confidently proclaimed the Viet Cong "strong in poverty, community, and the truth. 11 134 Douglass' fertile theological mind offers, nevertheless, some creative constructs in Lightning East to West that might prove useful in motivating Eastern Orthodox pacifists of the more normative vocational variety to a genuinely worthwhile, politically indiscriminate activist pacifism. He views the current era through apocalyptic spectacles. This is an end time because "the political and technological structures of the world make it probable that the human race will cease to exist." Perhaps he waxes too alarmist here. But his summons to mankind to "discover the spiritual equation corresponding to Einstein's physical equation" 118

pertaining to the theory of relativity (E=mc2) has a familiar patristic ring. If there is a law of physical change, albeit recently discovered, there also might be 11 an equally incredible and undiscovered law of spiritual change, whereby a single person or a small community of persons could be converted into an enormous spiritual energy capable of transforming a society and a world. 11 135 It is this endearing spiritual optimism unalloyed with pretensions to prudential efficacy that might yet salvage Douglass' brand of activist pacifism.

Similarly, amidst the

syncretistic paeans to Mohandas Gandhi, Carl Jung, and Zen Buddhism, Douglass' invocation of Fyodor Dostoevsky's spiritual insights should prove both refreshing and inviting to Eastern Orthodox Christians. He correctly cites the monk Zossima in The Brothers Karamazov as an expression of the Russian novelist's insight of universal human responsibility and the need for mutual forgiveness:

11

The disci-

pline of a constantly experienced sense of one's own radical sin and emptiness, as the basis for a self-giving love, was Dostoevsky's way out of the West's circular violence of the self. 11 136 A person can be certain only of his own intentional evil or sin. But this sense of sin may, in a manner analogous to Einstein's insight into the mutual convertibility of matter and energy, "be converted into an undiscovered energy for change." If Dostoevsky's Zossima is correct that each of us is responsible for everyone else through the recognition of our own sin and of our fundamental human unity in Christ, then the ultimate source of evil, despite "its many external agents" throughout the world, "comes home with startling clarity when we are finally humbled enough by reality to see simply and clearly-that as we are, so is the world. 11 137 That realization is the beginning of a meaningful, truly Christian, spiritually faithful but politically unaligned activist pacifism.

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PART TWO: THE ORTHODOX PACIFIST TRAJECTORY

Chapter 5

THE SCRIPTURAL WITNESS When the Egyptian monks of the ancient Church introduced the spiritual discipline of lectio divina, or "sacred reading" of Holy Scripture, they could hardly have anticipated the modern deconstructionist movement in literary studies. The practice of lectio by individuals allows for a deliberate oral reading of a book of the Bible with the hope and perhaps expectation that the Lord will use that particular text on that particular day to send a particular message of inspiration or conviction to the reader. The same words that purport to describe and interpret the events of salvation history, recorded in the first century in the case of the New Testament and transmitted by and to the entire Church, may also carry a special meaning to any devout Christian who diligently reads the Bible with a predisposition to the providence of God the Holy Spirit. Now that is not the fullblown subjectivism of the so-called deconstruction of texts. The original, historical context and intent of the author must be discerned, acknowledged, and accepted through rigorous exegesis; we are not free to impute to the texts whatever meaning suits our personal fancy. But the discipline of lectio divina does illustrate how rich and deep, how personally relevant, and how full of surprises the Holy Scriptures are, unlike any other written texts in all of world history. The present chapter will attempt to demonstrate that the Bible, particularly the Old Testament, contains, despite its comfortable familiarity to many of us, some unexpected, even surprising pacifist revelations.

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OLD TESTAMENT REVISIONISM Conventional biblical scholarship and popular portrayals of the Old Testament as a compendium of numerous militaristic, violent episodes involving a vengeful, wrathful God leave little room for an alternative portrait of a patient, condescending, pacific God opposed to all forms of human violence. Nevertheless, a convincing case can be,' and has been, made in recent Old Testament "revisionist" scholarship for nothing less than an "absolute" pacifism in the Old Testament. Less counter-intuitive are arguments by pacifists that the teachings in the Old Testament represent merely one stage of a "progressive revelation 11 l or, more positively, Heilsgeschichte ("salvation history"). As the Mennonite biblical scholar Waldemar Janzen suggests, "[T]he Old Testament sees war as an expected part of human existence and as such accepts it, albeit not unquestioned, for its own time. 11 2 But, the argument continues, such is manifestly not true now for Christians, whose weapons are spiritual and directed against demonic "principalities and powers." A similar qualified claim by a pacifist Old Testament scholar is Peter C. Craigie's proposition that God "participates actively" in the "evil human activity" known as war "for the purposes of both redemption and judgment": the concept of God as Warrior provides "hope" for man in his sinful human dilemma. 3 Perhaps the most consistent and unyielding pacifist interpretation of the Old Testament as a whole is the remarkable thesis of Millard C. Lind. Three major themes constitute his radical revisionist approach: •

"Yahweh as God of war fought for his people by miracle, not by sword

•

and spear" 4; "the exodus event formed the basis for Israel's 'prophetic' political structure, a structure that rejected ordinary concepts of kingship grounded in the exercise of violence as representative of divinity"5;

•

"Yahweh's warfare was directed not only against Israel's enemies but at times against Israel herself, in such cases not by means of miracle but by the armies of Israel's enemies. 11 6

In short, "faith meant that Israel should rely upon Yahweh's miracle for her defense, rather than upon soldiers and weapons"7-at all times, beginning with the 124

Exodus, wherever Israel happened to dwell, irrespective of the prevailing political structure. Without gainsaying the breathtaking majesty of this ambitious, exclusive interpretation, an Eastern Orthodox moral theologian may use Lind's insights in a more restrictive manner. In accordance with the antinomical typology of war and peace presented in chapter 3, we need only argue on behalf of an absolute pacifist

trajectory within the Old Testament, alongside a justifiable war trajectory. Three particular components of an absolute pacifist tradition running throughout the richly textured Old Testament will illustrate the truth of this more modest claim. The first component of this trajectory is the theme of God the "Warrior"the deity who does it all for His people, as it were. The Exodus from Egypt, of course, sounds the keynote for this recurring theme. Moses assures Israel, "The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be still" (Exodus 14:14), and the Lord Himself predicts the awesome impact of His coming victory "over Pharaoh, his chariots, and his horsemen" (Exodus 14:18). During their pursuit oflsrael, the Egyptians recognize that "the Lord fights for them [Israel]" (Exodus 14:25), and the Yahwistic narrator observes in conclusion that "the Lord saved Israel that day from the hand of the Egyptians" (Exodus 14:30). Lest there be any doubt as to the author ofthis "weaponless victory," in Jacob J. Enz's eloquent phrase,s the song of Miriam-one of the oldest strands of oral and written Old Testament tradition, dating back to the twelfth century B. C.-proclaims forthrightly in Exodus 15: 1: Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea. Since the literary history of "the sea tradition" in Exodus spans approximately six centuries, with echoes in other books such as Psalms 81:10 and Hosea 12:13,9 the depth of this implicit pacifist commitment would appear to be unassailable. The Lord who is called "a man of war" in Exodus 15: 3 (Masoretic Hebrew text) undergoes yet another remarkable metamorphosis in the Septuagint. By the time the Hebrew books of the Old Testament were translated into Greek and a few new books originally written in Greek were incorporated into the common textthat is, in the mid-second century B.C.-the divine warrior image had become

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suspect.IO The "man of war" in Exodus 15:3 becomes, in the Septuagint's Greek translation, "the Lord who crushes wars" (kyrios syntribon polemous)! The same thing happens to Second Isaiah's song of victory in Isaiah 42: 13.

The original

Hebrew text may be translated as follows: The Lord goes forth like a mighty man, like a man of war he stirs up his fury; he cries out, he shouts aloud, he shows himself mighty against his foes. The second line in the Septuagint version substitutes "the Lord who crushes wars" for the Lord who is "like a man of war." This anti-war image is also invoked twice in the book of Judith, a sometimes morally disturbing story of an Israelite Mata Harl, who, for the just cause of liberating Israel from the oppressive Babylonians, decapitates King Nebuchadnezzar's general, Holofemes, after seducing him and getting him drunk.

In the Greek version of what might have been a narrative

originally written in Hebrew in the mid-second century B.C., and which, in any case, is deemed a canonical (or at least deutero-canonical) Old Testament text by the Orthodox Churches, the militarism of the "Assyrians" (mis-identified by the author) stands in sharp contrast to the actions of the Lord God of Israel. In Judith 9: 7 the heroine prays, "Behold now, the Assyrians are increased in their might;

they are exalted, with their horses and riders; they glory in the strength of their foot soldiers; they trust in shield and spear, in bow and sling, and know not that thou art the Lord who crushest wars;

the Lord is thy name."

Later, in a

thanksgiving psalm (Judith 16:3), Judith exalts the Lord: For God is the Lord who crushes wars; for he has delivered me out of the hands of my pursuers; and brought me into his camp in the midst of the people. The moral irony of this narrative virtually leaps from the papyrus on which it was

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first written: deceit and assassination are countenanced but the Lord still "crushes wars" among His wayward creation. In short, although biblical scholar W. Klassen assesses this transformation of the Lord from warrior to destroyer of war as "daring" on the part of the translators who produced the Septuagint, 11 an Orthodox moral theologian may counter that the shift in meaning simply makes explicit the developing pacifist, anti-war trajectory dating back to "the sea tradition."

It is always God's providence alone, according to this perspective, that miraculously saves and preserves Israel. It is the Lord, not Israel or her leaders, who is termed "mighty in battle" in Psalms 24:8 (23:8, Septuagint). Psalms 78 (77) relates in detail the story of God's mighty acts for His faithless people including the Exodus (w. 13, 53) and the displacement of other nations during the conquest/occupation of Canaan (v. 55). Joshua quotes the Lord in his address to Is-

rael at Shechem: "And I sent the hornet before you, which drove them out before you, the two kings of the Amorites; it was not by your sword or by your bow" (Joshua 24: 12). In Psalms 20:7-8, which, to be sure, is probably a prayer for the king of Israel uttered prior to a very human battle, the psalmist nevertheless downgrades human military might: Some boast of chariots, and some of horses; but we boast of the name of the Lord our God. They will collapse and fall; but we shall rise and stand upright. The same theme appears in Psalms 33 (32): 16-17, 20:

A king is not saved by his great army; a warrior is not delivered by his great strength. The war horse is a vain hope for victory, and by its great might it cannot save .... Our soul waits for the Lord; he is our help and shield.

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And Psalms 147 ( 146): 10-11 also echoes this theme: His [the Lord's] delight is not in the strength of the horse, nor his pleasure in the legs of a man; but the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his steadfast love. The theme of God's exclusive military miracles on behalf of Israel continues through the chronicle of Jehoshaphat's reign as the fourth king of the southern kingdom of Judah. Even if we concede that 2 Chronicles 20 is a parable that attributes a miraculous victory to the righteous Jehoshaphat that is greater than the more conventional military victories of King Abijah and King Asa recorded in 2 Chronicles 13 and 14, the aspiration of the chronicler still partakes of the spirit of God the sole warrior of Israel. The Lord assures the Judahites before the great battle against Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir:

"[T]he battle is not yours but

God's .... You will not need to fight in this battle; take your position, stand still, and see the victory of the Lord on your behalf, 0 Judah and Jerusalem" (2 Chronicles 20:15, 17). And the Lord, true to His word, causes the enemies of Judah to fight and destroy one another. Finally, Ezekiel's apocalyptic vision of the defeat of Gog carries this theme to "the latter years" of the future (Ezekiel 38:8). The Lord Himself will thwart "the evil scheme" of the enemies oflsrael by summoning "every kind of terror" against Gog, ranging from natural disasters to the "fire and brimstone" of the apocalypticist's fertile imagination (Ezekiel 38:10, 21, 22). Nothing would demonstrate more dramatically not only God's greatness and holiness, but also the passive, non-violent role that He expects Israel to play in those cataclysmic events. This peculiarly apocalyptic vision enjoys a powerful revival in the New Testament book of Revelation, which the next section of this chapter will examine closely. The second component of the pacifist trajectory in the Old Testament is the theme of prophetic warnings to avoid the ways of pagan government and warfare lest Israel suffer the wrath of the Lord. From the earliest days oflsrael's monarchy

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in the eleventh century B.C., when the prophet Samuel bristles at the prospect of appointing "a king to govern us like all the nations" (1 Samuel 8:5)-a request that offends God Himself ("they have rejected me from being king over them"1 Samuel 8:7)-the prophets of Israel and the divided kingdom rail consistently against the wayward behavior of the Chosen People. Despite their God-given uniqueness, the people of Israel prefer to be like the pagans around them-a politically and militarily powerful empire. And so "the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel" (1 Samuel 8:19), particularly his specific warning that a king of Israel would "take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen" and name "commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties ... to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots" (1 Samuel 8:11, 12). With the anointing of Saul as the first king of Israel by, ironically, that everobedient prophet of the Lord, Samuel, the Chosen People begin their inexorable slide into religious and moral corruption. As Millard Lind concludes, The political order founded upon the prophetic personality and Yahweh's miracle was exchanged for an order which was moving toward military and political expediency, the human manipulation and control of the social and political resources involved in the violent use ofpower.12 By the eighth century B.C., the prophets of Israel's two kingdoms no longer bless Israel's wars, "declaring them to be not holy but rather deserving punishment for the nation's sins. 11 13 When the spiritual and moral toll of Israel's failure to fulfill its unique pacific vocation becomes evident in the Assyrian conquest of the Northern Kingdom of Israel and in the imminent conquest of Judah by the Babylonians late in the seventh century B.C., the great prophet Jeremiah boldly announces to the southern Kingdom that the Lord is about to use the swords of their enemies to punish Judah for its failure to abide by the terms of Israel's covenant with God. The Lord "will scatter them among the nations" whom they have never known but whose ways they seek to emulate, and He will make of Judah "a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth" (Jeremiah 9: 16; 34: 17), much as an animal was slaughtered in the ritual sacrifice of the covenant that Judah had forsaken. On the "day of vengeance" when "the sword shall devour and be sated, and drink its fill of their blood" (Jeremiah 46:10), what shall the people of Judah do? An oracle of the

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prophet counsels-shockingly, to be sure, simple surrender-non-violent capitulation to the pagan Babylonians! "And to this people you shall say: 'Thus says the Lord: Behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death. He who stays in this city shall die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence; but he who goes out and surrenders to the Chaldeans who are besieging .you shall live and shall have his life as a prize of war. For I have set my face against this city for evil and not for good, says the Lord: it shall be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire."' (Jeremiah 21:8-10) Compare this to the same Lord who formerly preserved Israel from her enemies by miraculous military interventions:

for example, Isaiah 34:5-6a, 8, where the

prophet Isaiah offers the following assurance to the Kingdom of Judah in the eighth century B.C.: For my sword has drunk its fill in the heavens; behold, it descends for judgment upon Edom, upon the people I have doomed. The Lord has a sword; it is sated with blood, ... For the Lord has a day of vengeance, a year of recompense for the cause of Zion. Now, only a century later, the Lord would visit upon Jerusalem a military and political defeat such as she had never known. The only "way of life" (Septuagint-

ten odon tes zoes) for the residents of the "city of peace" (Hebrew-yeru, "city"; shalem, "peace") on the precipice of national disaster is what their behavior ought to have reflected all along-namely, peace, justice, holiness, and non-violence. Other prophets warn of God's impending wrath against the Gentile ways of the Chosen People, though without the explicit summons to non-violence so eloquently recorded for all time in the prophecy of Jeremiah. Before the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 B.C., Ezekiel prophesies that the Lord will soon execute 130

judgment against Judah for its "evil abominations" through "the sword of the king of Babylon," a sword that is "drawn for the slaughter, ... polished to glitter and to flash like lightning" (Ezekiel 6:11; 21:19, 28). And yet the Lord claims it as his own: "[T]herefore my sword shall go out of its sheath against all flesh from south to north" (Ezekiel 21 :4). For Zedekiah, the king of Judah, the message is at once personal and an indictment of his regal ancestors: "And you, 0 unhallowed wicked one, prince of Israel, whose day has come, the time of your final punishment, thus says the Lord God: Remove the turban, and take off the crown; things shall not remain as they are; exalt that which is low, and abase that which is high." (Ezekiel 21:25-26) A few generations later, even after the end of the Babylonian captivity of Judah and the return to Palestine, the prophet Zechariah preaches to the chastened Chosen People an unmistakable message of pacific trust in the Lord's strength alone. The restored temple will be completed only through God's Spirit:

"This is the

word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord Almighty" (Zechariah 4:6). The last phrase is particularly significant, because "Lord Almighty" (Septuagint-kyrios pantokrator) is rendered "Lord of hosts" in the translation of the Masoretic Hebrew text of this passage. The latter phrase had been associated with Israel's erstwhile military might in other passages such as 1 Samuel 17:45-"the Lord God of hosts of the army oflsrael"

(Septuagint-kyriou theou sabaoth parataxeos Jsrael)-that constitute the justifiable war trajectory in the Old Testament. Zechariah also exhorts the restored Israel in the name of the Lord of hosts to "render in your gates judgments that make for peace" and not to "devise evil in your hearts against one another" (Zechariah 8: 16, 17). Where this vision of peace and harmony assumes a distinctively messianic, eschatological quality, the third predominant theme of Old Testament pacifism is present. In the future messianic era that the prophets Isaiah and Micah foresee as early as the eighth century B.C.: For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from

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Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. (Isaiah 2:3d-4; compare Micah 4:3-4) This is surely one of the most eloquent, inspirational appeals for the peace of nonviolent, pastoral harmony among peoples. But it represents only the telos of the pacifist trajectory in the Old Testament. The primary means to that end, at least within the strands of eschatological messianic Old Testament tradition, is the equally eloquent, inspirational portrait of the "Suffering Servant" by Second Isaiah, particularly the fourth servant song in Isaiah 52:13-53:12. In the Orthodox patristic tradition of Old Testament exegesis, the servant has been identified universally with Jesus of Nazareth. As the messiah, who "poured out his soul to death" (Isaiah 53:12) He willfully accepts brutality, disfigurement, and death without hesitation or objection, in a spirit of total selfgiving and nonresistance: He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth. (Isaiah 53 :7) This aspect of the Old Testament pacifist trajectory is perpetuated most compellingly in the New Testament accounts of the salvi:fic ministry and crucifixion of Jesus Christ, whose manner of life and death as God incarnate are exemplary for

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those who would be His followers. Even if we were, however, to accept the less grandiose Jewish claim-maintained vociferously since the dawn of the Christian era in reaction to the Christian use of the text-that the "suffering servant" is not a personal messiah but rather Israel as a whole, the obvious pacifist import of this passage would still be obvious. In fact, the moral obligation of pacifism may be more firmly attested in the Jewish reading of the text, insofar as all of Israel is expected to endure undeserved suffering and death without resort to violent resistance. For non-messianic Jews, therefore, the pacifist imperative is direct and without divine mediation: there is no need for the "middle axiom" that what God does as Jesus is incumbent also upon all human beings.

In either case, the

premium on non-violence in the fourth Servant Song in Second Isaiah carries to its logical fulfillment the initial divine prohibition of killing as recorded in Genesis 4:15. The "mark of Cain" is transfonned into a summons to him who would be the servant of the Lord not only to refrain from violence but also to suffer it with patience, grace, and hope in the ultimate vindication that only God Himself can establish. This epitomizes what Millard Lind terms the "distinctive theology of warfare" in Israel: "[T]hat obedience to Yahweh's word and trust in his miracle are alone decisive. 11 14

NEW TESTAMENT EVIDENCE The predominant views of the world and the place of the Church and Christians in it that we find in the various New Testament writings may be situated primarily in the 11 sect-type" social ethical trajectory discussed in chapter 3 above. The feminist theologian Rosemary Ruether has nevertheless detected a profound nuance in the New Testament writings, particularly those associated with St. Paul and St. John. They shun the more active apocalyptic Jewish messianism without, however, resorting to a collaborationist, or what we have termed a "worldly-type," mentality.

A sense of moral and 11 cosmic 11 alienation from the Roman society

pervades these writings and results in the inculcation of a passive rather than active apocalypticism.

The state ultimately pales in significance before the awaited

cosmic cataclysm that will overthrow the present rulers of the world and usher in the Kingdom of God.15

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Curiously, in terms of the moral dilemma posed by military activity and wars, the same fundamental sect-type mentality gives rise in the New Testament to two remarkably divergent expressions of a larger, more encompassing pacifist trajectory. To be sure, the dilemma of military service for the Roman Empire is never explicitly addressed by Jesus Christ or the New Testament writers, not only because Christians, like Jews, were not conscripted or even allowed to join that army at that time, but also owing to the peculiar nature of the New Testament as Holy Scripture. The New Testament is a collection of assorted documents, each of which has rather specific purposes and contexts and none of which, save perhaps the Epistle to the Romans, furnishes a systematic dogmatic or moral theology per se.

Having duly registered that caveat, we may now proceed to a brief

impressionistic examination of the New Testament "evidence" for absolute pacifism. The first expression of the pacifist trajectory is the emphasis on "non-violence" that can be located sporadically in the New Testament and, most importantly, in some of the exclamations of Jesus Himself. Nowhere, to be sure, does the New Testament contain an absolute injunction against war, and the pacifism of our Lord and His earliest disciples has often been exaggerated, overstated, or simply presumed.16 But several passages do, in fact, suggest a tendency toward a non-violent pacifist ideal, while others at least appear to invoke that moral position. Working backward chronologically, we shall zero in on a layer of pacifist non-violence that may be at the core of Jesus' moral teaching. In 1 John 5:4, St. John the Beloved Disciple declares that "our faith" is "the victory that overcomes the world." This by no means excludes war or the use of force, but it points toward a more outwardly passive and inwardly active disposition among the faithful-a kind of spiritual resistance to the world and the rulers, both political and demonic, of this aeon-that is echoed in other passages that urge Christians to resist Satan such as Ephesians 6: 11 and James 4:7.

An openly negative view of war is expressed in James 4: 1, which attributes the causes of wars and of the fights among the brethren to "your passions that are at war in your members." We shall examine the spiritual role of "passions" (pathe in Greek) in chapter 9; let it suffice here to state that Eastern Orthodox moral tradition identifies the passions as evil, sinful disturbances of spiritual equilibrium, so for St. James to associate war with the passions is, from an Orthodox 134

perspective, a devastating indictment of war. An implicit rejection of the military option for Christians also may be found in 1 Peter 2:18-23; 3:16-18, where St. Peter urges slaves to follow Christ's example of humble, patient suffering of injustice and not to respond to reviling and abuse by "doing wrong." The Apostle Paul repeatedly echoes this counsel, sometimes in more forceful language, as in 1 Thessalonians 5: 15 ("See that none of you repays evil for evil"), Romans 12: 18 ("live peaceably with all"), and 2 Timothy 2:24 ("the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kindly to everyone"). The gospels may contain an implied message of non-violence and nonresistance in the instruction of Jesus Christ during His apocalyptic discourse that those in Judea should "flee to the mountains" when the temple is profaned, presumably after a Gentile attack on Jerusalem (Mark 13:14; Matthew 24:16; Luke 21:21). But a negative view of war does not necessarily preclude war as a moral alternative to a greater evil, and a warning to avoid a terrible tribulation by fleeing may be little more than good, sound advice. Another difficult saying fraught with various possible meanings is Jesus' remark to His disciples that whoever would save his life must lose it (Mark 8:35; Matthew 10:39; Luke 17:33; John 12:25). Discipleship therefore entails a willingness to undergo martyrdom in imitation of Jesus Himself, but the conditions of such martyrdom-for example, a pacifist response to violence-are not specified.

One additional statement of the Lord should be

mentioned. In John 18:36 Jesus boldly declares to Pilate, "[I]f my kingship were of this world, my servants would fight, that I might not be handed over to the Jews." Ifwe apply this text to other situations, we might thereby prohibit forceful resistance to violence that is directed not only against ourselves but also against others! Such an application admittedly would, however, be risky and dubious, for not everything that our Lord did or said must be duplicated by His followers, and the present saying seems to be concerned more with the fulfillment of Jesus' unprecedented messianic mission than with establishing a precedent of peaceful nonresistance for Christians. Another set of incidents illustrates what Cecil John Cadoux called Jesus' "refusal to advance his ideals by political or coercive means. 11 17 In the wilderness where He confronts Satan before commencing His public ministry, Jesus rejects the worldly temptation to rule all the kingdoms of earth, presumably by political and military might (Matthew 4:8-10; Luke 4:5-8). 135

He rejects an overture by

Galileans to crown Him king (John 6:15). He does not attempt to persuade, much less coerce, Herod Antipas to release St. John the Forerunner from prison (Matthew 14: 1-13 ). He refuses to countenance the violent judicial punishment of the woman caught in adultery and even effects a non-violent solution to her plight

(John 7:53-8:11). Now these isolated episodes admittedly constitute, even in the aggregate, little more than an argument :from omission. But the behavior of Jesus during the last few days of His human life attest to His unmistakable personal commitment to pacifist non-violence and nonresistance. He neither resists arrest nor tries to escape nor allows His disciples to intervene on His behalf by forceful measures; He willingly accepts the physical and emotional abuse heaped upon Him by His various "enemies"; He demonstrates, according to the Lukan account, an abiding spirit of compassionate forgiveness for His persecutors at the very moment of His torment and death on the cross ("Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do"-Luke 23 :34) and for the penitent thief at His side ("Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise"Luke 23 :43). One New Testament scholar recently offered a persuasive argument that the entire Gospel of St. Luke contains such an overwhelmingly positive insistence on the forgiveness of one's enemies that it serves as a pacifist gospel from beginning to end. J. Massyngbaerde Ford has coined a new term-"philoechthrology"-to describe Jesus' new revolutionary theology of love of the enemy, as redacted, naturally, by St. Luke.18 But a direct link to Old Testament pacifism is still evident in Jesus' final days. Whether Jesus Himself consciously appropriates the fourth Servant Song in the Old Testament prophecy of Isaiah, there can be no denying that Jesus Christ effectively embodies the spiritual and moral meaning of that passage. His passion and death are the perfect messianic fulfillment of that prophecy.19 A handful of dominical sayings leaves little room for equivocation and clearly reveals what could be termed a moral doctrine of non-violence. The most familiar of those sayings is undoubtedly Jesus' bold comment that "all who take the sword will perish by the sword" (Matthew 26:52b). No more concise and decisive a condemnation of the use of military arms has ever been uttered. Granted the other evangelists omit this particular saying in their accounts of the arrest of Jesus and, as a result, a thorny exegetical problem ensues. For example, in John 18: 11 the Lord merely tells Peter to sheath his sword (as in Matthew 26:52a), so that He

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may fulfill His messianic mission-a curious parallel to the meaning of John 18:36 suggested above. In Luke 22:51 Jesus simply says, "No more of this!" And in Mark 14:47fthe Lord makes no comment whatsoever about the strike against the slave's ear. So why does St. Matthew, alone of the four evangelists, include the dramatic and memorable phrase? It is also interesting that the Matthean saying entails the use of the sword itself as the means of retribution. Does this mean that God will slay offenders or merely allow them providentially to be slain by other swordwielders, whether human or angelic? Or is the time of retribution that of the "apocalyptic holy war," which will be discussed below? In any event, the use of physical force is definitely involved.

These legitimate considerations aside, we

may, nevertheless, not easily ignore or minimize the anti-violent thrust of this celebrated dominical saying. Nor may we quickly dismiss those sections of the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of St. Matthew or the Sermon on the Plain in the Gospel of St. Luke that similarly demand a peaceful disposition among Christians.

The beatitudes

concerning the meek and the peacemakers (Matthew 5:5, 9), the stress on loving one's enemies and the familiar command to tum the other cheek (Matthew 5:43-48; Luke 6:27-36), and the expansion of the Old Testament prohibition against murder in Exodus 20: 13 to include anger and insult as well (Matthew 5 :2 lf) all speak of a life-encompassing spirituality that excludes perforce violence of any kind. Roland Bainton and Cecil John Cadoux outlined the interpretative devices that some persons have employed in order to diminish or mitigate the apparent significance of these precepts.20 Two of these "devices" merit special attention. The possibility is real that Jesus is referring to moral conditions that will obtain during the messianic era after His parousia-a "post-interim ethic, 11 as it were. As the preceding section of the present chapter has shown, the Old Testament prophets Isaiah and Micah foresee the end of all wars in "the latter days" (Isaiah 2:2-4; Micah 4:3-4). But this objection appears quite improbable in light of the immediate pastoral setting of the dominical sayings in question. It is likewise possible, as Bainton himself indicates, that these precepts reveal the moral behavior expected of individuals in critical situations pertaining only to their own lives or well-being but not necessarily to dilemmas in which other persons are confronted with some external threat. A variation on this theme is a distinction between a 137

personal religio-moral obligation of non-violence and a collective, communal, or public use of coercive violence for the good of the whole, particularly those presumed to be in need of protection. Of course, the only time Jesus intervenes directly in a potentially violent execution by the administrators of Jewish justice-the incident of the woman caught in adultery (John 7:53-8: 11)-He not only personally arranges a non-violent solution; He also overturns the proper judicial sentence in favor of extraordinary forgiveness. The personal/communal hypothesis is, however, despite its dubious argument from omission and its failure to account for the universal, normative quality of Matthew 26:52, still worthy of serious consideration. Such an argument occurs frequently in the history of the Churchmost notably in recent decades in Reinhold Niebuhr's 1932 classic, Moral Man and

Immoral Society. 21 Under no circumstances could we, even while advancing this argument, justify any but the most purely defensive of wars. Similarly, the oftenquoted metaphorical passage of St. Paul in Ephesians 6: 10-17-with its exclusively defensive armor save for "the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God"-may justify defensive war.

But the use of the passage by the Church

Fathers demonstrates a purely spiritual instead of literal understanding of the defense urged by St. Paul. Lacking any merit, however, as a serious limitation on Jesus' teaching of non-violence is the sophistry advanced by some non-pacifists that Jesus' exhortation to love one's enemies is a positive norm alone. Since the "negative counterpart"-an injunction against violence-is lacking in the textual sources, we may not, supposedly, conclude that Jesus never countenances violence!22 The non-violent expression of the pacifist trajectory that surfaces in these sayings of Jesus and lies either dormantly or vestigially within the texts of the other passages mentioned in passing shows that, according to at least one level or strand of tradition originating with Jesus Himself, war and military service by Christians in this aeon is unthinkable, or at least beyond the realm of possibility.

Some

theologians have sought to delimit the original cause and significance of this tradition in terms of the religious context in which it arose--namely, the danger of compromise with pagan religion that confronted any Christian or Jew in the Roman military.23 But Jesus appears to address not merely the use of the sword in that particular setting but in any human context imaginable.

The religious or

political quality of the state is inconsequential, for war and the use of any physical 138

force are intrinsically problemmatic and universally forbidden to followers of Christ in their own defense and possibly in other circumstances, too.

The new moral

lifestyle that the Lord has introduced has raised those who follow Him above the usual "moral" or, in truth, immoral demands of this world. The other pacifist expression that arises from the sect-type social ethical trajectory is grounded more sharply and dramatically in the Jewish apocalyptic tradition that probably nurtured the earliest Christian communities and that still pervades much of the New Testament. This perspective is manifested at various levels of alienation from the predominant pagan world civilization. Three levels can be sketched briefly here. First is the simple indication that Christians are "aliens" or "strangers" in this world (1 Peter 1:17; 2:11; Hebrews 10:13), or that "our commonwealth is in heaven" as opposed to worldly realms (Philippians 3:20f). A striking elaboration of this sentiment can be found in the anonymous Epistle to Diognetos 5.1, 5-17 (ca. A.D. 130). Despite the hint of gnosticism in these phrases, they are genuinely

Christian conclusions based on the significance of Jesus' crucifixion by the world as represented by those Roman and Jewish individuals and institutions with decisionmaking power. 24 The second level of alienation is epitomized in certain of St. Paul's writings. The parenthetical passage in 2 Corinthians 6: 14-7: 1 comes almost as a surprise in that epistle and may have been borrowed from or firmly rooted in the Jewish Essene tradition, as indicated in chapter 3 above,25 but its presence in a major epistle of St. Paul cannot be explained away.

This passage lays the moral

groundwork for a resolutely anti-pagan attitude that amounts to absolute segregation from all things pagan including, of course, the Roman military. The claim that this is not a true reflection of St. Paul's general perspective is belied by the equally sharp language in 2 Thessalonians 2:8-10 concerning the apocalyptic nature of the Second Advent of Christ. 26 The third and most extreme level of alienation permeates the book of Revelation. Relevant to the purposes of the present study are several passages in particular that illustrate in the spectacular language typical of apocalyptic style the "apocalyptic holy war. 11 Here is a perpetuation of the Old Testament image of God the "warrior" as epitomized by "the sea tradition" in Exodus and the apocalyptic vision of the defeat of Gog in the prophecy of Ezekiel. The most striking moral 139

aspect in Revelation, as in its Old Testament precursors, is the lack of any active military involvement in the apocalyptic holy war by the followers of Christ, the new Israel. In Revelation 17: 13f the author of this document signals the downfall of the hated enemy Rome, the new imperial Babylon as embodied in "the beast" (that is, the Emperor Nero redivivus) and the ten satrap kings: "[T]hey will make war on the Lamb, and the Lamb will conquer them, for he is Lord of lords and King of kings." A more detailed vision of the initial victory of Christ and "the armies of heaven" (ta strateumata en to ourano) over the armies of "the beast and the kings of the earth" is related in startling imagery in Revelation 19:11-21, having already been announced in 16: 14. And the final triumph over Satan after his thousand-year imprisonment is described in Revelation 20:7-10 in military terminology as a Satanic siege of Jerusalem by all the nations of the earth; that siege is thwarted by a heavenly fire that consumes them while Satan is cast into hell, or "the lake of fire and sulphur." Nowhere in these episodes is the role of the Christians even so much as alluded to save for their persecution and subjection to the evil armies of the nations. The final holy wars are fought not by but for the Christians by the Lord Himself supported by His angelic hosts, who are presumably the same "legions of angels" to whom He refers in Matthew 26:53. The armies are, as Paul S. Minear observes, "undoubtedly real, but they are not to be hastily made equivalent to specific historical nations, since they are heavenly armies, identified only by their commanders"-Christ the Word of God on the white horse on the one side, and, opposed to Him, the two "beast" figures together with the kings of the earth. 27 The nature of the respective "weapons" is also mysterious. Minear describes them succinctly: "The only force utilized by the rider on the white horse is the sword of his mouth. The only source of power for his opponents is their ability to deceive their armies. 11 28 There is no battle in any conventional or mere human sense. In this "surrealist" event, in G. R. Beasley-Murray's apt description, "The 'battle' resolves itself into a judgment uttered by the Word of God ... 11 29 Even the "armies of heaven" are spectators in this spectacle, mere witnesses of the pronouncement of judgment by the Lamb, not fellow warriors in the fray. Thus they are "arrayed in fine linen, white and pure" (Revelation 19:14), "clothed in the apparel of festivity," having no need of armor or weapons. 30 Nor is such angelic combat unprecedented, for Revelation 12:7-17 describes what must have been a 140

primeval war in heaven between the Archangel Michael and his angels on one side and Satan and his angels on the other. 31 The significance of these passages in terms of the nature of war is obvious despite the use of colorfill symbolic and/or mythic imagery. War is not intrinsically evil but its occurrence is conditioned by divine determination of when it may be necessary. The question of the nature of the state is irrelevant, for this late first century text apparently views all nations as intimately bound to the Roman Babylon, which is beyond redemption.

But

participation in war is limited to the Lord and possibly His angels also, for the ultimate enemy and the force behind the evil Roman Empire is Satan and his minions; there is no place for Christian mortals in a confrontation of such vast cosmic proportions. In this context the pacifist import of Revelation 12:11 should become clear: "And they [the brethren] have conquered him [Satan] [autoi enike-

san auton] by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony [dia ton logon tes martyrias auton], for they loved not their lives [Greek-p.sychen, or "soul"] even unto death." Since the true "enemies" are the demonic powers behind human enemies such as the political and military might of Rome, "To defeat such human enemies or to be defeated by them is not the definition of victory or defeat that John had in mind. 11 32 The true conquest of evil by Christians consists in their faith in the mighty deeds of Christ the Lamb-both historically at Calvary and apocalyptically in the future final subduing of Satan's illusory power-and their personal witness (martyria) for that faith. This non-violent testimony should know no limits, even if martyrdom is the price to be paid. The followers of Christ are summoned by God to the same fate that awaited the Lamb that was slain-that of the "suffering servant" in Isaiah 52:13-53:12. Despite the apparent conflict between the two fundamental sect-type expressions of the pacifist trajectory in the New Testament, the themes of non-violence and apocalyptic holy war truly spring from the same root and may be harmonized without violating the ethos and integrity of their respective traditions. The task of Christians in the present aeon that is rapidly passing away does in no way include war or physical retaliation, although wars will continue to occur around them until the eschaton, as our Lord Himself prophesies in His apocalyptic discourse (Matthew 24:6t). But the eschaton itself will be ushered in with a great violent cosmic upheaval in which the Christian faithful again will be passive, or pacifist, onlookers, while those men in Satan's militant ranks will be vanquished. 141

Therefore, the nature of war is not at issue but rather the proper time and circumstances for God to fulfill His own economy of salvation by ultimately conquering and restricting evil. Thus the nature of the demonic opposition as irrevocably opposed to God and the greater good of reestablishing a more harmonious, God-oriented, purified created order are the decisive factors that override our limited human view of war (bolstered, ironically, by Jesus' unmistakably pacifist injunctions for mankind) as unfairly and needlessly destructive for the "winners" as well as the "losers." For the criteria of fairness and necessity become irrelevant and obsolete when, as God Himself confronts eternal evil, there is no ambivalence on the opposing sides or human ambiguity in the nature of the conflict. The only essential uncertainty that still remains concerning this apocalyptic perspective is the time of the eschaton. This is a theological problem of the first magnitude about which the only clearly proclaimed Orthodox tradition echoes the simple warning of our Lord in Matthew 24:42 (and parallel passages) and amplified by St. Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5:2-8 that the eschaton will happen unexpectedly. But if, as we may reasonably speculate, the "last days" according to most apocalyptic passages in the New Testament are not supposed to be in the distant future--ours today as well as that of the New Testament writers themselves-but rather closer to the time of Jesus on earth, then the eschaton, or at least the beginnings of it, is perhaps the whole duration of time from the Ascension until the present day-in other words, the existential reality of life since our Lord first smashed the gates of hell and inaugurated the New Creation.33 In that event, we are then living in the very eschaton when the apocalyptic holy war may be expected. This still would not properly allow for men, especially Christians who are presumably exempted (or preempted!) from the apocalyptic struggle, to engage in warfare. But a slight modification, or a reinterpretation, of this apocalyptic tradition in light of the new circumstances arising from the continued existence of the Church in the world for many more years than originally anticipated might lead to a relaxing of the strictures against military activity by Christians. This is, in fact, precisely what happened in the patristic era, when the biblical pacifist trajectory gradually was eclipsed, though not suppressed entirely, by the rival justifiable war trajectory.

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Chapter 6

PATRISTIC WRITINGS ON WAR AND PEACE We might suppose that a Christian before the Pax Constantini in A.D. 313 would have been out of his mind to serve as a soldier in the armed forces of the Roman Empire. Why would anyone committed to the Lord Jesus Christ be willing to devote his life-and even risk it time and time again in battle-to the defense of a regime whose moral and spiritual corruption were exceeded only by its militant opposition to the Savior of the world, as evidenced in intermittent waves of ferocious, savage, anti-Christian persecution? The great risk of compulsory idolatrous worship of pagan divinities, including the Roman emperor himself, the rampant immorality within the ranks, and the official suppression of the practice of Christianity as a misdemeanor punishable by death should have deterred any conscientious Orthodox Christian from enlisting or continuing to serve Rome in any military capacity. I And yet, on the basis of patristic writings, epigraphic inscriptions, and hagiographic literature pertaining to some two dozen "soldier saints, 112 there can be no denying the disturbing fact that some Christians were, at least by A.D. 180, doing precisely that. Perhaps the most famous, or notorious, instance was the Legio XII Fulmi-

nata-the "Thundering Legion. 11 Eusebios of Caesarea, the church historian and champion of St. Constantine the Great, claimed in his Ecclesiastical History that,

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in a battle against the Germans and Sarmatians on the Danube frontier during the reign of the sometimes viciously anti-Christian Emperor Marcus Aurelius, this military unit was the recipient of a divine miracle in response to the prayers of Christian soldiers in the ranks. 3 The various situations that led to such involvement with Rome were probably more fluid than we might expect, for the empire was not geographically or temporally monolithic in its practice and enforcement of religious paganism, particularly emperor worship. Nor were all Christians within the empire faced with dilemmas of equal scope and intensity. For example, the threat of "barbarian" invasions along the perimeter of the empire may have loomed more ominously than the possibility of associating personally and officially with immoral pagan soldiers. Many Christian soldiers presumably persisted in such civil collaboration with Rome either without regard to the ramifications of the requisite apostasy or at least until they were forced to choose between Jesus Christ and Caesar. Beginning with the ascendency and conversion of the Emperor St. Constantine and climaxing with the establishment of Orthodox Christianity as the exclusive state religion by the Emperor St. Theodosios in AD. 381, the empire became thoroughly Christian and the Church imperial. In one of the great ironies of ancient history, in AD. 416 the Emperor Theodosios II decreed that only Christians could serve in the imperial armed forces!4 No longer at loggerheads, Church and empire combined to form Christendom, an unprecedented and generally unanticipated tum of events that made obsolescent the apocalyptic vituperation or personal detachment that characterized all but small minorities of Christians during the New Testament and early patristic periods. Or did it? Historically sizeable portions of the Church in outlying areas of the Roman Empire continued to chafe under the new Byzantine Roman rule and, owing to various circumstances, gradually withdrew from Orthodoxy as well as from the Byzantine world in general. In a very real sense, therefore, the new harmony between Church and empire, while generating dogmatic disagreements, was also instrumental in causing the schismatic and even heretical defection of many previously Orthodox Christians. Within Orthodox Christendom, moreover, there were traces of a continuing sect-type perspective on the issue of military service by Christians even for the Christian Empire. The pacifist trajectory, which seemed so dominant in the patristic writings in the pre-Constantinian era, endured

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after the fourth century among some Church Fathers and communities. It was a decreasing minority, to be sure, and located on the fringes of the seat of power in the Byzantine Empire, particularly in the Western Latin-speaking domains and in the far-reaching southern and eastern territories, but it proved to be an undaunted, articulate, highly vocal contingent.

In the pre-Constantinian era, the comments of several Fathers, including Tertullian in his later years as a Montanist heretic, were consistently pacifist and hostile toward Rome. Although the apocalyptic sense of imminent upheaval had dissipated over time, these writings continued the pacifist trajectory from New Testament times, usually in a more subdued, less intensive manner, but always with at least an implicit sense of the vast, possibly unbreachable chasm between the Church and the worldly ways of the empire, given the presumably distinctive moral qualities pertaining to each. Two distinct sub-themes also emerged in the patristic era: opposition to both idolatry and bloodshed. These twin aversions shared an antipathy toward Rome but differed as to the moral basis for the prohibition of military service by Christians. In this chapter we shall examine the extant writings of the six pre-Constantinian Church Fathers whose writings evidence an absolute pacifism, whether undiluted or alloyed with anti-idolatrous sentiments. 5 Then the works of three prominent absolute pacifist Church Fathers from the century after St. Constantine will show how this trajectory on war and peace survived the Pax Constantini with its unprecedented mix of blessings and temptations.

PRE-CONSTANTINIAN PACIFISTS A. ST. JUSTIN MARTYR A Palestinian who wrote his major works in Rome around A.D. 155, St. Justin Martyr initiated several lines of argument against the violence and worldliness of military service that other Christian apologists gratefully perpetuated. In the First Apology addressed to the pagan Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius, he assured the sovereign, "And more than all other men we are your helpers and allies in promoting peace. 11 6 St. Justin indicated the breadth of that common in145

terest, citing Matthew 22: 17-21: "Whence to God alone we render worship, but in other things we gladly serve you, acknowledging you as kings and rulers of men, and praying that with your kingly power you be found to possess also sound judgement. 11 7 But St. Justin qualified the unique modus vivendi with Rome that the Christians had developed in the spirit of the gospel: [W]e who hated and destroyed one another, and on account of their different manners would not live with men of a different tribe, now, since the coming of Christ, live familiarly with them, and pray for our enemies, and endeavor to persuade those who hate us unjustly to live comfonnably to the good precepts of Christ . . .8 So powerful was this new way of peaceful persuasion that St. Justin could boast to the emperor about "many who were once of your way of thinking, but have changed their violent and tyrannical disposition. 11 9 Any doubt as to the depth of St. Justin's commitment to non-violence should be dispelled by two explicitly anti-military passages. The first is from the First

Apology. After proclaiming the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy of a messianic era of peace through the Incarnation of Christ, he declared: [W]e who formerly used to murder one another do not only now refrain from making war upon our enemies, but also, that we may not lie nor deceive our examiners, [we] willingly die confessing Christ. . . . But if the soldiers enrolled by you, and who have taken the military oath, prefer their allegiance to their own life, and parents, and country, and all kindred, though you can offer them nothing incorruptible, it were verily ridiculous if we, who earnestly long for incorruption, should not endure all things, in order to obtain what we desire from Him who is able to grant it. IO This was the first pacifist reference to Isaiah 2:2-4 by a Church Father. Having thus contrasted the worldly pagan way of war, violence, and bloodshed to the heavenly nonresistance of Christian martyrs, St. Justin next proposed a similar contrast between Jewish military defeat and Christian non-military victory. In his

Dialogue With Trypho the Jew, he asserted that Christians have fled for safety to the God of Jacob and God of Israel; and we who were filled with war, and mutual slaughter, and every wick-

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edness, have each through the whole earth changed our warlike weapons,-our swords into ploughshares, and our spears into implements of tillage,-and we cultivate piety, righteousness, philanthropy, faith, and hope, which we have from the Father Himself through Him who was crucified ... 11 St. Justin launched the Church Fathers on a pacifist trajectory that included as its dominant themes disdain for the worldly militarism of Rome, a pronounced preference for peaceful persuasion even if it entails martyrdom, and a confident faith in the messianic era of peace already inaugurated by Christ in heaven, if not yet on earth.

B. ST.ATHENAGORASOFATHENS St. Athenagoras of Athens) an Alexandrian philosopher and convert to Christianity, continued the precarious witness to authority first advanced by St. Justin Martyr. In his A Plea for Christians, an apologetic work addressed to the Roman co-emperors Marcus Aurelius and his son Commodus around AD. 177, he assured the sovereigns that the Christians who had been suffering persecution from the crowds "are the most pious and righteous of all men in matters that concern both the divine and your kingdom." 12 The conciliatory nature of his appeal is most striking in the concluding section: Who ought more justly to receive what they request than men like ourselves, who pray for your reign that the succession to the kingdom may proceed from father to son, as is most just, and that your reign may grow and increase as all men become subject to you? This is also to our advantage that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life and at the same time may willingly do all that is commanded.13 But not quite all. For, earlier, St. Athenagoras had indicated the moral line of demarcation between pagans and Christians, a cause of no mean dispute: For we have been taught not to strike back at someone who beats us nor to go to court with those who rob and plunder us. Not only that: we have even been taught to turn our head and offer the other

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side when men ill use us and strike us on the jaw and to give also our cloak should they snatch our tunic.14 Not only do Christians practice non-violent nonresistance; they also refrain from watching others die in the arena including "the slaying of a man even when he has been justly condemned." Rebutting contrived charges against Christians who supposedly engaged in murder and cannibalism, the Athenian Christian expressed an utter revulsion for human violence: But since we regard seeing a man slain as next thing [sic] to murdering him, we have renounced such spectacles. How, then, can we be capable of murder when we will not even look at such sights to avoid being polluted and defiled?l5 It is worth noting in this context that St. Athenagoras' consistent opposition to the killing of human beings for any reason was bolstered quite effectively by his sharp condemnations of abortion and infanticide in the next section of his Plea.16

C. TERTULLIAN OF CARTHAGE Tertullian, the first great Latin Father from North Africa, is a study in contrasts. Whereas his early views on war may be situated in the justifiable war trajectory, there can be no doubt that his position on the question of military service by Christians changed in time more drastically and obviously than that of any other patristic figure save perhaps Lactantius. We shall examine the latter in due course; let it suffice here to state that he, however, witnessed a metamorphosis of the Roman Empire under St. Constantine of which Tertullian never could have dreamed, much less anticipated. Tertullian's own metamorphosis took the unusual turn of an increasing estrangement from both the Roman Empire and the Orthodox Church itself What is most relevant to us is Tertullian's reasons, in his more mature, Montanist phase, for prohibiting Christian involvement in the military and for rejecting his earlier views, as an Orthodox Christian, of the beneficent reality of Rome's military might. These reasons were as enigmatic as the person who owned them, and yet Tertullian may be described accurately, in Louis Swift's phrasing, as "the first

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articulate spokesman for pacifism in the Christian Church. 11 17 Another marked contrast to Lactantius and to Tertullian's earlier, qualified support of the military profession was the uncompromising, unambiguous, red-hot intensity of the mature Tertullian's opposition to the pagan Roman state. In this respect, he rekindled and fanned the fiery, apocalyptic, righteous indignation toward Rome that pervades the book of Revelation in the New Testament. In his treatise On Idolatry, written after AD. 211, Tertullian succinctly answered the question of military service by Christians. Since Christ "in disarming Peter, unbelted every soldier," the issue of soldiers possibly having to participate in pagan sacrifices or capital punishment is moot. There is no way that a Christian could serve in any military capacity, whether as an officer or in the "rank and file." That which distinguishes the military profession-the sword-is anathema to the Christian.

The sect-type social ethical trajectory, with its attendant absolute

pacifism, is particularly evident in this statement, which is worth quoting in full: But now inquiry is made about this point, whether a believer may turn himself unto military service, and whether the military may be admitted unto the faith, even the rank and file, or each inferior grade, to whom there is no necessity for taking part in sacrifices or capital punishments. There is no agreement between the divine and the human sacrament, the standard of Christ and the standard of the devil, the camp of light and the camp of darkness. One soul cannot be due to two masters-God and Caesar. And yet Moses carried a rod, and Aaron wore a buckle, and John (Baptist) is girt with leather, and Joshua the son of Nun leads a line of march; and the People warred: if it pleases you to sport with the subject. But how will a Christian man war, nay, how will he serve even in peace, without a sword, which the Lord has taken away? For albeit soldiers had come unto John, and had received the formula of their rule; albeit, likewise, a centurion had believed; still the Lord afterward, in disarming Peter, unbelted every soldier. No dress is lawful among us, if assigned to any unlawful action.18

It is somewhat odd that Tertullian quickly dismissed the problem of idolatry in the treatise On Idolatry, but he focused on this factor in the one work by any Church Father specifically addressed to the problem of military service by Christians, The Chaplet, which also dates from AD. 211, or shortly thereafter.

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The

Chaplet dealt with the dilemma of one Christian who was faced with the necessity

of wearing the soldier's chaplet, or crown, with all the pagan religious significance attendant upon such a practice. After discussing scriptural and traditional precedents for the use or non-use of floral crowns, the odious nature of Jesus' crown of thorns, and the unnatural use, or misuse, of flowers on the head, Tertullian detailed the idolatrous pagan meanings of such crowns, especially as offerings to idols, with which Christians are expressly forbidden to have any communion or "close dealings ... of any kind." He also listed the pagan deities commonly associated with each type of crown.19 The separatist Christian tradition emerged clearly when Tertullian contrasted the crowning of various citizens who enjoy thereby the idolatrous "pomp of the devil and his angels" to the spiritual "crown of life" (Revelation 2: 10) that will be available to all Christians through the conquests of Christ, who "has made us even kings to God and His Father."

In this world,

however, the Christian who is "a citizen of Jerusalem, the city above," is only "a foreigner" who has "nothing to do with the joys of the world. 11 20 The possibility of Montanist influence here notwithstanding, Tertullian still stood squarely in the sect-type social ethical trajectory of the mainstream Christian tradition. Chapter eleven of The Chaplet, however, features a sustained and cogent argument against the notion of the propriety of warfare for Christians. First repeating an argument from On Idolatry, Tertullian, in a clever pun on the word sacramentum, denied the lawfulness of adding "a human oath" to the divine one. Then

an unmistakably pacifist remark follows: "Shall it be held lawful to make an occupation of the sword, when the Lord proclaims that he who used the sword shall perish by the sword? 11 21 Next he noted the numerous religious offences that "are involved in the performances of camp offices. 11 22 Those duties make life difficult for the conscientious Christian who must, therefore, either abandon his service immediately or resort to "all sorts of quibbling," or casuistry, or rationalizations of his actions before God. Nor does the threat of torture or punishment exempt the soldier who succumbs to pressure and offers pagan sacrifices and denies Christ. The essential character of a Christian admits no modification due to such supposedly extenuating circumstances, especially when the soldier can avoid such a predicament by resigning. To be sure, Tertullian was not unreasonable.

He recognized the unique

constraints on the pagan soldier who became a Christian while serving in the 150

military, even as, in his estimation, St. John the Forerunner, the Lord Jesus Christ, and St. Peter seem to have been generously economic when each was confronted by soldiers seeking conversion or spiritual assistance. But the bottom line for Tertullian was avoidance of anything in military service that might offend God. The appropriate passage is worth quoting in detail for its unique articulation of an argument on behalf of conscientious objection to all forms of military service by any soldier who accepts Christ as Lord and Savior. Of course, if faith comes later, and finds any preoccupied with military service, their case is different, as in the instance of those whom John used to receive for baptism, and of those most faithful centurions, I mean the centurion whom Christ approves, and the centurion whom Peter instructs; yet, at the same time, when a man has become a believer, and faith has been sealed, there must be either an immediate abandonment of it, which has been the source with many; or all sorts of quibbling will have to be resorted to in order to avoid offending God, and that is not allowed even outside of military service; or, last of all, for God the fate must be endured which a citizen-faith has been no less ready to accept. Neither does military service hold out escape from punishment of sins, or exemption from martyrdom. Nowhere does the Christian change his character. There is one gospel, and the same Jesus, who will one day deny every one who denies, and acknowledge every one who acknowledges God,-who will save, too, the life which has been lost for His sake; but, on the other hand, destroy that which for gain has been saved to His dishonour. With Him the faithful citizen is a soldier, just as the faithful soldier is a citizen. A state of faith admits no plea of necessity; they are under no necessity to sin, whose one necessity is, that they do not sin. For if one is pressed to the offering of sacrifice and the sheer denial of Christ by the necessity of torture or of punishment, yet discipline does not connive even at that necessity; because there is a higher necessity to dread denying and to undergo martyrdom, than to escape from suffering, and to render the homage required. In fact, an excuse of this sort overturns the entire essence of our sacrament, removing even the obstacle to voluntary sins; for it will be possible also to maintain that inclination is a necessity, as involving in it, forsooth, a sort of compulsion. I have, in fact, disposed of this very allegation of necessity with reference to the pleas by which crowns connected with official position are vindicated, in support of which it is in common use, since for this very reason offices must be either

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refused, that we may not fall into acts of sin, or martyrdoms endured that we may get quit of offices. 23 In short, the best course of action for Christians, in Tertullian's judgment, was refusal of military service even if martyrdom were a sure consequence, in order to avoid giving any offence to God, whether religious or moral. In as concise a statement as we might wish, Tertullian concluded, "I banish from us the military life ... "24 The stridency of Tertullian's later view of Christians in the military was probably the result of a rude awakening to the danger posed by the sudden influx of Christians into the army as a result of the greater appeal of military life under the reform-minded Severan emperors. 25 Whatever the immediate cause, this more extreme view reveals a decisive shift in Tertullian's perspective from the more moderate justifiable war trajectory grounded in the Church-type social ethical trajectory to a pacifist perspective rooted in the apocalyptic sect-type trajectory: no compromise or cooperation of any kind with the pagan Roman state could be countenanced. He still regarded the nature of war as unalterably evil and unbecoming to a Christian, but his increased antipathy toward the Roman Empire had reached apocalyptic proportions: the nature of the Roman state itself was unalterably evil. In drifting so far in such a radical, world-denying direction, Tertullian probably skirted the mainstream of the ancient, undivided Orthodox Catholic Church, whose predominant perspective on the problems of the nature of war and the nature of the Roman state he had reflected in his younger years. For his secttype pacifist perspective does, indeed, deny even the possibility of redeeming the world by forsaking it in its entirely and consigning the world outside the limited realm of the Church militant to the devil. Ironically, however, the twin grounds for Tertullian's objections to military service by Christians were quite legitimate. The absolute pacifist ideal is always laudable for its fidelity to Jesus Christ's teachings and personal example, and it was especially so in Tertullian's time when the first fruits of the eschatological Kingdom of God-namely, the Church-were so small a portion of the world. Further, idolatry was so pervasive that a Christian could not avoid it for long in the Roman military.

In these respects at least, Tertullian's moral conclusions, if not his

theological motivations, seem quite Orthodox in retrospect.

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D. ST. HIPPOLYTUS OF ROME St. Hippolytus of Rome, the rigorist anti-pope who was subsequently canonized, provided' in his Apostolic Tradition, a Greek document that dates from around A.D. 215, two canons (17 and 19) that clearly attempt to distance Christian pacifism from the normal militaristic ways of the Roman Empire. They occur in a series of similar specific contrasts and are quoted here in full:

A soldier of the government must be told not to execute men; if he should be ordered to do it, he shall not do it. He must be told not to take the military oath. If he will not agree, let him be rejected. . . . If a catechumen or a baptized Christian wishes to become a soldier (i.e., a volunteer), let him be cast out. For he has despised God. 26 The reference to "the military oath" parallels Tertullian's concern about the danger of idolatry in the Roman military, but it does not diminish the explicit pacifism in that canon. Subsequent recensions of this text under the guise of various Eastern Church orders show not only that these canons of St. Hippolytus were received as expressions of absolute pacifism, but also that their spirit was still appreciated in certain regions of the Church at least a couple of generations after the Pax Constantini. It is beyond the scope of the present study to untangle the texts and traditions that claim some patrimony from St. Hippolytus or that demonstrate some direct lineage from the original Apostolic Tradition, for that is a matter for patristic scholars specifically trained in the science of textual reconstruction and interpretation.

Let it suffice to state here that three documents that enjoyed wide

popularity in various Eastern domains of the Church perpetuated the Hippolytean perspective on the military in both form and content, albeit with a perhaps decreasing rigorism over time. In his analysis of war in the early Church published in 1919, Cecil John Cadoux conveniently reprinted in parallel columns critical English translations of the so-called Canons of Hippolytus (a pseudonymous work with a

terminus a quo of the mid-third century and a terminus ad quem of A.D. 500), the Egyptian Church Order (extant in Coptic and Ethiopic versions from no earlier 153

than the mid-fifth century), and the Testament of Our Lord (extant in a Syriac version from the mid-fifth century). 27 Direct parallels to canon 17 of the Apostolic

Tradition appear in Canons of Hippolytus, 13.71-"A man who has accepted the power of killing, or a soldier, may never be received at all 11 28 (at baptism); in the Egyptian Church Order-if" a soldier of the prince ... was commanded to kill, he shall not do (it); and if he does not leave off, he shall be rejected 11 29; and in the Testament-if soldiers "wish to· be baptized in the Lord, let them cease from military service or from the (post of) authority, and if not let them not be received." Direct parallels to canon 19 of the Apostolic Tradition appear in the Egyptian Church Order-"And a catechumen or believer, if they wish to be a soldier, shall be rejected, because it is far from God"; and in the Testament-"let a catechumen or a believer of the people, if he desire to be a soldier, either cease from his intention, or if not let him be rejected," because he has "treated the faith with contempt." The Canons of Hippolytus, however, omits this section, offering instead a surprisingly moderate penance for Christians who have, compelled by a commander, shed human blood. The latter exception duly noted, these ecclesiastical manuals manifest a pronounced antipathy for the military profession precisely because of the bloodshed that it entails. We may safely conclude, therefore, that, in some regions of the Churches in Egypt and Syria as late as the mid-fifth century, absolute pacifism still prevailed.

E. ARNOBIUS OF SICCA In his polemical treatise Against the Pagans, written around AD. 303, Arnobius, a Latin rhetorician from Sicca in North Africa, displayed, much like his predecessor Tertullian, a determined opposition to the pagan idolatry and bloodshed associated with the military camps. As we might expect in a polemical work, Arnobius concentrated his vituperation on the false pagan deities themselves and on their impotence in the face of evil and devastation. If Mars is "a calmer of martial insanity," he asked rhetorically, "why is it that every day wars continue? 11 30 Shifting to the converse proposition, Arnobius eloquently attacked the nature of war itself If, on the other hand, he is their instigator, we should say that at the 154

inclination of his own pleasure the god sets the whole world at variance; sows the seeds of discords and strife among far-separated nations of the earth; brings together from different places so many thousands of mortals and, before you can say a single word, piles the fields with corpses; causes bloody torrents to flow; destroys the most firmly established empires; levels cities to the ground; takes away freedom from the freeborn and places on them the condition of slavery; rejoices in civil strife, in the fratricidal slaughter of brothers dying together, and, finally, in the horror of murderous conflict between sons and fathers. 31 Later in the same work Arnobius mocked the Phrygian goddess Cybele, the Magna Mater, whose "sacred stone" had been brought to Rome during the Punic War against Hannibal: "[L]et us grant her love for warfare and a penchant for being involved in the slaughter of battles, in death and bloodshed. 11 32 Arnobius' clearest, most universal condemnation of "the butchery of wars 11 33 appears in two christocentric passages, one positive in tone and the other negative. For when we, so large a number as we are, have learned from His teachings and His laws that evil should not be repaid with evil; that it is better to suffer wrong than be its cause, to pour forth one's own blood rather than to stain our hands and conscience with the blood of another: the world, ungrateful as it is, has long had this benefit from Christ by whom the rage of madness has been softened and has begun to withhold hostile hands from the blood of fellow beings.34 Did He ever, as He claimed royal power for Himself, infest the whole world with fiercest legions, and of nations at peace from the beginning did He destroy and exterminate some and force others with necks bent under the yoke to be obedient to Him?35

F. LACTANTIUS A Latin rhetorician from North Africa who served as a professor in Nicomedia at the behest of the Emperor Diocletian, Lactantius converted to Christianity in the fateful year of many martyrdoms, AD. 303.

Approximately eight years later,

shortly before the demise of the pagan Roman Empire, he wrote his magnum opus,

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The Divine Institutes-a work that vigorously attacked Rome for her pagan imperial qualities, while exalting Christianity for its fidelity to truth and non-violent peace. Ironically and perhaps sadly, Lactantius soon abandoned those forceful views after St. Constantine's victory at the Milvian Bridge in A.D. 312. The remarkable transformation in Lactantius' views on the morality of war led him past the justifiable war trajectory to the edge of the holy war position, so enamored was he of St. Constantine and his conquests for Christ. In the present study, however, we shall marshal only those excepts from The Divine Institutes which illustrate Lactantius' synthesis of several key themes of the patristic pacifist trajectory. He was not only the last great pacifist Church Father in the pre-Constantinian era of the Church, but arguably also the most eloquent. A key theme that threads itself throughout his work is the now familiar contrast between, on the one hand, the normal pagan way of exercising the collective will through the power of might and coercion and, on the other hand, the Christian way of life, which Lactantius summarized in one word-pietas, or "piety." Like St. Athenagoras and Arnobius before him, Lactantius excoriated the political and military authorities of the Roman Empire for "relying on the terrorizing power of their axes and swords as though upon the right of masters. 11 36 In response to the rhetorical question, "What and where is piety?" Lactantius stated: Surely, it rests with those who know not wars, who preserve harmony with all, who are friendly even to the unfriendly, who love all men as brothers, who know how to restrain wrath and to quell all fury of mind with tranquil moderation.37 Such is the way of life of the truly "just man," another key theme in his case for Christian virtue. In a spiritual tour de force, Lactantius summoned the concept of justice to the service not of war, as those Christians in the justifiable war trajectory are wont to do, but rather of pacifism and its formative virtues of patience and innocence. The rejection of bloodshed, whether through actual participation or mere observation, is an essential quality of the "just man." In a passage strongly reminiscent of the style and spirit of St. Athenagoras' Plea, Lactantius argued that a just man is not an enemy to anyone nor does he desire anything

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whatsoever that belongs to another. Why would he be sailing or what would he seek from another land whose own satisfies him? Why would he be waging war or involving himself in the rage of others in whose mind perpetual peace with men dwells? Actually, will he be delighted with foreign prizes and human blood who does not know how to acquire gain, whose manner of living suffices him, and who considers it wrong, not only for himself to commit murder, but even to be present and look on when others do it?38 In more positive terms, the piety of the just man consists in the cultivation of patience and innocence. Against Cicero's case for self-defense, Lactantius offered an alternative argument redolent of the Sermon on the Mount. For it is no less evil to pay back an injury than to inflict one. Whence come struggles among men; whence arise fights and contentions, unless it is the fact that impatience set against wickedness often stirs up the greatest tempests? But if you place against wickedness patience, and nothing truer can be found than this virtue, nothing worthier of man, it will be straightway extinguished, just as if you were to throw water on fire .... He who strives to repay an injury throws himself out of the way to imitate the very one by whom he has been wounded. Thus, he who imitates evil can in no way be good. Therefore, by those two words he took away from a good and wise man the two greatest virtues: innocence and patience.39 Another key theme is Lactantius' aversion to bloodshed. He coupled laments against pagan bloodshed with pleas for universal peace through non-violence. After criticizing the common pagan belief "that there is no other way to immortality except to lead armies, to lay waste to foreign lands, to destroy cities, to burn towns, to stamp out free peoples or to subject them to slavery," Lactantius observed sardonically:

If anyone strangles one man, he is held as an evil-doer and criminal, and it is not considered fitting that he be admitted to even the earthly dwelling place of the gods. But he who has cut down infinite thousands of men, who has flooded fields with blood, and infected rivers, he is admitted, not only to the temple, but even to heaven. In Ennius, Africanus speaks thus: "If it is right for anyone to ascend the heavens in wounds, then to me alone the greatest gate

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of heaven lies open." This was because he did away with and destroyed a great part of the human race. Oh, in what great darkness you moved, Africanus; rather, you, 0 poet, who believed that an ascent to heaven was opened to men through killing and bloodshedJ40

In contrast to this false, violent path to immortality, there is the true, nonviolent way to eternal life. Lacfantius' absolute pacifism is revealed clearly in the following explicit injunction against killing anyone for any reason at any time. For when God forbids killing, He not only prohibits us from freebooting, which is not permitted even by public laws, but He also advises that those things also, which are regarded as lawful among men, should not be done. So, neither will it be permitted a just man, whose service is justice herself, to enter military service, nor can he accuse anyone of a capital crime, because there is no difference whether you kill a man with a sword or a word, since the killing itself is prohibited. Therefore, in this command of God, no exception whatsoever must be made. It is always wrong to kill a man whom God has intended to be a sacrosanct creature. 41 Shifting from this microcosmic view of individual or personal non-violence to a macrocosmic vision of universal peace and harmony among men, Lactantius painted an eschatological picture that drew its colors from the Old Testament aspirations of a messianic era of peace, as well as from his own fervent hope in the expansion of the one true faith to the far reaches of civilization. For if God alone were worshipped, there would not be dissensions and wars. When men would know that they were sons of the one God and, therefore, bound together by a sacred, inviolable bond of divine relationship, no insidious plots would take place. . . . How blessed and how golden would be the condition of human affairs if, throughout the whole world, meekness and devotion and peace and innocence and fairness and temperance and faith should tarry! Finally, then there would not be need of so many and such various laws for ruling men, when the one law of God would suffice unto perfect innocence. Nor would there be need of prisons or the swords of guards and the terror of punishments, when the healthfulness of the heavenly precepts infused into human hearts would

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instruct men willingly to the works of justice.42 Finally, coupled with his pacifism was an overtly apocalyptic, somewhat cryptic prophecy of the imminent fall of Rome, since "that last day of the final conclusion is already approaching. 11 Rome would go the way of all other earthly kingdoms, and "the Roman name, by which the world is now ruled-the mind shudders to say it, but I will say it, because it is going to be-will be taken from the earth, and power will be to Asia and again the Orient will dominate and the West will serve. 11 43 Lactantius' perspective at this point in his life thus bore a striking resemblance to the apocalyptic tone in some New Testament texts more than two centuries earlier, particularly the book of Revelation. For Lactantius, however, a calm coolness toward Rome had displaced the vehement vituperation expressed by St. John of Patmos. Even that coolness would give way in the aftermath of the Pax Constantini, when Lactantius abandoned every shred of the marvelous reasoning presented above and became a fervent supporter of the new, improved Roman Empire of Christendom.

POST-CONSTANTINIAN PACIFISTS Not all pacifist Church Fathers were co-opted by the tempting lure of a Christianized Roman Empire. We shall now turn to three Fathers of the Western Church who kept the absolute pacifist trajectory alive during the golden age of the Byzantine Church.

A. ST. DAMASUS, POPE OF ROME One bishop of Old Rome in the century after St. Constantine who maintained a steadfast witness on behalf of his moral choice of non-violence was St. Damasus. During his pontificate between AD. 366 and 384, this pope wrote an epitaph to honor the memory of SS. Nereus and Achilles, two Christian soldiers who were martyred under the Emperor Diocletian.

The Latin inscription is translated as

follows: They had signed up for service, and undertook cruel 159

Duties. Together [or, at the same level] they were attentive to their tyrant's commands, Ready to obey his orders at the spur of fear. Astonishing events, yet credible: suddenly they laid aside their anger, They turned and fled, they abandoned the general's impious camps. They threw down their shields, their decorations and bloodsmeared weapons. Having confessed [the faith], they rejoiced to bear Christ's trophies. Through Damasus believe what the glory of Christ can do. 44 Although we may object that the pope was merely honoring two martyrs under the formerly idolatrous, pagan, "impious" Roman military system, the images of "blood-smeared weapons" and "Christ's trophies" bespeak an aversion to violence in any military context. St. Damasus' anti-military sentiments surfaced again in canon 7 of the Council of Sirmium in A.D. 378, which the pope himself evidently drafted.45 This local canon of the Western Church recommended that the Church not ordain ex-soldiers to the priestly ministry.46

B. PRUDENTIUS A direct parallel to St. Damasus' epigram appears in the Peristephanon Liber, or Crowns of Martyrdom, of Prudentius, the great Latin Christian poet born in Saragossa, Spain.

In this book of canticles praising the martyrs of Rome and

Spain, which Prudentius published in A.D. 405, the poet honored the soldier saints Emeterius and Chelidonius for refusing to shed blood.

The following verses

contain the now classic contrasts between pagan bloodshed and Christian nonviolence and between the impious idolatry of the worldly pagan Caesars and the true faith in Christ that leads to eternal life, albeit at the cost of martyrdom. Called to Christ's eternal service, these brave soldiers hitherto Had endured the shock of battle and the rigors of the camp;

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Valor tried in mortal combat now makes war for holy Faith. They renounce the flag of Caesar for the ensign of the Cross; For the banner they once carried, dragon swelled out by the wind, They now choose the Wood as standard, which subdued the Dragon's might. Now they think it vile to brandish javelins with skillful hands, Or to breach the wall with engines and to ring the camp with moats, Or to stain with bloody carnage hands that wield unholy swords. Then it chanced the impious tyrant, ruler of the pagan world, To the second race of Israel sent an infamous command To adore at heathen altars and deny their faith in Christ. ... 47 Prudentius then had the two soldiers proclaim their true allegiance. Shall we stoop to sway of mammon who have been reborn in Christ? Formed to God's eternal image, shall we serve the fleeting world? God forbid that flame celestial should be mingled with earth's mire. Tis enough that we, enlisted from the days of early youth In the ranks of Caesar's armies, our due service have discharged; It is now the time to render what is owing unto God. Hence, commanders of the ensigns, and tribunes, depart from us;

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Take away the golden collars, prizes for the wounds received. Henceforth in the splendid armies of the angels we shall serve.48

C. ST. PAULINUS OF NOLA Several of the Latin letters of this Gallican-born bishop of Nola in Italy from A.D. 409 to 431 contain acutely anti-military themes. St. Paulinus was a friend of St. Martin of Tours, who, after his conversion to Christianity, boldly refused to continue his military service for the Christianized Roman military.49 In one of his letters to a fellow bishop, Victricius of Rouen (ca. A.D. 380 to 407), St. Paulinus recapitulated the actions of his colleague, which virtually duplicated those of St. Martin. After first suggesting that Victricius' prior military service was a providential preparation for episcopal service, 50 St. Paulinus then praised his colleague's decision to abandon the life of a soldier in the now familiar language of a pacifist opposed to military weaponry. Your subsequent abandonment of military service and your entry into the faith showed that divine providence had attached to you an important design. As soon as you were fired with love for Christ, the Lord Himself arranged a display of His activity. You marched on to the parade ground on the day designated for military assembly. You were clad in all the adornment of the armour of war which by then you had mentally rejected. All were admiring your most punctilious appearance and your awe-inspiring equipment, when suddenly the army gaped with surprise. You changed direction, altered your military oath of allegiance, and before the feet of your impious commanding officer you threw down the arms of blood to take up the arms of peace. Now that you were armed with Christ, you despised weapons of steet.51 To a practicing soldier St. Paulinus addressed another letter that urged him to forsake his profession on the grounds that military service and service on behalf of Christ were mutually exclusive. There is perhaps no better example of a personal, pastoral pacifist appeal than the following impassioned, almost desperate passages from Letter 25 to a certain Crispinianus. First, St. Paulinus offered a stark contrast

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between the two choices confronting the young soldier. Therefore do not any longer love this world or its military service, for Scripture's authority attests that "whoever is a friend of this world is an enemy of God." He who is a soldier with the sword is the servant of death, and when he sheds his own blood or that of another, this is the reward for his service. He will be regarded as guilty of death either because of his own death or because of his sin, because a soldier in war, fighting not so much for himself as for another, is either conquered and killed, or conquers and wins a pretext for death-for he cannot be a victor unless he first sheds blood. So the Lord says: "You cannot serve two masters, the one God and mammon," that is, Christ and Caesar, even though Caesar himself is now keen to be Christ's servant so that be may deserve kingship over a few peoples. For it is not some earthly king who reigns over the whole world, but Christ God, for "all things were made by Him and without Him was made nothing. He is King of kings and Lord of lords. Whatever He pleases He does in earth, in the sea, in the deeps. 11 52 St. Paulinus concluded his missive with a final appeal to the young soldier to redirect his career advancement from a corruptible to an incorruptible service, rank, and reward. Listen, then, my son, and give me your ear. Break off all ties which bind and entangle you in this world. Change your secular military service into something better-start being a soldier for the eternal King. I hear that you now help and protect civilians; I pray that you may become the count of Christ. Again, you in secular military service are wont to pray for advancement to the rank of protector, but if you prove yourself before God, you will begin to have Him as your Protector. See to what kind of military service I invite you as comrade, for God will be to you what you hope to be to a man. Once you begin to follow Him, you begin your service as a count, and the end of your service will be kingship not on earth or in time, but in eternity and in heaven. 53 The sense of quiet desperation that pervades this letter is quite telling. St. Paulinus was the last great Church Father who addressed in explicit detail the moral problem of war from an absolute pacifist perspective. After the fifth cen-

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tury, the pacifist trajectory would have to find expression in other sources of the Orthodox moral tradition.

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Chapter 7

THE CANONICAL

''DUAL STANDARD'' In the spring of 1975, to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of the close of the "Great Patriotic War," which the Western powers prefer to remember more soberly as World War II, the Moscow Theological Seminary and Academy hosted a large exhibition of paraphernalia and memorabilia. Included among the many photographs depicting the contributions of the Russian Orthodox Church to the war effort were photographs of Soviet soldiers in East European cities, the Victory Parade in Red Square on June 24, 1945, and other purely secular scenes. Another display featured, according to a glowing report in an issue of the Journal of the

Moscow Patriarchate in 1975, "portraits of the first heroes of the Soviet Union, distinguished military leaders of the Soviet Army-Marshals of the Soviet Union and a selection of articles from the Pravda of war years under the general heading 'The Memory of the Heroes Lives on for Ever . . . "' Most shocking from an Orthodox perspective was the considerable honor given to war veterans who had subsequently entered seminary and become clergymen. The account of the festive events by A. Gorbachev-docent at the Academy and war veteran, but no relation to the future head of the Soviet state-boldly listed the names of veterans who later served the Church as bishops, priests, deacons, and docents, as well as the names of seminarians who later served in the

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Soviet Army. Those persons, according to Gorbachev, performed "their sacred duty to their country, in the war." Further, the surviving veterans "were given places of honor" at the celebration, many of them proudly wearing their military decorations, at least some of which were earned in mortal combat with the enemies of the Soviet Union. I In the present chapter we shall scrutinize the canons of the Orthodox Churches to discover precisely what kind of conduct the bishops of the Ecumenical Councils expected from Orthodox clergy and laity alike in situations like the "Great Patriotic War" and countless other wars through the centuries. If pacifism endured longer among the Church Fathers of the West, the anti-military canonical tradition in the West that originated with Pope St. Damasus enjoyed a more receptive and permanent audience in the Eastern Church centered in Byzantium. Although it is often honored in the breech-witness the Soviet clergy veterans above-the Byzantine canonical tradition remains in force in the Eastern Orthodox patriarchates and national churches today. To be sure, only a few canons address explicitly the issue of clerical involvement in the military, but those are unequivocal and leave no room for doubt that a cleric may never serve actively in any specifically military capacity. Several other canons deal more broadly, however, with clerical involvement in what is termed "worldly affairs." That is a useful starting point for a systematic appreciation of this proscription. 2

CLERGY AND "WORLDLY AFFAIRS" Canon 6 of the Holy Apostles states succinctly: "Let a bishop, or presbyter, or deacon not undertake worldly cares [kosmikas phrontidas]; otherwise, let him be deposed. 11 3 One of the most ancient apostolic rules, though arranged in its present form as late as the third century, according to the Roman Catholic canon lawyer, Charles Joseph Hefele,4 this canon was probably the bedrock for most of the remaining canons pertaining to clerical involvement in what was deemed strictly secular matters. The vagueness of the "worldly cares" mentioned here would be more concretely delimited in subsequent canons. The purpose of this canon was, according to John Zonaras in the twelfth century and The Rudder in

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the eighteenth century, to prevent clerics from becoming confused, disturbed, or distracted from their proper priestly duties. 5 Four canons forbid clergy from engaging in secular economic pursuits. (a) Canon 16 of Carthage6 (ca. AD. 419) forbids clerics from becoming farmers (ekletores-which Zonaras equates with misthotai, or "tenants," as opposed to landowners1) or procurators (prokouratores), and from providing for themselves a livelihood (trophen) from any "shameful or dishonorable" business

(pragmatos); the canon quotes 2 Timothy 2:4 for biblical support. The Rudder incorrectly translates trophen as "profit," which is too vague a meaning for what is intended-in the same spirit as the previous canon-as the kind of livelihood that, at once, distracts and detracts from priesthood, especially those "mundane businesses," or shameful occupations like whoremaster, or dishonorable ones like tavern owner.8 The quote from 2 Timothy 2:4 is particularly intriguing, because it includes a military analogy as a justification for proscribing all such distracting occupations for clerics. 9 (b) Canon 3 of the Fourth Ecumenical Council (at Chalcedon in AD. 451) is more problematic. That synod declared that some clergy had become tenants of others' properties "for the sordid love of gain" (di' aischrokerdeian) and had contracted "worldly business" (pragmata kosmika) such as the management of households, while neglecting the Divine Liturgy. So such activities were henceforth forbidden to clerics and monks, except when they were legally bound to a guardianship for minors or when their bishops permitted such care for ecclesiastical business, orphans, widows, etc.-and then only out of fear of God and not for avarice or profit.10 The council fathers gathered at Chalcedon, in contrast to those who produced canon 16 of Carthage, cited and condemned the motive of profit, but, like the North Africans before them, imposed no explicit penalty for violators. We may assume, however, with The Rudder that the penalty of deposition as indicated in canon 6 of the Holy Apostles would have obtained.11 This problem was quite common by the fifth century, and other councils in the West attempted similarly to stem the tide of clerical avarice.12 It is worth noting the exceptions to the general rule adopted by the Council of Chalcedon and the spirit of economy that prevailed through the sanctioning of such possible distractions from priestly duties. In addition, this canon in no way intended to shut out the clergy from all trades ipso facto, for there are numerous examples of clerics who engaged in 167

secular livelihoods out of a sense of humility or personal industriousness, or a desire to facilitate almsgiving. As one Anglican canonist noted, "[I]t was not the mere fact of secular employment, but secularity of motives and of tone that was condemned." 13 This canon, like the others examined thus far, is, therefore, not so much an ironclad legalistic rule as a guide based on the Orthodox moral principle of intentionality and also on practical considerations such as avoiding unnecessary obstacles to the free exercise of priesthood. ( c) Canon 10 of the Seventh Ecumenical Council (at Nicea in AD. 787) attempts to reverse the trend of priests leaving their churches for the special employment of civil magistrates, particularly in Constantinople. The council fathers first referred to the canonical tradition that prohibits clergy by law from undertaking "worldly cares" and those common to life (biotikas-an indirect reference to mundane matters of business that should not occupy a cleric's time). Then they stipulated that any cleric who attends to the care of the magnates (meizoteronwhom The Rudder identifies as the superintendents of the civil magistrates'

/atifundia, the largest and most profitable estates14) should cease or suffer deposition from the ranks of the clergy. The reason again was the cleric's own calling and the special need for him to devote his time to teaching children, servants, and slaves of Christians.15 Note the threat of deposition as a secondary penalty. ( d) Canon 11 of the First and Second Council of Constantinople (a sort of honorary "eighth" ecumenical council for the Orthodox, which convened in AD.

861) reiterates the traditional deposition of a presbyter or deacon who undertakes "worldly offices or cares" (kosmikas archas e phrontidas) or the so-called curatories in the houses of "secular rulers" (archonton). This canon also extends those prohibitions to the lowest ranks of clergy (certainly subdeacons and probably lectors, chanters, and exorcists), citing the Lord's injunction in Matthew 6:24 against serving two lords or masters.16 Thus no cleric could hire out as a domestic, financial, or farmland manager, lest he risk compromising his loyalty to God and the Church. Finally, there is another canon that, like the preceding four, amplifies canon 6 of the Holy Apostles but with a specifically political rather than economic thrust. Canon 81 of the Holy Apostles also cites Matthew 6:24, while declaring that a bishop or presbyter should be persuaded not to lower himself to the level of

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serving in "public governments," or political office (demosias dioikeseis). He ought instead to attend to ecclesiastical needs; otherwise deposition would be in order.17 The contention of The Rudder that this canon prevents clerical involvement generally in "political and secular affairs and business" may be too presumptuous, however, because dioikeseis is clearly a reference to a position in government.I& The canon, therefore, explicitly forbids a cleric (note the absence of any allusion to deacons) from holding at once a political office and his clerical ordination. This canon, though narrowing the meaning of "worldly cares" in canon 6 of the Holy Apostles, also manifests a more sympathetic and condescending attitude toward the offenders, insofar as it recommends persuasion and requires deposition from the ranks of the clergy only as a last resort. Balsamon's viewl9 that this canon is also more 11 humane 11 and that the earlier canon should be revised accordingly in its application furnishes a useful interpretative guide, especially for dealing with clerics who simultaneously occupy public positions: persuasion first, and deposition only if they persist in such activities. Although the date of canon 81 of the Holy Apostles is uncertain, it probably originated early in the fourth century. Before the Pax Constantini, when paganism prevailed, it was very dangerous for Christians to accept public office, for those who did were obligated to communicate in sacris with pagans. As the Church became more acceptable to the Roman Empire, the empire became more acceptable not only to laymen, but also to bishops and other clerics who began increasingly to seek civil employment. The unfortunate example of Paul of Samosata and his conflict of interests was a dangerous precedent to be avoided even in the more benign circumstances pursuant to the first Christian emperor.20 In the late twentieth century, with its dearth of Orthodox Christian empires and states, there is at least a disturbingly close parallel, if not a kind of return across the centuries, to the conditions existing before the Pax Constantini. This canon would seem to have even greater relevance today than in the Byzantine period.

CLERGY AND THE MILITARY Two canons plus a novella of the Emperor St. Justinian I (+AD. 565) discuss the clergy and the military, but another canon lays the moral foundation in an

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indirect, though powerful, manner. Canon 5 of St. Gregory of Nyssa, which was derived from an epistle written in the last quarter of the fourth century, is one of several canons that endeavor to distinguish between "voluntary" and "involuntary" murder and to assign appropriate penances.21 This canon does not mention military situations, but it does include a special condition for clergy. In the translation appearing in The Rudder this condition is stipulated as follows: "[E]ven though one may involuntarily incur the taint of murder, on the score that he has already been made profane by the felony, the Canon has declared him to have forfeited priestly grace. 11 22 The original Greek for the last phrase is apobleton hieratikes charitas, which would suggest not so much a forfeit as "a throwing away as worthless" the grace of priesthood. This is no mere nuance, for forfeit could easily imply a surrender of something one already possesses, whereas the alternative translation is more vague and less indicative of a reference to someone who commits an involuntary murder as a priest. The medieval Byzantine commentators also differed on this score, while contributing additional confusion on another. The Rudder observes that "anyone who murders a man, even though involuntarily and against his own will and who is a layman withal, cannot become a priest; or if he is a priest, he is deposed from office. 11 23 Compare Zonaras' comment: "And if anyone at least voluntarily fgoun hekousios] kills a man, he will not even obtain priesthood and it will be a throwing away [apobletos] of this since he has been tainted by the murder [hos to phono miantheis]. 11 24 Balsamon's interpretation was exactly the same as that of Zonaras, except that in lieu of goun hekousios he had gar akousios. 25 The difference of only a few letters may suggest a problem in textual transmission, for Balsamon utilized Zonaras' text itself Nevertheless, Balsamon's version fits better than that of Zonaras the immediate context of the commentary and the actual text of the canon itself, both of which focused on involuntary (akousios) rather than voluntary situations. Therefore, unless Zonaras was attempting to mitigate the severe impact of the canon-whereby a person who kills in any circumstance is barred from the priesthood-his text must have been corrupted, for which Balsamon provides the original or a corrected version. At any rate, both Zonaras and Balsamon referred only to a condition that would prevent someone from being ordained and not, as The Rudder infers perhaps incorrectly from the text of the canon, also to a 170

situation that leads to deposition of a priest who murders. The thrust of this part of the canon concerns murder only as an obstacle to ordination and then only as an incidental aside that does not really fit logically or necessarily the remainder of the canon. The significance of this passage from the canon lies, however, in its view of any murder (compare canon 43 of St. Basil) as an absolute impediment to ordination. By logical extension, therefore, no one who has ever served in a military capacity in such a way as to kill someone-and that might include any active combat duty during a period of hostilities-may be ordained subsequently to the priesthood. That St. Gregory appears not to include ordained clergy in the passage in question is sufficient to discourage the application of this canon to clergy who are guilty of murder. But other canons explicitly depose priests who are guilty of this offense. 26

If St. Gregory's canon is applied kat' akribeia ("according to exactitude," or literally), under no circumstances may a prospective deacon, presbyter, or bishop ever function in any clerical capacity if he is guilty of murder or a killing of any kind. Extrapolating this canon to the particular conditions that obtain in military service, we must conclude, by force of logic, that the past history and present life of any cleric must offer a clean slate: absolutely no bloodshed in combat. It is painfully obvious, therefore, that at least some, and probably most, of the Soviet Army clergy-veterans of the "Great Patriotic War" who were honored on the thirtieth anniversary of its conclusion-and all the clergy in other Orthodox Churches who have similar military combat pedigrees-were ordained in clear violation of this canon and its underlying theological premise. An Orthodox priest is supposed to be an exemplar for the Christian community, a man with a personal history free from all serious or grievous offenses including the taking of a human life for any reason.

In the Orthodox canonical corpus we find three canons directly relevant to the problem of clergy in the military. Canon 83 of the Holy Apostles unequivocally forbids a cleric (deacon, presbyter, or bishop), under penalty of deposition, from devoting himself or his time to the military or "military matters" (strateia scho/azon-which implies a preoccupation with such things or, as a remote possibility, a leisure activity) and from wishing to retain at once the Roman magistracy or office (archen) and the "priestly government" (hieratiken dioikesin). A quote from Matthew 22:21 supplies the 171

reason: the things of God and of Caesar are separate. 27 The Rudder indicates that this canon separates imperial and divine matters, or "external and internal [that is, of the soul or heart] affairs," and contends that a cleric could not serve both functions at once. 28 Such a sharp distinction suffered frequent violations in the history of the Church not only from clergy but also from Byzantine and Russian emperors who tried to serve a dual function. The "military" to which the canon alludes is not necessarily the actual use of weapons or participation in combat but quite simply, as The Rudder suggests, "the management or handling of military matters, such as the distribution of rations to the soldiers, reception of their food, and other such business which is designated by civilians as military matters. 11 29 Zonaras and Balsamon voiced this opinion centuries earlier; Balsamon also argued that even "he who enlists soldiers" (ho stratelogon) falls under the same proscription. 30 The broader category of activity is probably truer to the spirit of this canon, which refers to the Roman magistracy (archen)-an administrative office-rather than to specific ranks or positions in the military itself. According to this canon, it is clear, therefore, that a cleric may take no actions or hold no office ~hat could be deemed in any way directly supportive of the normal functioning of the military establishment. This prohibition applies whether the authors of the canon had in mind the pagan or Christian Roman Empire. This canon also has tremendous import for Orthodox military chaplains, whose functions sometimes include purely administrative or secular military duties imposed by the military command; such chaplains, if they wish to honor both the letter and the spirit of this canon, ought to confine their role to sacerdotal activities. 31 (b) Canon 7 of the Fourth Ecumenical Council parallels the preceding canon, even as canon 3 of the same council parallels or, it is more accurate to state, complements canon 81 of the Holy Apostles. 32 The present canon states that clergy and monks may neither join the army (epi strateian . . . erchesthai) nor attain to a worldly rank or worth (axian kosmiken). The penalty is quite severeanathema!-for those who persist in their decision and refuse to repent and return to their previous calling. 33 Several aspects of this canon are worth noting. First, the language, though hardly clear and explicit, points to clergy who exchange one calling for another, the priesthood for the military. 34 Zonaras inferred as much from the text when he 172

commented that the clerical offenders are those who desire or lust eagerly after worldly esteem (hos axiomatos epithymesanton kosmikou) to such an extent that they have "stripped off their sacred outward appearance" (apodysamenon to

schema to hieron) and "assumed military garb" (stratiotikon endyma).35 Second, the relation between this canon and canon 83 of the Holy Apostles now becomes clearer. The latter deals with clergy who engage in military matters while wearing clerical garb-that is, while retaining their priesthood-whereas the present canon addresses those who do so after forsaking their priesthood entirely.36 Third, this distinction accounts for the difference in penalties. Canon 83 of the Holy Apostles deposes priests who abuse their priesthood, but those priests remain in the Church as laymen according to the general canonical principle of imposing only one penalty per offense. The present canon anathematizes and thereby excommunicates priests who abandon their priestly rank, because they are considered already self-laicized and are punished as laymen to the full extent of the ecclesiastical law.37 The nature of the penalty should suggest how serious this offense was regarded by the council. The Jesuit priest H. J. Schroeder indicates that this canon was renewed in full force in the West at the councils of Angers (AD. 453) and Tours (AD. 461).38 In more recent times the dramatic example of the Lutheran minister John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg, who, in January, 1776, removed his clerical garb before his Lutheran congregation in Woodstock, Virginia, to reveal the uniform of a colonel in the 8th Virginia Regiment of the Continental Army of General George Washington, would be expressly forbidden by this canon.39 Similarly, all those Orthodox clergy who devoted themselves to military pursuits-above all, lethal combat-in the ranks of various forces such as the White Army in the Russian Civil War, the Soviet Army, the Serbian Chetnik resistance in Yugoslavia during the Second World War, or even the American armed forces in any of our wars in this century would also stand under judgment. (c) Though not a canon in the strict sense, novella 123(15) of the Emperor St. Justinian the Great, which dates from AD. 544, bears a striking resemblance to the preceding canon, to which it was most certainly indebted.

As a civil law

regulating ecclesiastical affairs, this novella retains a special historical value as an indication of how the canonical tradition (particularly that which pertained to the military) influenced the government and was, in turn, influenced by the government. This particular law, along with other promulgations by Byzantine emperors, 173

also maintains at least a secondary canonical status even for the purposes of current application. The appropriate passage is here translated and presented in

full: And, in general, we ordain by law that it is lawful for no one in an ecclesiastical rank [bathmo] at any time with respect to existing laws to withdraw [anachorein] from it and to become worldly [kosmikon], although they are capable of doing so, because they will be stripped [gymnothesontai] also of the belt [or armorzones], either of rank or of the military [e axias e strateias] that is likely laid upon them, and they will be handed over to the judgment of the council of their own city. And [we ordain by law] that those who, by reason of the good fortune of a council, were ordained as clergy before our law should provide financial public service through substitute persons [dia hypokatastanton prosopon] in order to be kept free from the things of the body [apo de ton somatikon eleutherous phylattesthai]. 40 The unique aspects of this law are, first, its justification for keeping the clergy away from worldly military activities-namely, that those are things pertaining to the body (perhaps a neoplatonic twist to the customary distinction between the priestly and worldly functions )-and, second, the nature of the penalty. The law goes so far as to allow clergy interested in public service to fulfill their personal sense of obligation to the commonwealth through proxies, as it were. But infringements of this law would be handled severely, if the judgments of secular city councils on such presumably self-laicized clerics were as stem as one may suppose. This particular feature of the law would have no relevance today, however, for the city governments in all countries save Greece are, unlike their counterparts in St. Justinian's time, generally quite non-Orthodox. No Orthodox cleric should, therefore, be delivered to such a government by the Church for punishment. 4 1

CLERGY AND THE MILITARY CHAPLAINCY The Orthodox canonical tradition is obviously definitive in forbidding clergy any active military role or any activity that could be construed as "military." In

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order to preserve their sacred calling of priesthood free from unnecessary confusion, distractions, or conflicts of interest and of loyalties, clergy may in no way serve in such "worldly" capacities as public office-holders, procurators, tenants of others' properties, domestic managers, etc.-in other words, the full gamut of socially prestigious political and business positions that were current in the Byzantine Empire, in addition to more dubious ones like "whoremaster" ! This proscription obtains in particular when the motivations of those clergy are due to avarice, vainglory, or a desire for an excessively comfortable material existence. It goes without saying, although several canons take great pains to do so, that clergy, who are called by God to lead lives of non-violence, are similarly barred from serving as conventional military personnel in uniform, for whom killing in war is a mandatory duty, especially if such clergy abandon their clerical office in the process. Nor may they engage in activities of a more discrete nature that, nevertheless, contribute significantly to the functioning of a military system qua military. Included in the latter category would be such adjunct or secondary duties as

facilitating

enlistments

and

re-enlistments,

administration

of military

organizations or operations, serving as "morale officers" for activities only remotely related to the moral or spiritual welfare of their troops, or even the somewhat routine and seemingly innocuous practice of information-gathering and its attendant bureaucratic paperwork. These considerations lead directly to the issue of military chaplains, who may find themselves expected to function in precisely those ways. Orthodox priests have functioned theoretically as military chaplains since Origen of Alexandria endeavored to convince the pagan authorities of the early third century that, while non-Christians "go forth to fight and slay as many of the enemy as they can," Christians provide "a divine help" as "a special army" for the Roman emperors through their priestly prayers and worship.42 The "first solid evidence for the existence of military chaplains" in the imperial Roman military43 may be Eusebios' remark in his encomium to St. Constantine the Great that the emperor invited Christian bishops to accompany him in a military expedition against the Persians, because he wished to include in his retinue "needful coadjutors in the service of God." The bishops accepted the invitation so that they might "battle with and for him by supplication to God in his behalf 11 44 Since his victory in the Battle of Chrysopolis in AD. 324 against Licinius, the last rival claimant to the imperial

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throne, St. Constantine had kept selected Christian clergy close to the actual scene of battle in specially constructed tabernacles for prayer to God for divine guidance before and during military encounters and for thanksgiving afterward. 45 Certainly by the fifth century, military chaplains were common in the Byzantine military. For example, in his sixth century vita of St. Sabbas, a fifth century monk, Cyril of Scythopolis related an incident wherein the saint's parents urged him to become a chaplain for the unit commanded by his father. St. Sabbas' unexpected response was a definitive "no" on the grounds that, as "a soldier in God's forces," he could not be incited to desertion!46 In light of the vocational conflicts endemic to military service by committed Christians, even clergy who serve only as non-combatant chaplains, at least one Orthodox canonist has raised the question whether clergy serving as chaplains in military uniform and, therefore, as officers of various ranks contravene the canons forbidding clerics to join the military. 47 This is indeed a valid and troublesome question, but one for which we may deduce a reasonable answer from the appropriate canons. Although canon 7 of the Fourth Ecumenical Council excoriates those clergy who, as we have interpreted above, assume "military garb," the essential point is that in so doing such clergy also became full-fledged soldiers even to the extent of forsaking their priestly functions. Certainly an application of this canon kat' oikonomia ("according to economy," or that which is best for the entire "household" of the faithful), if not a strict adherence to it, would allow for priests to become military chaplains in the American manner, for example, as long as their only functions were pastoral. Pressures from any source to the contrary must be

resisted. A chaplain who regards himself as a military officer first and a priest second, or who acts accordingly in public despite his private self-understanding, is of little use to the Church or the military, which could easily commission in his stead an officer in any of the combat arms. In order to eliminate the possibility of conflicts of loyalty and of too cozy an identification with the military, this canon, as well as the others, may be followed kat' akribeia, granted, of course, that the bishops of the Fourth Ecumenical Council could not have foreseen the unique possibility of pastoral service afforded by the institution of the military chaplaincy in non-Christian lands. In that event, it might prove spiritually and professionally safer for Orthodox military chaplains neither to become uniformed officers nor to commence any organic relation with 176

the American military. They could serve, instead, 11 out of uniform" as special nonranking liaisons between the Church at large and Orthodox service members with the approval, cooperation, and perhaps subsidy of the military and its sponsoring governmental agency-the United States Department of Defense. A controversial report by a special task force to the Ninth General Synod of the extremely liberal United Church of Christ in 1973 urged precisely this kind of "demilitarization" of the military chaplaincy. In particular, the report recommended that chaplains be extricated from the chain of coin.n:iand, removed from the officer class and promotion system, and placed within "an independent Chaplains Corps" under their own civilian hierarchy, which would "administer the religious affairs of the military. 11 48 However, Presbyterian minister, Richard G. Hutcheson, Jr., a former naval chaplain who attained the rank of rear admiral (upper halt) as the chief of chaplains for the U.S. Navy, argued persuasively that those recommendations, especially the implicit expectation of government funding of this "demilitarized" chaplaincy, would prove unacceptable to the U.S. armed forces. To believe that a military organization would extend full privileges of membership to a group of persons whose selection it has no part in, and over whose conduct and activities within the organization it has no control, reveals a startling naivete about the military. The effect of the proposal, in reality, would be the complete removal of chaplains from membership in the military services to which they are expected to minister.49 The bottom line for this delicate issue is not what the military will tolerate. Nor is it what non-violent Orthodox priests prefer in terms of their own professional and vocational fulfillment. The decisive factor is how Orthodox priests may best serve the needs of those Orthodox members of the U.S. armed forces who must depend on their own clergy for spiritual sustenance and pastoral guidance. The problem of "inside" military ministry by priests who are commissioned officers versus "outside" military ministry by civilian priests cuts to the heart of the mission of priesthood. Again Chaplain Hutcheson provided an eloquent case for the former. The military needs prophets, pronouncing judgment from the outside, but it also needs pastors who share the life within a total insti-

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tution. Insiders must belong to the total institution in order to serve it, and this inevitably means subjection to military command and conformity to military law and regulations. Most chaplains regard the sharing of life within the armed forces-wearing the same uniform, obeying the same regulations, enduring the same stresses and ambiguities as their parishioners-as their most priceless asset in mission. They see such involvement as a theological imperative. 50 This theological imperative·for at least some Orthodox priests, who must be pacifists by vocation, is derived from the principle of kenosis-the self-"emptying" so characteristic of the Son of God, whose Incarnation St. Paul describes in Philippians 2:5-11 by using precisely this profound term (heauton ekenosen-"he emptied himself'). For the sake of their military flock, the few Orthodox priests who feel called by God to care for our Orthodox service members and their families must pour themselves fully into a military ministry that includes uniforms, rank, special training, potential conflicts of loyalty, and endless existential anxiety concerning the proper fulfillment. of their priestly duties. In the American military chaplaincy, particularly the U.S. Army, Orthodox priests, like other clergy, serve simultaneously as "religious leaders and staff officers," according to Army Regulation 165-1, who advise the commanders of their respective units "on matters of religion, morals, and morale as affected by religion." 51 In addition to this potential conflict in professional roles, chaplains may experience a faith conflict arising from their assignments to particular units where they must minister to service members in a pluralistic religious context.

AR 165-1 mandates, for

example, that chaplains "minister to the personnel of the unit and facilitate the 'free exercise' rights of all personnel, regardless of religious affiliation of either the chaplain or the unit member." Chaplains are also expected to "encourage and assist personnel of all faiths in building a community in which all philosophies and religious beliefs are respected. 11 52 At the same time, chaplains are assured of their own personal religious integrity-specifically that they (1) "will not be required to take part in collective worship when such participation is at variance with tenets of their faith"; (2) "will conduct services of worship that are consistent with the beliefs and practices of their own religious bodies"; and (3) will "perform their duties as clergy representing specific religious denominations, and are accountable in their ministries to those groups regarding rites, sacraments, and services. 11 53

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Orthodox chaplains in the U.S. armed forces are supposed to feel confident that they can represent their own faith group without compromise in essentials such as how to invoke the name of the deity in public gatherings, interfaith worship services, and participation, actively or tacitly, in events or actions that may be in direct conflict with their moral sensibilities (such as condom distribution or cohabitation of male and female soldiers in field environments).

That such

regulations and assurances are not always honored should not prove too surprising in an institution that has recently been politicized and cowed into a docile "political correctness" by special interest groups ranging from militant feminists to relentless advocates of a strict separation of church and state. Sometimes the worst enemies of conscientious chaplains who strive to conduct their prophetic and pastoral ministry with both personal integrity and sensitivity to the pluralistic context of the American military are fellow chaplains who engage in preemptive surrender to this political Zeitgeist.54 The balance is indeed tenuous between the Orthodox chaplain's requisite personal pacifism and fidelity to his own religious community, on the one hand, and, on the other, his pastoral responsibilities to the People of God who choose to serve the God of peace and justice in seemingly disquieting ways.

AN ESCHATOLOGICAL NORM What then is the significance of the personal pacifism of the clergy for the entire Orthodox ecclesial community? Is this pacifism personal in the sense of a mere preference, or does its vocational quality imply something beyond itself? These questions assume a special import in light of the opposing canonical tradition pertaining to laymen in military service, which advances the justifiable war trajectory. In his influential little essay, "The Morality of War," Fr. Stanley Harakas broke new ground for an antinomical understanding of the dual standards for clergy and laity in the Orthodox canonical tradition pertaining to war and military service. What he terms the Church's "stratification of pacifism"5 5 requires that clergy and monks be absolute pacifists, while laymen may engage in justifiable defense of the community through military measures, if they are also willing to

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suffer the appropriate penance for shedding human blood. 56 Priests must keep themselves detached from the normal rules of society, Harakas argues, "because they are close to the altar," while monks must avoid all military associations because they have "separated themselves from the world. 11 57 The decisive factor for the pacifism of clergy is their priestly responsibility for the life-giving mysteria, or "holy mysteries," with which violence and bloodshed are deemed incompatible. Laymen do not have such vocational responsibilities. The theological problem that follows from this concerns the nature of the ensuing stratification of pacifism. If clergy (and monastics) constitute a "higher order" of Christian, then their vocational pacifism is merely peculiar to their higher calling and in no way incumbent upon "ordinary" or, worse, "lesser" Orthodox Christians.

In this case, of course, Orthodox ecclesiology would be unevenly

bifurcated and the morality of the Church hopelessly relativized according to religious vocation. However, if the Church consists in all of the believers in a unity that knows no special privilege but only a diversity of forms of service, then the pacifist moral perspective required from the clergy and monastics of the Church also would have to be--or, at some time, become--normative for the universal Church, including the laity. 58 The stratification of pacifism, in that case, would be a temporary antinomical application of the canonical principle of oikonomia ("household management" in the sense of greater leniency) and ultimately illusory from a truly eschatological perspective. As Fr. Georges Florovsky reminded Orthodox Christians, "Eschatology is a realm of antinomies. 11 59 As the vanguard of the heavenly Kingdom, or, to use another metaphor, the beacons pointing the way out of the present darkness of sin and evil, the clergy and monastics of the Eastern Orthodox Churches do not constitute a separate caste of Christians. They are, however, expected to demonstrate the attainment of an advanced spiritual and moral state to which all Orthodox Christians are called. The theosis that characterizes the religious journey of all Orthodox pilgrims is not proper to certain persons alone nor to selected categories of persons. At the eschaton every Orthodox will be expected to fulfill the spiritualmoral ideal of absolute pacifism. No longer will "priests" be needed to mediate Christ's presence to the rest of the Church, for He will be "all in all," as St. Paul promises the Church at Colossae (Colossians 3: I I). No longer will monks and nuns be needed to witness dramatically to the heavenly Kingdom in the midst of an 180

otherwise dangerously worldly Church, for there will be 11 a new heaven and a new earth" under the direct reign of Christ (Revelation 21:1). No longer will human conflict and violence mar the human condition, for all that breeds such evils will have been eliminated-overcome for all time (Isaiah 2:2-4). All of the People of

God will be pacifists! In the present aeon, therefore, some are pacifists by vocation, while everyone

else, sooner or later, will be expected, by virtue of the internal logic of the pacifist trajectory, to govern their lives by the same canonical exactitude.

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Chapter 8

EXCEPTIONAL SAINTS The juxtaposition of militaristic and bridal images in the following hymn must surely strike non-Orthodox observers as bizarre: To thee, 0 Theotokos, victorious leader of triumphant hosts, we thy servants, delivered from calamity, offer hymns of thanksgiving. In thine invincible power, keep us free from every peril, that we may cry to thee: Hail, thou Bride unwedded.1 This is one of the most beloved Orthodox hymns to the Theotokos (literally, "the one who gives birth to God"), the preferred title, among many, for the mother of Jesus of Nazareth. It is appointed as the kontakion, or second signature hymn, for the feast of the Annunciation on March 25, but Byzantine armies and the armies of subsequent Orthodox empires and kingdoms often sang it with great gusto prior to battle. They were preceded by soldiers carrying icons of the Theotokos holding her divine Son, adding yet another conflicting image-that of maternity-to this unexpected mix. Here we have the justifiable war trajectory in microcosm: the longing for purity and holiness in the midst of the awful business of war, a beacon of maternal love and divine mercy leading the way into the vortex of violence and mass destruction in the hope that justice will prevail and civilized men will be rescued from barbarism. Not only the Theotokos, of course, but the preponderance of

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Eastern Orthodox saints who have been associated in any way with war or military service rests squarely within the justifiable war trajectory. But a significant minority of canonized saints has exemplified the moral ideals of non-violence and nonresistance and may be regarded as pacifist exemplars. Thus the same antinomical tension between justifiable defense and absolute pacifism that marks the scriptural, patristic, and canonical components of Orthodox moral tradition also obtains in the hagiographic sources. In the present chapter, we shall examine the notable hagiographic exceptions who, in the aggregate, establish the pacifist trajectory among the canonized saints of the Church.2

ANCIENT MILITARY MARTYRS The two dozen acta (or stylized hagiographic accounts) of the Christian soldiers who were persecuted and martyred under the pagan Roman emperors reflect a clear division of opinion as to the relative virtue or vice of military service to the pagan emperors by professing Christians.

This lack of consensus is indeed

perplexing, particularly in light of the widespread opposition to military service by Christians among the pre-Constantinian Church Fathers, and may indicate a gap between theory and practice.

Such fluidity might be expected in crises, when

genuine saints are winnowed from the masses of ordinary, non-heroic sinners. But another problem confronts us.

The actual acta, save for the most

authentic among them, date from a period quite removed from the events and lives depicted, generally after the Pax Constantini.

Whether- the individual martyrs

actually voiced the views of the military enterprise placed on their lips or acted in accordance with the narratives in their acta, the texts that immortalized them portray them as so doing. These were the texts that the Churches either received or propagated, and the martyrs were venerated on the basis of the information contained in them. Therefore, it seems curious that some of those martyrs were remembered as having rejected further military service upon becoming Christian, while others who were Christian drew the line only when confronted with compulsory pagan sacrifices. And yet all were deemed martyrs worthy of veneration! This anomaly suggests that, unless martyrdom in itself had such significance attached to it as to eclipse the significance of other apparently conflicting or at least

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incompatible details in these acta as a group, inconsistencies in moral judgment vis-a-vis the military persisted within the Christian Empire. Several acta will illustrate this tension graphically. First, there were those Christian soldiers in the Roman Army who, until faced with the dilemma of professing paganism or Christ, seemed willing to continue in their profession. 3 Among them was St. George, a Christian from birth (in Syria, according to popular belief) and a tribune of a famous regiment, who, because of his courage in battle, was made a general by the Emperor Diocletian. Only when he was certain that the emperor's new purge of Christians could not be stopped by other means did George take the dramatic step of resistance that led to his execution. He refused to sacrifice to the pagan gods and was imprisoned, tortured, and killed.4 The Megas Synaxaristes of St. Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain, arr eighteenth century collection of short vitae, many of which originated as early perhaps as the pre-Iconoclastic period in the eighth century, features five additional acta of soldier martyrs who forsook their military careers and lives only to avoid the grave sin of idolatry. St. Isidore, a soldier from Alexandria, arrived with a Roman fleet in Chios, where he admitted his Christianity, denounced the Greek gods, and was martyred during the Decian persecution in A.D. 251. 5 St. Theodore Stratelates taught about Christ and gained converts after he had been appointed a general

(stratelates) and governor ofHeraclea by the Emperor Licinius early in the fourth century. He feigned an interest in pagan sacrifices only to obtain some idols from the emperor, which he summarily broke and distributed to the poor for their monetary value. 6 The acta of St. Theodore Tyron duplicates some of those actions as well as the name of the martyr himself He is depicted as a Christian in a battalion of new recruits (tyron means "recruit" in Greek), who allowed the Romans to presume his fidelity to the pagan gods until he was actually summoned to sacrifice to idols. 7 The acta of St. Procopios that appears in the Me gas Synax-

aristes describes him as a faithful pagan named Neanian, whom Diocletian appointed "duke" of Egypt for the purpose of persecuting Christians there. But after hearing the voice of Christ and another miraculous confrontation, Neanian felt hopeful enough to invoke the aid of Christ during a battle in Alexandria with a "barbarian" tribe. Eventually, when forced to sacrifice to the gods, he removed his armor and refused to sacrifice, knowing the inevitable consequence of this action. 8 185

Finally, the acta of St. Demetrios depict this Christian from Thessaloniki with an excellent military reputation as feigning idolatry in the manner of the two Theodores until the Emperor Maximilian named him head of the armies of Thessaly. Thereafter he openly professed his Christianity and consequently suffered imprisonment. The circumstances of his death, however, were quite unusual even for acta with little authentic historical content. Before his own demise, Demetrios blessed a certain Nestor (also a saint), who proceeded to defeat a pagan giant named Lyaeus by killing him in combat in the arena!9 Second, there are at least six acta in which the eventual martyr had already rejected his profession upon becoming a Christian, or had denounced the military per se during a crisis, or had refused to serve in the military when conscripted. Most of these are essentially authentic in content. To be sure, the acta of SS. Cyrus and John the Benevolent in the Megas Synaxaristes is somewhat vague. Both saints were martyred under Diocletian for refusing to sacrifice to the Roman gods, but John is described as a professional soldier from Edessa who had become a monk in Alexandria.10 As a monk, John obviously had to forfeit his military career, but whether this implied a rejection of the military per se by John or by the hagiographer is uncertain. Similarly vague is the implicit affirmation of the futility of military service contained in the Martyrdom of Julius the Veteran. For twentyseven years Julius had combined service in the Roman Army with worship of the Christian God. When he was ordered to sacrifice to the gods in accordance with Diocletian's fourth edict of A.D. 304, he naturally refused. After duly noting his military loyalty over the years, he suggested to the prefect in charge of his case that perhaps this service had, in view of his present predicament, been a foolish mistake. He also seems to have disowned the co-emperors themselves, when he invited the prefect to pass sentence on him "by the welfare of your emperors. 11 l l The Martyrdom of St. Dasius, though questionable in terms of historicity, depicts a

radical change in perspective by St. Dasius. He refused first to participate in a notorious festival conducted by other soldiers in honor of Saturn and then to worship the emperors. In the latter episode of this conflated text he proclaimed himself a fighter, not for any earthly king, but for the king of heaven; further, he renounced the emperors, declaring to the commander who was examining him, "[A]s for your emperors and their honour, I spit upon it and despise it. 11 12 The acta of St. Marcellus is problematic. Even the superior textual recension 186

features conflicting evidence pertaining to the martyr's attitude toward military service. In the narrative that appears in that particular recension Marcellus the centurion refused to celebrate the emperor's birthday, throwing down his soldier's belt in front of the legionary standards and declaring, "I am a soldier of Jesus Christ, the eternal king. From now I cease to serve your emperors and I despise the worship of your gods ... " But later, during his interrogation, he asserted that "it is not fitting that a Christian, who fights for Christ his Lord, should fight for the annies of this world. 11 13 Whereas the former statement indicates a change of heart motivated by his special dilemma, the latter remark possesses the full force of an absolute pacifism. In either case, however, he had decided to foreswear military service. Clearly unmistakable is the "message" set forth in the Martyrdom of St.

Marinus. On the verge of a promotion to the rank of centurion, Marinus was accused of being a Christian and hence unable to sacrifice to the emperors. Although this event occurred during an interlude between persecutions (ca. AD. 260), Marinus was still under compulsion to make the sacrifice or suffer the alternative: execution. At this point, Theotecnos, Bishop of Caesarea in Palestine, graphically presented Marinus with the stark choice of the sword or the Gospels. The soldier unhesitatingly chose the latter and soon achieved his crown of martyrdom.14 Finally, St. Maximilian, by far the most decidedly anti-military of these soldier saints, was not, properly speaking, a soldier but a conscript who refused induction. In the quite authentic acta bearing his name, Maximilian was introduced to the proconsul Dion as a military recruit by his zealous father in A.D. 295. But the young Christian declared instead, "I cannot serve. I cannot commit a sin. I am a Christian. 11 When Dion threatened him with death, Maximilian replied, "You may cut off my head, I will not serve this world, but only my God. 11 That there were Christian soldiers even among the imperial bodyguards did not phase him in the least.15 Here we have a decisive picture of sanctity amidst Christian weakness: the hagiographer clearly presents pacifism as an ideal saintly virtue and contrasts it with what must have been the standard practice of laxity in terms of Christian military service.

An interesting parallel to the acta of St. Maximilian is the Life of St. Martin of Tours (+ AD 397), written by Sulpicius Severus early in the fifth century. This vita exudes anti-military feeling for no less than the new Christian empire, so it 187

may be said to exceed the acta of St. Maximilian in this respect. Forced into the army by a father "who was hostile toward his spiritual actions," St. Martin was baptized at the age of eighteen, and, "for about two years after his baptism, remained a soldier, though only in name. 11 16 Then, during the reign of Julian the Apostate (AD. 361-363), St. Martin asked for his discharge on the grounds that combat was not permitted him as a Christian. That the underlying motive was an aversion toward bloodshed is obvious from the semi-miraculous incident whereby the saint proved his desire for peace and belied the charges of personal cowardice. In a surprising turn of events, the "barbarian" opponents suddenly sued for peace the day after St. Martin had offered to approach them unarmed. Severus' own animosity toward war and the military surfaces in his evaluation of this incident. [T]o prevent the gaze of the saint from being outraged even by the death of others, He removed the need of battle. This was exactly the kind of victory Christ ought to have granted for His soldier's sake-a capitulation of the enemy in which no one died and no blood was shed.17 Returning to the problem of how such divergent views of the soldier's profession could have thrived simultaneously in the early Christian Empire, the above examples of acta show that the actual martyrdom of each saint was the most decisive factor in his elevation to sanctity.

But this in no way negates the

significance of the various circumstances that led to each martyrdom. We could assume, quite optimistically indeed, that the mutually exclusive depictions of Christians in the military service of the pagan emperors were, in the era of the Christian empire, deemed inconsequential or obsolescent in view of the new historical conditions considerably more favorable toward the Church. We could also assume, even more optimistically, that the contradictions in the acta as a collection reflect a consistently faithful effort to reproduce in the texts themselves the actual diversity of opinion that characterized the pre-Constantinian period. But either of these suppositions presumes, unrealistically, that the ancient hagiographers were professional historians in the modern sense or wrote their vitae and acta with historical goals in mind. Their primary, if not exclusive, purpose was to the glorify the saints and commend them to other Christians as moral and spiritual role models. The only apparent alternative explanation of the conflicting messages

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would be a lack of a moral consensus on the role of Christians engaged in military service as a matter of principle. The vita of St. Martin demonstrates that Christian pacifism did, after all, have its saintly champions as late as the fifth century.

If Hippolyte Delehaye was correct in his analysis, however, the connection between many of these martyrs and the military was either tenuous or entirely fabricated.18 In either of those circumstances, then, why would the soldier's profession loom so large? Delehaye provided a reasonable answer. The need of the Christian masses for power:fi.tl protectors or patrons who would serve especially as intercessors was met by hagiographers who appealed to the popular imagination. Where only the names of heroes and the memories of their martyrdom remained, details were added that were more appealing, interesting, and spectacular. Thus the symbolic term "soldier of Christ" was usually incapable of sustaining its profound spiritual significance for the popular mentality and was, therefore, transmuted into a literal designation for some of the most heroic Christian martyrs, the dynamic image of the soldier serving to meet the need for the spectacular and for protectors.19 Such a conscious choice of the soldier's profession would mean that a hagiographer was not oblivious to the significance of the details surrounding the martyrdom of a particular soldier saint. Thus we must reiterate our contention that at least some hagiographers and Christian communities in the new Orthodox Christian Empire continued to reject military service by Christians. We shall now tum to key examples of the same pacifist trajectory as it proceeded through medieval Christendom, East and West.

MEDIEVAL PACIFIST SAINTS The original Passion of St. Edmund(+ AD. 870), written by the Abbo of Fleury late in the tenth century, describes the voluntary martyrdom of a king of East Anglia (England) in terms remarkably reminiscent of the ancient acta. There is a touch of heroic emphasis here, to be sure, for Abbo observed that St. Edmund was "a keen soldier," who, in the king's own words, had never had to endure "the opprobrium of fleeing from the battlefield, realizing how glorious it would be for me to die for my country." But when the invading Danish General Inguar ravaged the countryside and presented St. Edmund with an ultimatum, the latter, after

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conferring with one of his bishops, determined that by his own death he might spare his subjects. In response to the messenger from Inguar, St. Edmund declared that he would follow the example of Christ and "refrain from staining my pure hands. 11 20 Shortly thereafter, he was slain in a grotesque manner that may, in fact, have become a hagiographic typos, or convention, by that time: his body was pierced by a number of javelins and he was decapitated. 21 It is of particular interest to us that St. Edmund's .bold declaration to the messenger included what we can only interpret as a pacifist remark that seems to offset the passages that tend to glorify his former military exploits. At any rate, the saint's imitation of Christ's Passion and his vicarious suffering on behalf of his people are the primary themes of this vita and undoubtedly what led to St. Edmund's canonization. We may compare this Anglo-Saxon vita to that of a contemporary of St. Edmund in a similarly rugged, bellicose milieu. In the Life of St. Anskar (+ A.D. 865), written by his fellow missionary to Scandinavia, St. Rembert (+ AD. 888), the hagiographer described a military struggle between the pagan Swedes and the Cori (inhabitants of Curlandia on the continent) when the power of the Lord was, at last, manifested to the Swedes. After nine days of exhausting stalemate, the Swedes cast lots in accordance with Norse superstition and determined that they should appeal to Christ, the God of the Christians, for divine assistance. As the Swedes were about to return to the fray with Christ supporting them, the Cori sued for peace and further bloodshed was averted. In thanksgiving for this final victimless victory the Swedes fasted, gave alms, and helped the poor (a typos that, nevertheless, has roots in Christ's own teaching-the three traditional "counsels of perfection" in Matthew 6:5-18-and in the subsequent tradition of asceticism). In recording this very believable story with its subtle miracle, St. Rembert probably was moved by a personal animosity toward war or at least by a preference for peaceful means of 11 conquest" through the supernatural or spiritual "power" of the Lord. His remark, moreover, that St. Anskar endeavored to imitate the life and virtues of all the saints, particularly St. Martin of Tours, may even betray a similar anti-military bias on the part of St. Rembert, who obviously found this fact worth noting.22 The vita of the first canonized Serbian saint, the prince John Vladimir (+ ca. A.D. 1015), contains an episode that has both pacifist and folkloristic overtones, as well as a macabre, fantastic, martyrdom. The text relates that, after his decapita190

tion by the Bulgarian King Vladislav the saint took his severed head in his hands and proceeded, headless but still singing and praying, to the Church he had built. 23 This incident is, according to Delehaye, a legendary typos, and its inclusion in this particular vita may not have been entirely serious: the description of this "event" may have represented an attempt to use a humorous, albeit grotesque, anecdote in a mocking polemic against the victorious Bulgarian.24 Further, the Serbian prince not only declined to resist his own murder; he virtually became an accessory to Vladislav in the act itselfl

When Vladislav's

ambush failed owing to divine intervention, St. John Vladimir gave his own sword to the Bulgarian and declared, "Take it and kill me, for I am ready to die, as were Isaac and Abel."

The perfect, non-violent, Christ-like quality of his death,

symbolized by the invocation of the two innocent Old Testament figures, who were subject, respectively, to attempted and actual murder, was epitomized in St.

John Vladimir's final utterance, "Into Thy hands, 0 my Lord, I commend my spirit. 11 25 The conscious attempt to imitate the unmerited death of Christ on the cross suggests an implicit pacifism, or at least a high regard for unmerited but voluntary martyrdom on behalf of the moral ideal of nonresistance instead of the more usual profession of dogmatic faith. Such evidence of pacifism is, however, mitigated by a comment that appears earlier in this vitg. Against the Byzantine Emperor Basil Porhyrogennatos, 11 St. Vladimir gathered his army and defended himself with great might, so that the Emperor had to return again homewards. 11 26 Either the Serbian prince had a change of heart at the moment of death, or his moral values were complex, confused, and in conflict with one another. ·

THE KYIVAN PASSION-BEARERS The murder of two princes of Kyivan Rus' in the eleventh century, the first saints canonized by the nascent Orthodox Church in what is now called Ukraine (AD. 1020) and venerated for almost a millennium throughout the vast geographic expanse of Russia, generated what George P. Fedotov called, with perhaps pardonable Russian pride, 11 a peculiar national type" of Orthodox saint described as "kenotic. 11 27 The voluntary suffering and death of SS. Boris and Gleb (or Glib in

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Ukrainian) in AD. 1015 at the hands of their ambitious brother, Svjatopolk-a rival for the throne of their deceased father, St. Vladimir (or V olodymyr in Ukrainian), first Christian Prince of Rus'-earned for the two princely victims the exalted title of "Passion-Bearers." Their heroic nonresistance to the evil actions of their brother constituted an emptying, or "kenosis, 11 28 of their lives, as Christ Himself had emptied His earthly life on the cross for the sins of mankind. However, the degree of pacifism exhibited by SS. Boris and Gleb remains uncertain. The wide popularity of their cultus is attested by three hagiographic sources written in Old Russian. These differ greatly in style, but not so much in content. First, a succinct historical description of their martyrdom was incorporated into the

Primary Chronicle ofRus', also known as The Tale of Bygone Years-the earliest of medieval Russian annals covering the years 1040 through 1118. Second, a fulllength vita (chtenia in Russian) was composed by St. Nestor the Chronicler (+ A.D. 1114) of the famous Monastery of the Caves in Kyiv. Third, a more artistic, dramatic, legendary, anonymous account of the martyrdom (known popularly in Russian as a skazanie) also appeared at the beginning of the twelfth century. From the conspicuous absence of any mention of the younger years of these adolescent princes in the skazanie, Fedotov concluded that "not the lay piety of the princes but only their death remained in the memory of the people. 11 29 But the

Chronicle entry did note that St. Boris, the elder of the two Passion-Bearers, was singing matins (zajutrbnju pojushta) when the assassins from Svjatapolk arrived.30 Nestor's chtenie also marked, or perhaps embellished, Boris' piety by recording that as the prince prayed "all through the night" (po vsi chasy), his younger brother would listen to him in rapt wonder.31 But Nestor also sounded the true keynote to the spiritual and moral import of the death of SS. Boris and Gleb in the same section of his chtenie. As he was reading about the lives and tortures, or sufferings

(muchenija), of the saints, Boris prayed with tears, "My Lord, Jesus Christ, deign that I may become one among these saints, and give me [the ability] to follow after their steps" (i darui mi po stopam' ich' choditi).3 2

That is precisely the most

enduring legacy of the two princes. SS. Boris and Gleb accepted Christ's Passion and death for themselves, literally not metaphorically, and for spiritual-moral reasons rather than in defense of the faith, as in the classic form of Christian martyrdom. In the skazanie, St. Boris,

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praying before an icon of Christ moments before his undeserved death, renewed the request of his youth, but this time with a greater sense of immediacy: 0 Lord, Jesus Christ, Who in this form appeared on earth, Who deigned willingly to be nailed on a cross, And who accepted the passion [strast'] for the sake of our sins, Deign also that I might accept the passion!33 The Old Russian word for "passion" (strast') implied an active, not passive, behavior: it was derived from strada ("harvest" or "hard work") and often was used figuratively to mean to try to attain a goal. Nestor's chtenie amplified the dynamic quality of St. Boris' conscious decision to follow his Lord even to an undeserved death. Before his impending demise, St. Boris prayed: I thank you, 0 Master, my Lord God, for having deemed me, an unworthy one, to be a communicant of the passion of your Son [s' ob'shtniku byti strasti syna tvojego], our Lord Jesus Christ. For you sent your only-begotten Son to earth, whom the lawless ones delivered unto death; behold, I have been sent from my father in order to save the people from the pagans who are warring against him, and, behold, I am now wounded by servants of my own father. But, Master, give me up for their sins and rest with the saints, and do not deliver me into the arms of my enemies, for you are my protector, 0 Lord, and into your arms I commit my spirit. 34 Thus St. Boris offered himself as a voluntary, Christ-like sacrifice for the sins of the assassins and consequently made no attempt to resist the lethal violence visited upon his person. The theme of expiatory suffering was clearly enunciated in the Chronicle account of the murder of St. Boris. The saint prayed before the icon of Christ, "Therefore, deem me worthy of suffering [strasti]-but not from an enemy, but from my own brother, and do not attribute to him any sin in this" (i ne

postavi emu v' tom' grjecha).35

St. Gleb, the youngest brother, who idolized

Boris, also prayed before his untimely dismemberment that he be deemed worthy "to assume the passion" (strast' prijati). For it would be better "to die with you" (s' toboju umreti) "than to live in this deceitful world. 11 36 What, therefore, was the moral quality of this saintly acceptance of death 193

without resistance? Nicolas Zemov relativized the pacifism of SS. Boris and Gleb by arguing that the older brother, though unwilling to defend himself from the evil machinations of Svjatapolk, "was prepared to lead his men into battle when they were protecting their families and homes against barbaric intruders. 11 37 There can be no doubt that St. Boris was a warrior prior to his death. The Chronicle text stated that St. Vladimir sent his son Boris against the "godless Pechenegs" who had invaded Kyivan Rus', since St. Vladimir was too sick to fight.

St. Boris

subsequently learned about his father's death upon his return from a futile pursuit of the pagans. 38 But the content of the final prayers of St. Boris, as recorded in the various hagiographic sources cited above, implies a profound identity with the form and substance of Christ's life-giving Passion. The death of St. Boris was no mere personal statement, but rather a conscious choice by the prince to reflect the ideals of nonresistance and expiatory sacrifice modeled originally by Christ. The saintly death of St. Boris assumes, therefore, the quality of a normative moral action. The respective responses of SS. Boris and Gleb to their assassins resulted in martyrdoms not for the true faith in Christ, as was customary in the early Church and in the rest of the Orthodox world, but rather for the moral life in Christ. Theirs was preeminently a witness on behalf of the redemptive value of innocent suffering and the transformative power of nonresistance to evil. For his troubles the Chronicle reported that St. Boris received a martyr's crown (vjenech') from God and was numbered among the prophets, apostles, and martyrs (mucheniky).39 Similarly, St. Gleb, "like a spotless lamb, was brought as a sacrifice to God, as an odor of sweet fragrance, having accepted a crown" (vjenets'); he shared with his brother in an inexpressible joy, which the two princes acquired through "their brotherly love" (bratoljubiem' svoim').40 The significance of this witness for the Orthodox pacifist trajectory endures, whether the three sources are historically authentic or reflect the spiritual aspirations of writers and chroniclers who wished to apotheosize two political murders in a fratricidal struggle for the throne of Kyivan Rus'. As Dimitri Obolensky observed, the "somewhat unconventional view of martyrdom" contained in these hagiographic sources "implies a veneration of, a pity for, innocent suffering which the Russian people has displayed at different moments of their history. "41 Declining to differentiate martyrdom for the faith from martyrdom for the moral princi194

ples and personal example of Christ, the Russian people and their Church amplified the meaning of Orthodox Christian martyria. As Fedotov concluded, "Through the lives of the holy sufferers as through the Gospels, the image of the meek and suffering Savior entered the heart of the Russian nation as the most holy of its spiritual treasures."

The specific form of this treasure-the moral act of

nonresistance to evil-was both "an authentic religious discovery of the newlyconverted Russian [sic] Christians" and an enduring national legacy.42 To be sure, there were Orthodox princes in other lands who died after suffering similar fratricidal or foreign assaults without resisting, 43 and the popular cultus of the "Passion-Bearers" in Kyivan Rus' degenerated after several centuries to such an extent that merely falling victim to politically motivated murderers served as a condition for canonization as a "Passion-Bearer. 11 44 But the unique value of SS. Boris and Gleb for the Orthodox pacifist trajectory cannot be gainsaid. The kontakion hymn for the feast day of SS. Boris and Gleb (July 24) sounds the proper

christological theme: Today shone forth the glorious memory of you two, 0 Christ-like martyrs [muchenika Hristova], Roman and David, summoning us to the praising of Christ our God .... 45 None of the Russian or Ukrainian lands would enjoy such an exalted, coherent depiction of exemplary Christ-like suffering until the fiction of Dostoevsky in the nineteenth century.

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Chapter 9

DEVOTIONAL LITERATURE: MYSTICO-ASCETIC SPIRITUALITY In her recent book, Wisdom Distilled From the Daily, Sr. Joan Chittester, O.S.B., tells a delightful story about a spiritual master and his eager young disciple. One day the teacher announces to his charge that there are three stages of spiritual development: "The carnal, the spiritual, and the divine." The disciple asks the master what is the first stage, and the teacher answers it is "when trees are seen as trees and mountains are seen as mountains." The disciple then inquires about the spiritual stage.

"That's when we look more deeply into things, 11 the

teacher responds. "Then trees are no longer trees and mountains are no longer mountains. 11 The disciple, now very much excited, breathlessly asks the master what is the divine stage. "Ah, 11 the teacher says. "That's Enlightenment-when the trees become trees again and the mountains become mountains. 11 l This story, and the myriad tales like it from the world's great religions, appeals to what popular culture calls "right-brain" intelligence-which intuits depths of meanings and comprehensive truth-instead of the more logical, sequential, analytical "left-brain" functions.

It exults in truth that is "caught, 11 not taught;

intuited, not hammered out methodically; influenced by the affections, not quar-

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antined from them. This is the mystical sense so scorned by modern rationalists but as much an integral part of human thinking and moral decision-making as the rigorous, systematic use of logic. We find its most salutary expressions in the arts and in religious devotional practices, where heaven and earth meet, heart and mind unite, and thought and sense experience contribute equally-or at least in complementary ways-to the human spiritual enterprise. The Orthodox pacifist trajectory draws much of its impetus from this mystical sense as it has been expressed in the mystico-ascetic devotional literature that abounds in Orthodox Tradition. We shall examine briefly the emphasis on peace and the implicit pacifism found in the ancient liturgical corpus before turning to the treasure trove of texts produced by Orthodox spiritual masters since the fourth century.

LITURGICAL TEXTS The hymnography for the Orthodox feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross on September 14 is redolent of militaristic imagery. In its original language, the

troparion hymn-the key signature hymn of the day-prays for the victory of the Byzantine emperors over the "barbarians. 11 To be sure, the post-imperial era has witnessed a spiritualizing of that text, so that it now implores the Lord to grant victories to "the Orthodox Christians over their adversary"-that is, Satan. But other hymns from the office for the Holy Cross retain their original bellicosity. Moses and Joshua are depicted as antitypes of Christ on the Cross immediately before their military victories against the Canaanite enemies of Israel. A canticle for Matins credits the sign of the Cross with the victory of the Emperor St. Constantine, "the holy king and upholder of the faith," over the "proud insolence of his enemies." And the kontakion hymn for the feast extends this martial spirit to the present: "Make the Orthodox people [originally, "our faithful kings"] glad in Thy strength, giving them victory over their enemies: may Thy Cross assist them in battle, weapon of peace and unconquerable ensign ofvictory. "2 And yet this same Cross mysticism has an implicit non-violent dimension. One of the aposticha hymns for Vespers of the feast of the Holy Cross places the Cross in a very different light:

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All who sign themselves with thee are freed from peril. Thou rod of strength under which we like sheep are tended, thou art a weapon of peace round which the angels stand in fear. Thou art the divine glory of Christ, who grants the world great mercy.3 The juxtaposition of sheep, mercy, and peace hearkens back to the original soteriological significance of the crucifixion. Jesus Christ voluntarily sacrificed Himself on the Cross in a magnificent act of nonresistance to violence; but through this expiation He achieved the ultimate victory over human sin and death.

The

11

delightfully oxymoronic phrase, "weapon of peace, in the kontakion turns out to be not so absurd after all. In the Orthodox pacifist trajectory the Cross is indeed a "weapon" for those who would follow Christ-a spiritual weapon in the spiritual and moral warfare in which every disciple is automatically conscripted. The Cross entails voluntary suffering, not inflicting bodily harm on others; nonresistance, not violent resistance to violence; divine mercy and peace, not worldly justice and war. Despite frequent petitions for peace in Orthodox liturgical texts, the Eastern Orthodox liturgical tradition truly intersects the Orthodox pacifist trajectory only tangentially at best. It is true that "peace" seems to abound in the various texts. In the Divine Liturgies of St. John Chrysostom and St. Basil the Great, as well as the Vespers liturgy, the first set of petitions chanted by the deacon begins, "In peace

[en eirene] let us pray to the Lord." Other petitions in the initial set ask "for the peace from above" (anothen), "for the peace of the whole world" (tou sympantos

kosmou), and "for peaceful times" (kairon eirenikon). In the set of petitions immediately following the consecration of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ during the Divine Liturgy, peace is invoked in no fewer than five of the six petitions, including one curious reference to 11 an angel of peace. 11 The pattern continues until the end of the Liturgy.

Several times the priest turns

toward the congregation and blesses them saying, "Peace be with you all" (eirene

pasi). In the final set of petitions after holy communion, the adjective "peaceful" in linked together with three others with a particularly spiritual thrust: perfect, holy, and sinless.4 Jesuit liturgical scholar Fr. Robert Taft has noted that the Byzantine Divine Liturgy in its first thousand years actually began with the following greeting by the priest: "Peace to all" (eirene pasi).5 Similarly, in the special service at the

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parting of the soul from the body, the priest implores the Father to "receive thou in peace the soul of this thy servant," or to "command that the soul of thy servant, N., may depart in peace. 11 6 These and other liturgical references to peace express the understanding of peace chiefly as "spiritual serenity," as discussed in chapter 3 above.7 The same Divine Liturgies, however, also include several petitions on behalf of the armed forces of one's nation. Some Russian Orthodox prayer books used by the clergy provide a special Canon for Orthodox Warriors Slain on the Field of Battle for the Faith and the Fatherland. 8 These texts obviously constitute part of the liturgical-devotional component of the justifiable war trajectory. Except for the Cross mysticism described above, we must concede that the Orthodox liturgical tradition may be marshalled in support of the absolute pacifist trajectory only by viewing the many prayers for peace apart from their wider liturgical contexts.

SPIRITUAL WRITINGS Another component of the devotional literature of the Orthodox Churches does devote enormous spiritual and intellectual energy to concepts and practices that, implicitly at least, serve the moral cause of Orthodox absolute pacifism. We have already sketched in broad outline in chapter 2 the unique mystico-ascetic dimensions of the Eastern Orthodox spiritual ethos. In this section of the present chapter we shall examine five facets of this implicitly pacifist spirituality, citing representative patristic and modem sources as needed to construct the case.

A. THE PASSIONS The preeminent ancient Greek term pertaining to the "passions" was pathe (nominative neuter plural), or pathos in the singular. Among the Greek Stoics, it originally referred to a disease or disturbance of the self, a usage that seems to have passed down to the Roman Stoics, who, nevertheless, had adopted a more sophisticated moral definition. The Emperor Nero's court philosopher, Seneca, as late as A.D. 50, employed the following, exceedingly graphic analogy:

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Just as certain sores invite the hands that must hurt them and are pleased at their touch, just as a foul itch finds satisfaction in anything that scratches, just so would I say that toil and vexation are pleasurable for those minds upon which passions have broken out like malignant pustules. 9 In the more measured language of Zeno of Citium, the early third century B.C. philosopher who set the course for subsequent Stoic and Christian thinking on this issue, a pathos was an unnatural movement of the soul, a formerly natural impulse (horme) now out of control. IO This was duplicated almost verbatim by St. Maximos the Confessor, who, in the seventh century AD., wrote: "A culpable passion is an impulse of the soul that is contrary to nature." 11 An earlier, less precise version of this definition was that of St. Isaiah the Solitary of Egypt (+ca. A.D. 491)-"anything contrary to nature" that gains "control over the heart. 11 12 And much later, in the fourteenth century, St. Gregory Palamas insisted that "one must be released from domination by the passionate emotions." 13 Thus the pathe were not deemed the arational human emotions per se, but rather those excessive

irrational impulses which pathologically disturbed the rational integral personality (hegemonikon), or "true self' later identified by the Church Fathers with the soul (psyche). "Since vice or passion is not originally planted in nature," argued St. John K.limakos in his Ladder of Divine Ascent in the seventh century, "God is not the Creator of passions." 14 Passions are caused instead by the senses, but, as St. Thalassios the Libyan, an igumen (monastic abbot) and a contemporary of St. Maximos, declared, "[T]he misuse of the senses is clearly the fault of the intellect. 11 15 Similarly, St. Maximos believed that, although the "origin of all the passions is self-love, 11 16 every passion is tripartite and "always consists of a combination of some perceived object, a sense faculty, and a natural power . . . whose natural function has been distorted." 17 The subject, however, is responsible for any passion, for it forms a habit of the soul, as St. John K.limakos observed, "since the soul of its own free and proper choice clings to it. 11 18 Any single passion, therefore, may become, in the words of St. Symeon the New Theologian in the eleventh century, an "alien master" of a Christian, who, as a result, is unable to obey the Lord's commandments.19 The passions were viewed universally by the Church Fathers in the Orthodox East as foreign to the rational self, destructive of equilibrium, and consequently requiring extirpation. 201

The particular catalogs of the passions proffered by the Church Fathers should indicate how imperative they perceived this spiritual and moral task. St. Theodoros the Great Ascetic and Bishop of Edessa in Syria in the ninth century ascribed all passions to three principal sources: love of sensual pleasure, love of riches, and love of praise. 20 At the opposite extreme, St. Peter of Damaskos, a twelfth century monk, listed no fewer than two-hundred ninety passions. 21 But eight fundamental passions became standardized in the catalogs of vices of such spiritual giants as St. John Cassian-a disciple of the Egyptian monk Evagrios who greatly influenced the Latin West;

St. John Klimakos; and St. John of Dam-

askos-an eighth century compiler of Orthodox dogmatic theology.22 These eight passions, or "deadly sins," as they became known more popularly in the medieval West, included gluttony, unchastity (or lust), avarice, anger, dejection (or despair), listlessness (or despondency), self-esteem, and pride.

The one with the most

relevance to the moral question of war and peace is anger. In the spirit of the Lord's teaching in the Sermon on the Mount that regards anger as the root of murder (Matthew 5:21 t), the great Orthodox spiritual writers consistently have condemned anger and enmity.

St. Theophan the Recluse, a

Russian starets, or charismatic spiritual elder, who died in 1894, proposed the following pearl of wisdom: "[T]here is nothing at all in the world over which it is worth losing our temper; for what is more valuable than the soul and its peace? 11 23 When a Christian nurtures an irritation so that it develops into indignation, he allows Satan to change the wrong into a sense of self-righteousness. 24 The spiritual poison of anger requires an antidote that has clear pacifist ramifications. As St. Theodoros the Great Ascetic advised,

If you love Christ you must keep the passion of rancour far from your soul. You should on no account yield to feelings of hostility: rancour lurking in the heart is like fire hidden in stalks of dry flax. Rather you should pray fervently for anyone who has grieved you, and you should help him, if you have the means. By this action your soul will be delivered from death [cf Tobit 4: IO in the Septuagint] and nothing will hinder your communion with God when you pray.25 We shall return to this theme of responding to offenses with love at the end of the present chapter. Let'it suffice to state here that the devotional literature of

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the Orthodox moral tradition has recognized the deadly spiritual effects of the passion of anger, whether or not it blossoms into external violence.

B. SPIRITUAL WARFARE The imperative struggle of the Orthodox Christian against the passions amounts to nothing less than full-scale spiritual warfare. The seeming incongruity of militaristic imagery to describe the pursuit of spiritual serenity may be mitigated by recalling the "apocalyptic holy war" tradition in the New Testament and its precursor in the Old Testament-God the Warrior. The violent metaphor is offset by the absolute non-violence of the human actors. Though spiritual not physical,

this is "total war" in the Clausewitzian sense, since the stakes are absolute: eternal salvation or damnation. St. Makarios of Egypt sounded the clarion call to battle in the fourth century: "The most important work that a spiritual wrestler can do, is to enter within the heart, there to fight Satan; to hate and repel the thoughts that he inspires and to wage war upon him. 11 26 Spiritual warfare of this kind is conducted in two areas of the battlefield. On "the front line," as Evagrios the Solitary termed it in the fourth century, are those visible things which appeal to the appetites of the passions "and with impure thoughts seduce our souls into wrongdoing. 11 27 Behind the battle front, as it were, or what military theorists today call "rear battle," the principalities and powers of the demonic world conduct frequent raids against the headquarters of the soul. St. Philotheos of Sinai described brilliantly, at the end of the ninth century, the battle plan of these unseen enemies: It is by means of thoughts that the spirits of evil wage a secret war against the soul. For since the soul is invisible, these malicious powers naturally attack it invisibly. Both sides prepare their weapons, muster their forces, devise stratagems, clash in fearful battle, gain victories and suffer defeats. But this noetic warfare lacks one feature possessed by visible warfare: declaration of hostilities. Suddenly, with no warning, the enemy attacks the inmost heart, sets an ambush there, and kills the soul through sin. 28 The spiritual defense of the Orthodox Christian also is twofold. Both St.

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Macarius of Optino, a Russian starets in the mid-nineteenth century, and St. Theophan the Recluse observed that two types of war must be waged. St. Macarius' "defensive war" or St. Theophan's "war of the mind" requires, in St. Theophan's apt phrasing, "denying all sustenance to the passions and so starving them out." St. Macarius' "offensive war," however, entails "the fight to understand and to follow" the law of God. St. Theophan called this "the war of action, which consists in deliberately undertaking and performing what is diametrically opposed to our passions. 11 29 By consciously breaking one's own will and surrendering to the will of God, the Orthodox Christian begins "to tum aside in loathing and aversion from the passions." But it is divine grace that endues the freely willing human spirit with the strength to resist the passions and to practice the corresponding virtues.

As St. Theophan exclaimed, perpetuating the Old Testament theme of

God the Warrior, "With this spiritual resource to fight for us in the battle, we are as strong as a whole army. 11 30 Indeed, the arsenal of the Orthodox Christian for both his offensive and defensive campaigns is manifold. Most readily available are what St. Mark the Ascetic, a Greek hermit in fifth century Egypt, borrowing St. Paul's spiritualized military metaphor in 2 Corinthians 6:7 and 10:4, proclaimed "the weapons of righteousness"-namely, "the remembrance of what is good," "the eagerness that spurs the soul to salvation," and "knowledge from heaven. 11 31 Essential weapons in this combat are the humility and constant prayer to Christ cited by St. Hesychios the Priest of Sinai in the late eighth century.32

Other

favorite "weapons" of the Orthodox spiritual writers include the defensive armor in St. Paul's military metaphor in Ephesians 6: 10-17 and St. Peter's counsel in 1 Peter

5:8-9. But this spiritual warfare is constant, and no one may escape its battleground. Conscription into the spiritual army of the Lord is universal; everyone who has a soul, or spirit, is a combatant; there are no "nuclear free zones" or human targets "off limits" to Satan and his minions. St. Peter of Damaskos observed, "There is no place anywhere where one is unmolested," whether "in the desert," or "in places of solitude," "in the midst of human company," or "anywhere in creation.33 St. Symeon the New Theologian added that "the soldiers of Christ must at all times be armed with their weapons." No one can hide behind visible walls, nor flee from the scene of battle, nor seek a brief respite from the combat: "On all men there lies the inescapable necessity of joining in this conflict. 204

No one may escape the

alternatives of either winning and staying alive or of being overcome and dying. 11 34 Thus, despite the monastic orientation of most Orthodox devotional writings, the spiritual and moral imperatives entailed in this struggle are deemed universally normative. And yet the Fathers were certain about the victorious outcome of this spiritual warfare for any Orthodox Christian who courageously perseveres with the grace of God. For St. John Klimakos the best defense was a good offense. He exhorted his monastic readers: "Let us charge into the good fight with joy and love without being afraid of our enemies.... No one will fight with a resolute fighter. 11 35 For St. Maximos the Confessor the inverse was true: until Orthodox Christians actively join the fight against Satan, they choose by default to serve their passions and gain "nothing of profit" from this false "peace in the world. 11 36 In his view genuine "peace is truly the complete and undisturbed possession of what is desired. 11 37 Orthodox Christians may attain this peace through "their labors for virtue. 11 St. Maximos even guaranteed that God will deliver from spiritual warfare "those who fight bravely for the truth against opposing force. 11 38 Finally, the rewards for victory in this spiritual warfare may be compared to military decorations. St. John Klimakos promised, on the one hand, that 11 crowns of peace and tranquility are woven for those who do not flag in the fight," and, on the other hand, that "the monk who endures many perils from demons" may expect a crown analogous to the battlefield promotion of a soldier wounded in the service of a king. 39 St. Macarius of Optino was perhaps more eloquent on this score. As warriors are awarded medals and crosses for repeatedly proving their readiness to sacrifice their lives, so we-soldiers of the spirit-can only reap our reward after fighting valiantly and long. The greatest fight of all is the fight against pride, with all its symptoms of anger, vainglory, rage, hatred. When we have overcome this, we receive our best reward: the beautiful peace of the souI.40 Thus the wisdom of the Orthodox spiritual writers on the topic of spiritual warfare, to paraphrase, once again, the famous quotation of George Washington, consists in this fundamental axiom: the best way of achieving and preserving the peace of God is to prepare for spiritual war against the passions and demons.

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C. STlLLNESS To the victors in spiritual warfare the Orthodox spiritual writers promised, as the first fruits of their struggle, the spiritual serenity of "stillness" (hesychia) and "dispassion" (apatheia).

These spiritual qualities appear sometimes as virtuous

ends in themselves, but on other occasions they are offered in an Aristotelian sense as virtuous means to the ultimate end of peace of soul-or spiritual serenity. The latter usage suggests that Aristotle's definition of "happiness" (eudaimonia)-the "highest good" as "an activity of the soul in conformity with virtue 11 4l_may be adopted by the Orthodox spiritual warrior in modified form as follows: "spiritual serenity" (eirene) is an activity of the soul (or, more properly, the spirit)42 in conformity with "stillness" and "dispassion." considered in turn, although there is no priority.

Each of these virtues will be

The "hesychast" tradition of Orthodox mystico-ascetic spirituality is an eremetic practice of continuous prayer and strict askesis in solitude, which dates back to the fourth century desert monks of Egypt.

Despite the similarity of the

advanced prayer/breathing technique to some Hindu Yoga practices, the hesychast form of mysticism was affirmed officially by three Orthodox Church councils in Constantinople in the fourteenth century, largely at the behest of St. Gregory Palamas, Archbishop of Thessaloniki. It has since become a powerful and influential current of Orthodox monastic spirituality. The Greek root in the word "hesychast" is, of course, hesychia, which designates the manner of life sought by those who would practice this demanding form of contemplative prayer, or, in St. Gregory's terms, "undisrupted and pure prayer. 11 43 "Holy stillness of body and soul" constitutes step twenty-seven, for example, in the thirty-step Ladder of Di-

vine Ascent by St. John Klimakos, who struggled for forty years as a hesychast hermit on Mount Sinai before assuming the position of igumen of St. Katherine's Monastery in Sinai. He described a hesychast as one "who strives to confine his incorporeal being within his bodily house, paradoxical as this is. 11 44 If that characterization is typically vague, St. John painted a slightly sharper picture of hesy-

chia as a mystical practice: Stillness of the body is the knowledge and composure of the habits and feelings. And stillness of soul is the knowledge of one's thoughts and an inviolable mind. . . .The beginning of stillness is to

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throw off all noise as disturbing for the depth (of the soul). And the end of it is not to fear disturbances but to remain insensible to them. He, who in actually going out does not go out, is gentle and wholly a house oflove ... _45

Hesychia is not merely the absence of disturbances, or a kind of vacuous silence. St. John Cassian warned that the passion of self-esteem might generate this false view in the spiritual wrestler as a self-deception, or pre/est: "When it cannot persuade him to feel proud of his display of eloquence, it entices him through silence into thinking he has achieved stillness. 11 46 Hesychia is, instead, more active and dynamic.

The inclusion of love-and other virtues as well-by St. John

Klimakos as an intermediate goal of the hesychast prevents this form of mysticoasceticism from degenerating into an excessively self-centered escape from the material world. Of course, the supreme goal is practical knowledge, or experience, of the transcendent God through a personal purity perfected by the "indwelling Word" (that is, the immanent spiritual presence of Christ, the Incarnate Word of God) within the spirit of the hesychast.47 Thus the need for stillness that the hesychast perceived is determined in part by the paradoxical combination of awesomeness and attractiveness in God that the modern Lutheran theologianphenomenologist, Rudolf Otto, formulated so well as fascinans in his seminal work, The Idea of the Holy.48 The value of stillness as a weapon in the arsenal of the spiritual warrior is unequaled. St. Peter ofDamaskos addressed the following remarks to monastics: Stillness alone engenders knowledge of God, for it is of the greatest help even to the weakest and to those most subject to the passions. It enables them to live without distraction and to withdraw from human. society, from the cares and encounters that darken the intellect. 49 Although he also directed his advice to monastics, St. Hesychios the Priest stressed the universal import of inner stillness as a deterrent against evil actions, which, presumably, would entail some form of violence. The intellect's great gain from stillness is this: all the sins which formerly beat upon the intellect as thoughts and which, once admitted by the mind, were turned into outward acts of sin, are now

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cut off by mental watchfulness. For, with the help of our Lord Jesus Christ, this watchfulness does not allow these sins to enter our inner self and so to burgeon into outward acts of evil. 50 Referring to the related spiritual virtues of long-suffering, humility, vigilance, and self-control, St. Mark the Ascetic affirmed the value of stillness in similar terms: "Stillness helps us by making evil inoperative. If it also takes to itself these four virtues in prayer, it is the most direct support in attaining dispassion. 11 50 This statement obviously prepares the way for a brief discussion of the twin virtue of hesychia.

D. DISPASSION In the first troparion hymn of ode 7 in the Canon of Preparation for Holy Communion, the devout Orthodox Christian asks of God: May the communion of Thine immortal Mysteries, the source of all goodness, 0 Christ, be to me light and life and dispassion and the means of progress and proficiency in divine virtue, 0 only Good One, that I may glorify Thee. 52 This linkage among worship, particularly the mysteria ("holy mysteries"), dispassion, and moral/spiritual virtue is uniquely Eastern Orthodox. But it was the ancient Stoics who transmitted a profound concern for avoiding and ultimately eliminating the passions to the Church Fathers, and through them, to universal Orthodox religious and spiritual practice. Indeed, one section of Epictetus' Enchiridion reads as if the author could have been one of those Orthodox Christian descendants. In outlining the means whereby the Stoic might "prescribe some character and some sane form" to himself, this former Greek slave and philosopher to Roman emperors provided a list of activities that a Christian could easily recognize as the ascetic ideal. In particular, Epictetus counseled moderation in speaking (with silence as the general rule), in laughter, in pleasure with women, in attending theaters: all in a manner in which Aristotle would have taken great, though by no means excessive, delight. Total avoidance was Epictetus' advice regarding oaths, banquets given by strangers,

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shouts or laughter at anything, or anyone, the use of things for show or luxury, and violent emotions. His recommendation for food, drink, clothing, housing, and slaves was the bare necessities. The Stoic was expected to be circumspect about approaching immoral activities such as obscene talk; to look to the future pessimistically so as not to suffer the possibility of disappointment; and to consider what Socrates or Zeno would have done in encountering people. 53 Lest this

life of caution, moderation, ascetic self-control, and minimal creature comforts suggest an extremely austere, Spartan or, worse, world-denying existence, Epictetus, in the next section of the Enchiridion, warned the Stoic to "guard against being carried away" by "the impression (phantasian) of any pleasure"-not to guard against pleasure per se. 54 Pleasure was not ipso facto a passion but could become one in a given situation, if the impulse were allowed to control the person instead of the converse. Thus there were some "good" impulses in conformity with reason and subject to control by reason. Contrary to some modem misconceptions, the Stoic ideal of apatheia ("dispassion") did not entail total impassivity, or "apathy" in the modem sense, but rather man without passions, in control of his "rational emotions," stable and in equilibrium, insensible to "immoral emotions" called forth by immoral objects. This was, therefore, the perfect state of the hegemonikon ("rational integral personality") and that quality or mega-virtue which actually defined the latter. The complementary term ataraxia ("unhassledness") indicates further the profound nuance involved in this ideal. Again it was not an emotionless state, but rather one wherein the rational or potentially useful emotions were held in check and diverted to their proper ends by the independent power of the rational will. Among

the

Eastern Orthodox Church Fathers, St. Maximos the Confessor defined apatheia as "a peaceful condition of the soul in which the soul is not easily moved to evil. 11 55 Together with humility, it is necessary for the Orthodox Christian who would "see the Lord. 11 56 Similarly, St. Thalassios the Libyan defined apatheia as "a state in which the soul does not yield to any evil impulse." The mark of this virtue, which, he added, can be realized "only through Christ's mercy," is "true discrimination ... according to measure and role. n57 The Stoic influence here is obvious. We may make this conceptual framework identical to that of the Church Fathers merely by substituting the mercy of Christ for the independent power of the rational will. St.

John Klimakos further Christianized the Stoic-inspired virtue of dispassion by 209

describing it as "nothing other than the Heaven of the mind within the heart, which regards the wiles of the demons as mere pranks."

The person who is "pre-

eminently dispassionate" is the spiritual wrestler who has made his flesh incorruptible, who has raised his mind above creatures and has subdued all his senses to it, and who keeps his soul before the face of the Lord, ever reaching out to Him even beyond his strength. 58 The Orthodox version of apatheia, in contrast to its purely rationalistic Stoic precursor, entails an integral psychosomatic human effort, including bodily purity, control of the senses by the mind, and subordination of the spiritual dimension of the person to the Lord's abiding presence. But the essential Stoic insight endured concerning the need to control the emotions and "impulses," which would otherwise, through misuse, gain ascendancy over the soul. St. Gregory Palamas reiterated this point almost thirteen hundred years after Epictetus: Impassibility does not consist in mortifying the passionate part of the soul, 59 but in removing it from evil to good, and directing its energies toward divine things . . . [T]he impassible man is one . . . who has tamed his irascible and concupiscent appetites (which constitute the passionate part of the soul), to the faculties of knowledge, judgment and reason in the soul, just as men of passion subject their reason to the passions. For it is the misuse of the powers of the soul which engenders the terrible passions, just as misuse of the knowledge of created things engenders the "wisdom which has become folly. 11 60 What then are the worth and chief characteristics of apatheia in its Orthodox mode? The answers to this question are as numerous as the Church Fathers who taught this spiritual-moral doctrine. St. Peter of Damaskos indicated that the sign of dispassion was "to remain calm and fearless in all things," trusting in God's grace and exerting oneself "in ascetic labours as forcibly as he can. 0 61 For St. Theognostos, a fourteenth century priest, dispassion was an "offspring of true virtue," or the result of ascetic etfort. 62 He also echoed the previous Father's emphasis on grace by warning that "changeless dispassion in its highest form is found only in those who have attained perfect love." Through constant, patient labor to

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become humble, self-controlled, and focused on the Lord, he promised, "you will then in good time receive the grace of dispassion. 11 63

For St. Maximos the

Confessor dispassion was the "prize for victori' for "those who stand their ground" against hardship and suffering. 64 Dispassion also was the condition for God's forgiveness of those who forgive, even as it enabled the Christian to forgive those who have offended him.65 Perhaps the patristic evaluation of dispassion that is mostly directly relevant to this discussion is the militaristic analogy proffered by St. Diadochos of Photiki, a bishop in Epiros in northern Greece who died around AD. 485. Dispassion did not mean for this Church Father freedom from attack by demons, but rather "to remain undefeated when they do attack."

St. Diadochos placed dispassion in

continuity with the now familiar Pauline teaching in Ephesians 6: 10-17 concerning the "whole armor of God. 11

As armored troops are able to resist adversaries

bearing bows and arrows, "so we can break through the black ranks of the demons if, because of our good works, we are protected by the armour of divine light and the helmet of salvation. 11 66 Dispassion, therefore, is essential to the spiritual warfare urged by the Orthodox spiritual writers. To be sure, St. John Klimakos claimed, "It is impossible for all to become dispassionate, but it is not impossible for all to be saved and reconciled to God. 11 67 But spiritual warfare is, as shown above, incumbent upon everyone.

The inescapable conclusion is that every Orthodox Christian must

cultivate the virtue of dispassion as he progresses toward spiritual and moral theosis. The implication of this conclusion for the moral problem of war and peace will situate the Orthodox mystico-ascetic spirituality squarely within the pacifist trajectory.

D. THE SPIRITUAL PACIFIST VIRTUES There can be no denying the monastic orientation of both the vast majority of the writers of Orthodox mystico-ascetic spirituality and the intended audiences of their works.

We have, however, already noted in this chapter the universal

applicability of this spirituality. In this concluding section, we shall uncover the material evidence for the implicit claim that the unique Orthodox mystico-ascetic

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spiritual ethos mandates an absolute pacifist moral position. 68 First, the Orthodox spiritual writers posited the peace of spiritual serenity, as discussed in chapter 4 above, as a desirable, indeed essential, quality of the Orthodox Christian on the path to theosis. St. Symeon the New Theologian, for example, guaranteed that spiritual poverty, or humiliation, and meekness enable a person to become "merciful, pure in heart, full of peace, a peacemaker, and courageous in the face of trials. n69 St. Ignatii Brianchaninov (+ AD. 1867), a former Russian military officer, sometime bishop, and starets, wrote that "the hallowed peace of Christ is breathing" in the Christian when the latter feels that his "mind has come to be at one with the soul and body," no longer "cut into pieces by sin. 11 70 St. Peter of Damaskos, however, provided a succinct summary of the peace of spiritual serenity that also introduces another theme to be considered below-namely, forbearance, or long-suffering. The soul is at peace with God when it is at peace with itself and has become wholly deiform. It is also at peace with God when it is at peace with all men, even if it suffers terrible things at their hands.71 Second, Orthodox spiritual writings condemn the passion of anger as particularly lethal both to the subject and the object of this sinful disposition. St. John Klimakos urged that "the tyrant anger" be overcome by meekness, patience, and love. 72 St. Ignatii Brianchaninov warned that anger leads to the loss of the peace of God "for a long while. 11 73 But St. Theophan the Recluse motivated his readers more positively by declaring that "a man who stifles every upsurge of anger resists the devil and repels him, and gives no place to him within himself." For the angry man "assumes the role of a slanderer," preoccupying himself with judging others for their sins, real or imagined, while falsely pardoning himself

In short, St.

Theophan insisted, as we have already seen, that "there is nothing at all in the world over which it is worth losing your temper; for what is more valuable than the soul and its peace. This peace is destroyed by anger. 11 74 That advice conflicts with much modern psychological theory and Western pastoral practice concerning the supposed human need to vent feelings of anger and frustration.

For the

Orthodox spiritual writers the warfare against the passions was total:

only

unconditional surrender, as it were, would suffice to prevent any demon-inspired

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resurgence of evil within the spirit of the Orthodox Christian. Anger, in particular, required extirpation because of its presumed linkage to the sin of physical violence. For this insight the Orthodox spiritual writers had only to turn to the Lord's injunction against anger in Matthew 5:2 lf or St. John's condemnation of hatred as murder in 1John3:15. St. John Cassian sounded an unmistakably pacifist keynote on this score. He argued that the gospel instructs Christians "to cut off the roots of sins and not merely their fruits. 11 Thus the Orthodox Christian "should restrain not only the outward expression of anger, but also angry thoughts . . . for any reason whatsoever, whether just or unjust." The chief problem with anger in any form is its intrinsic connection to bloodshed. The blood of a man who has been slain by the sword can be seen by men, but blood shed by the hatred of the mind is seen by God, who rewards each man with punishment or a crown not only for his acts but for his thoughts and intentions as welJ.75 Third, the spiritual writers identify the necessary spiritual and moral alternative to the passion of anger, much less retaliation by physical force, as patience, meekness, long-suffering, or forbearance.

What all of these virtually identical

virtues have in common is a willingness to suffer wrongs or offenses in a nonviolent, nonresistant manner. The textual sources of these "pacifist virtues" are so numerous that only a few will be cited here.

St. Makarios of Egypt clearly

grounded the mandatory Christian response to vilification, mockery, and persecution in the divine-human model of Christ's Passion, which this desert monk regarded as normative for all Orthodox Christians. 76 St. John Cassian claimed that self-reform and peace may be achieved only "through our own long-suffering towards our neighbor. 11 77 That meant for St. Peter ofDamaskos "patient endurance" and regarding oneself "as inferior to all other men. 11 78 St. John Klimakos went a step further. The beginning of blessed patience is to accept dishonor with sorrow and bitterness of soul. The middle stage is to be free from pain in the midst of these things. But perfection (if it is possible) is to regard dishonor as praise. Let the first rejoice; let the second be strong; blessed is the third, for he exults in the Lord. 79

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Similarly, St. Symeon the New Theologian reserved the title of "peacemakers" to those who, enduring every insult, tribulation, abuse, and persecution, are, therefore, "actually found worthy of suffering dishonor on the part of men for the sake ofHis love. 11 80 Perhaps the two most dramatic pacifist witnesses to the value of patient longsuffering were St. Maximos the. Confessor and St. Theophan the Recluse. The Byzantine Father posed a personal hypothetical situation with obvious communal ramifications in the monastic environment. Has a brother been the occasion of some trial for you and has your resentment led you to hatred? Do not let yourself be overcome by this hatred, but conquer it with love. . . . You will not be driven out of that state [i.e., love] if, when abused, you bless, when slandered, you praise, and when tricked, you maintain your affection. This is the way of Christ's philosophy: if you do not follow it you do not share His company.81 The last caveat reveals how universally normative St. Maximos regarded his advocacy of a non-violent response to external provocation. St. Theophan insisted likewise that, since obedience to Christ's commandments is incumbent upon His disciples, it is the duty of Orthodox Christians "to endure every unpleasantness without exception, and endure gladly, without losing our inward peace." The specific divine commandment "to turn the other cheek" when struck on one cheek need not be interpreted literally. But the proper response of the Orthodox to any offense from a neighbor entails not only patient endurance of the initial offense, but also that the victim "be ready for some greater degradation which would correspond to turning the other cheek. 11 82 Fourth, some Orthodox spiritual writers have extended this Christcentered pacifist virtue of patient long-suffering of wrongs to encompass the unmerited sufferings of others in a kind of Christlike vicarious atonement. St. Mark the Ascetic, for example, remarked pithily: "Do not say that a dispassionate man cannot suffer aftliction; for even if he does not suffer on his own account, he is under a liability to do so for his neighbor. "83 And St. Symeon the New Theologian contended that the truly meek person makes the passions of all men, their afflictions and their weaknesses, his 214

own. As he weeps and is cleansed he sees God and is reconciled to Him and becomes in truth a peacemaker and is found worthy to be called a son of God. 84 We shall return to this particular theme in the next chapter, when we discuss Fyodor Dostoevsky's spiritual-moral insights. In the present context the theme of vicarious atonement climaxes the thrust of Orthodox mystico-ascetic spirituality toward a pacifist rejection of violence. The Orthodox Christian must so concentrate the focus of his spirit, mind, and body in his spiritual warfare against the passions and the unseen demons who tempt men to succumb to their passions that there simply is no allowance for other forms of warfare that might distract or detract from the primary battlefield or disturb his personal spiritual equilibrium. Physical violence or warfare would probably cause the earnest Orthodox Christian to express anger, lose his humility, and shed the blood of others. In this single-minded pursuit of stillness, dispassion, and spiritual serenity, there is little interest in justice, only peace of soul. There is no desire to retaliate against wrongs, only to suffer them patiently, and with meekness. There is no judgment pronounced against apparent evildoers, only forgiveness and the redemptive assumption of their evil. The primary model throughout these spiritual writings, as in the pacifist hagiographic literature, is nothing less than the Passion of Christ.

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Chapter 10

MODERN RUSSIAN KENOTICISM In his grand novel first published in 1945, The Bridge on the Drina, lvo Andrle, a Bosnian Serb and Nobel laureate in literature, paints heart-rending verbal scenes of Turkish atrocities against the Serbian Orthodox people whom they subjugated in the latter half of the fifteenth century. Early in the novel, on a November day in 1516, a recruiter for the Sultan's cohort of Janissaries passes through the sleepy river town of Visegrad at the head of a long convoy of horses laden with his quota of "healthy, bright and goodlooking lads" between the ages of ten and fifteen. These were the Serbian Orthodox youth of eastern Bosnia, wrenched from their mothers arms, "who were being carried away for ever to a foreign world, where they would be circumcised, become Turkish and, forgetting their faith, their country and their origin, would pass their lives in the ranks of the Janissaries or in some other, higher service of the Empire." 1 In a truly unforgettable scene, Andrle describes how the boys' mothers, grandmothers, and sisters trailed closely behind, pleading for their sons, kept at bay only by the whips of the Turkish horsemen. At the Visegrad ferry, unable to come on board and cross the water, the women had to give up their pursuit. Now they could sit in peace on the bank and weep, for no one persecuted them any longer. There they waited as if turned to stone

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and sat, insensible to hunger, thirst and cold, until on the farther bank of the river they could see once more the long drawn out convoy of horses and riders as it moved onwards toward Dubrina, and tried once more to catch a last glimpse of the children who were disappearing from their sight. 2 There are other, equally gripping scenes in this remarkable novel about a bridge and the people who lived and died around it for more than four centuries until its destruction during the First World War. The episode about a Serbian rebel who suffers the unbearable penalty of impalement is narrated in such graphic detail, but with the graceful skill of a world-class writer, that it hardly behooves us to rehearse it here. The Bridge on the Drina successfully conveys, through fictional narrative, the horrors visited upon a nation defeated in battle and then ruthlessly subjugated by its conquerors. If ever there were unquestionable moral grounds for justifiable revolution or justifiable war, the brutal treatment of the Serbs and the other Orthodox peoples in Greece, the Balkans, and Armenia by their Turkish Muslim overlords met that standard. While many Orthodox religious and political leaders in those nations eventually would resort to force of arms against the Ottoman Turks, others, albeit a distinct minority, still refrained from violence as a matter of moral principle-even in the face of such unspeakable horrors as Andric reminded the world in his great novel. The same restraint may be seen in other historically Orthodox lands where oppressive foreign, non-Christian conquerors ran roughshod over their Orthodox victims, especially the ancient Orthodox Christian peoples in the Middle East under the Arabs newly-converted to Islam in the seventh century, and Kyivan Rus' and the nascent Russian principality of Muscovy under the Mongol Golden Horde from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries. Though attested in every era of the Church as a social ethical trajectory, absolute pacifism has not enjoyed nearly as many champions in the modern era as has the alternative trajectory. What ought to strike us as truly amazing is not the minority of Orthodox absolute pacifists in Russia, Greece, the Balkans, and the Middle East, but rather that there are any pacifists on the blood-soaked soil of those lands in the first place! In this chapter we shall explore in detail the development of the strongest pacifist current among the modern Orthodox national cultures. As we have already observed in chapter 1, absolute pacifism is the moral position of choice of 218

only a few contemporary Orthodox theologians. In imperial Russia, of all places, several writers of formal moral theology and world-class fiction did advance the pacifist cause in ways that clearly demonstrated that they had captured "the mind of the Church" on the issue of war and peace3-at least that part of the antinomical Orthodox mind that consistently upholds non-violence, nonresistance, and universal forgiveness as moral and spiritual ideals. These modem Russian Orthodox writers reflected in their works, to one degree or another, the theological doctrine of "kenoticism." Having already touched on this concept and the Greek term from which it is derived, 4 we shall begin the present chapter by offering a capsule summary of the doctrine, followed by a brief discussion of the pacifist impact of two exemplars of the Russian kenotic school of moral theology.

RUSSIAN KENOTICISM The original Koine Greek word on which the concept of kenoticism is based (the verb kenein-"to empty") appears only five times in the entire New Testament and only once in the sense that has become associated with the noun cognate kenosis. 5 St. Paul declares in Philippians 2:6- 7 that "Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, emptied himself [heauton ekenosen], taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men." The meaning of "empty" here is metaphoric, but it does suggest a mode of voluntary humiliation.

Although the term does not occur

specifically, the same idea is present in such diverse scriptural texts as the prologue to the Gospel of St. John, where the Word, who, as God, created the world, "came to his own home, and his own people received him not" (John 1:11), and especially Hebrews 2:14-18. In this epistle by an unknown Hellenistic Jewish writer, Jesus the Son of God is said to have assumed the same flesh and blood as the descendants of Abraham, so that, being "made like his brethren in every respect" and having "suffered and been tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted." Kenosis, therefore, entails Jesus Christ's willingness to identify with His human creation even to the extent of suffering unjustly. Christ's kenotic role is not, however, characterized by pathos alone. For a triumphant vindication of His absolute self-lessness awaits the Lord at the end of

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His redemptive act. In the same hymnic text in which St. Paul employs the verb

kenein, he declares about Jesus: "Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name ... " (Philippians 2:9). And the Johannine imagery of Jesus being "lifted up from the earth" (for example, John 12:32), as many biblical scholars such as the late Fr. George MacRae, S.J., of Harvard Divinity School, have observed, refers not only to Jesus' eventual visible manifestation of glory through the resurrection but also to the "lifting up" of Christ on the cross, where victory was hidden in ostensible defeat and the fullness of redemption contained in the last measure of self-less devotion. Kenoticism in its Orthodox expression appears to have been most prominent in Kyivan Rus'. George P. Fedotov may have waxed too patriotic when, as indicated above in chapter 8, he claimed the kenotic saint as "a peculiar national type. 11 6 But he was certainly accurate in the following observation: "Saints Boris and Gleb created in Russia a particular, though liturgically not well defined, order of 'sufferers,' the most paradoxical order of the Russian saints." Most of the Russian martyrs for the faith were forgotten by the Russian Orthodox people, he declared, while Boris and Gleb, the voluntary, nonresistant sufferers for their evil brother's designs, have been held in special esteem since their martyrdom in AD.

1015 in imitation of Christ's Passion. 7 Russian kenoticism also was the object of a powerful revival beginning after the death of Tsar Peter I in 1725 and enduring until the Bolshevik Revolution in

1917.

What Nadejda Gorodetzky called the "kenotic mood" was expressed

through "meekness, self-abasement, voluntary poverty, humility, obedience, 'nonresistance,' acceptance of suffering and death" in imitation of Christ. 8 Modern theologians stressed the voluntary self-abasement of Christ with a renewed vigor. Metropolitan Filaret of Moscow (1782-1867) always referred to the kenotic passage in Philippians in his Christmas sermons on the Incarnation of the Son of God.9 Archimandrite Alexis M. Bukharev (1822-1871) frequently urged his fellow Russians to follow the "humiliated Lamb" and attempted to lead his own life as a "fool for Christ"-a peculiarly Orthodox spiritual type whose self-imposed humiliation and kenosis will be described below. IO More recently, M. M. Tareev (1866-1934), professor of moral theology at the Moscow Theological Academy, honored the popular devotion to a "God's man, humiliated and suffering. 11 ll In his magnum opus, Foundations of Christi-

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anity, published in 1908-1910 on the eve of the Revolution, Tareev directly linked the doctrine of kenoticism to a pacifist emphasis on non-violence and nonresistance. The Church, he argued, "cannot conquer the world in the Christian spirit unless by the victory of meekness .... "12 The Sermon on the Mount occupied the center of his moral theology and represented for Tareev, as Gorodetzky observed, that "love which extends to the form of nonresistance. 11 13 Given "the duty of voluntary death" to which all followers of Christ are called, a Christian, in Tareev's estimation, could only refuse to engage in violence against other human beings without exception. If the freedom to make of oneself a willing sacrifice were a moral necessity, then war and capital punishment were unmitigated evils that violated the freedom ofmankind.14

ST. TIKHON OF ZADONSK St. Tikhon, Bishop of Voronezh, deserves special mention as an advocate of Russian Orthodox kenoticism and absolute pacifism.

Although he lived in the

eighteenth century (1722-1783), the influence of this contemplative spiritual father was greater in the following century. Canonized in 1861, St. Tikhon of Zadonsk, as he came to be known after the venue to which he retired from his diocese in 1769, inspired, in particular, the great Russian Orthodox novelists Nikolai Gogol

and Fyodor Dostoevsky. His mystical works became, by 1884, standard reading in all of the Russian seminaries. St. Tikhon taught kenoticism in word and deed. Fr. Georges Florovsky referred to "his unremitting concentration on the memory and contemplation of Christ's sufferings" even to the point of falling at times "into a helpless torpor, confinement, and immobility, when everything around him was dark, empty, and unresponsive. 11 15 Nadejda Gorodetzky observed that the saint believed that "the true basis of Christianity" was the "voluntary self-abasement of Christ, both in His premundane life as the Son of God and in His earthly life. 11 16 Perhaps the best testimony of St. Tikhon's practice of kenoticism-and not mere theologizing about it-is the memoirs of one of his monk servants at the Zadonsk monastery, Ivan Yefimov. Yefimov wrote that during his first few years at Zadonsk, St. Tikhon "had a violent temper" and punished his attendants severely "for the slightest

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fault." But the saint prayed to God for some measure to teach him patience and humility. In a dream about an infant in a church the saint was slapped on the left cheek by the child with such force that the saint awoke. He deemed the dream a sign from God and henceforth "began to acquire patience and humility." Whenever he rebuked his peasant servants such as his cook and suspected that he had offended the attendant, the saint "would bow before him, asking to be forgiven." 17 Another story by Yefimov illustrates how deeply this spiritual transformation affected those around St. Tikhon. One day the saint heard of a squire who mistreated his serfs. His Grace intervened and betook himself to the lord of that estate in order to remonstrate with him. The hot-blooded nobleman started to dispute. The Bishop answered him gently but firmly. The anger of the nobleman grew, and finally he forgot himself so far as to strike the Bishop on the cheek. His Grace then left the nobleman's house. But on his way, true to the evangelical precept, he resolved to return to the man who had insulted him and to beg forgiveness for "having led him into such a temptation." So, going back, he fell at the feet of his host. The story goes on to say that this unexpected act of the pastor who knew no anger so deeply impressed the nobleman that he himself fell on his knees at the Bishop's feet, imploring forgiveness. From that day on his behavior towards his serfs was completely altered.18 Elements of this anecdote apparently inspired Dostoevsky, as we shall see below, in his characterizations of Prince Myshkin in The Idiot (the slap in the face) and the Elder Zossima (prostrating himself before Dmitri Karamazov) in The Brothers

Karamazov. In his letters and treatises St. Tikhon demonstrated an unyielding kenotic commitment to voluntary suffering, forgiveness, non-violence and nonresistance. For example, he exhorted those imprisoned for failure to pay debts: "Remember that you are co-sufferers with the martyrs and confessors, and Christ our Lord was bound for our sins. After this you will reign with Christ with whom you suffer." 19 Always mindful that "a vindictive heart" or a state of anger pleases Satan more than any other passion, St. Tikhon counselled full and universal forgiveness: "We offend one another; therefore, we must forgive one another. 11 20 He knew in his heart that reconciliation is of far more lasting value than enmity toward another:

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"If you make peace with him, your love will be remembered until you die. 11 21 In

his will the saint added, "I have forgiven, and I forgive, all who have offended me; may God forgive them in His gracious mercy. I too pray to be forgiven wherein I have offended anyone, being a man. 11 22 We may easily concur with Gorodetzky's conclusion: "Any form of vengeance, injustice or violence, whether it came from those in power or from their subjects, was to him a breach of brotherly love-'a civil war. "123 There is no clearer evidence of St. Tikhon's genuinely pacifist aversion to the violence and lack of both forgiveness and voluntary kenotic suffering inherent in war than a letter written in September 1773 toward the close of the Russo-Turkish War of 1768-1774. He referred to that war in surprisingly blunt language as an occasion "for breaking the divine law, dishonoring the Law-Giver, and causing the loss of men's souls. 11 24 As a result of the war, the saint perceived a providential punishment for the Russian Christians: "[W]e see our fatherland sighing and groaning because of the bloody war in which we are engaged with the Moslems. 11 25 St. Tikhon's opposition to that particular war and to all wars is revealed most eloquently in the following passage: Once more our fatherland groans and sighs as foreign arms are turned against us: once more all are seized with confusion and fear; once more our brothers are wounded; once more is Christian blood shed; once more are thousands killed; once more is heard the weeping of fathers, mothers, wives, and children. The issue of this public calamity is as yet unknown, but I do know that without God's help we can expect no good. For we are saved, not by arms, but by God's omnipotent aid. But God has mercy upon those who repent, and saves them; He defends those who trust in Him and not in gold or other things, who appeal to Him with true devotion. 26

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY If his expressed opinions were truly indicative of his soul, Fyodor Dostoevsky was hardly, in his own mind, an absolute pacifist. Konstantin Mochulsky reported, for example, the bellicosity to which Dostoevsky's Russian messianism led him late in his life. In the June 1876 entry in Dostoevsky's Diary of a Writer,

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the author addressed the so-called "Eastern question" and proclaimed his belief in Russia's predestined role in history-specifically, to become the protector of the Slavs, the leader of Orthodoxy, and the servant of all peoples "for the sake of universal reconciliation." Included in this grand scheme was the author's expectation that "sooner or later, Constantinople must be ours . .. 11 27 In the November entry of the same year, he was more explicit in his hopes:

"Constantinople must be

ours, conquered by us, Russians, from the Turks and remain ours forever. 11 28 Mochulsky rightly criticized this aspiration, for "Russian messianism was converted into warlike imperialism. 11 29 Not only does this militaristic language stand out in sharp relief from Dostoevsky's personal lifestyle, but it also seems to have meshed poorly with the literary output of this deeply spiritual Russian Orthodox novelist. Several of Dostoevsky's fictional characters will illustrate the author's pacifist impact. Whether or not consciously intended, the dramatic portrayals of Prince Myshkin, the Elder Zossima, and young Alyosha Karamazov reflect the classic Eastern Orthodox ideals of the absolute pacifist social ethical trajectory:

non-

violence, nonresistance, voluntary kenotic suffering, and universal forgiveness. In true exemplary rather than didactic fashion, Dostoevsky was, in the perceptive judgment of Metropolitan Antony Khapovitsky in the last decade of the nineteenth century, "not a propagandist, tempting and tempted, but a preacher, confessing and causing confessions. 11 30 The affective, spiritual experiences that Dostoevsky has been able to elicit from readers of The Idiot and The Brothers Karamazov far surpass any religious or moral truths, principles, or concepts that he might have conveyed more systematically and dispassionately. In this regard, as Dostoevsky himself knew well, experience is the best teacher and the mother of spiritual growth. In the remaining pages of the present chapter, we shall attempt to elucidate the spiritual and moral ramifications of those two great works by a great spiritual writer. They lead inexorably to a comprehensive moral perspective on the problem of human conflict in this life that is best described in one word: pacifism.

A THEIDIOT The spiritual anguish that awaits any committed reader at the climactic scene of The Idiot may be unparalleled in the history of great literature, religious or

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otherwise.31 Prince Myshkin's reversion to "idiocy" is particularly troubling for the empathetic Christian who must wonder whether violent "evil" has triumphed and whether the

11

good 11 of non-violent nonresistance is too weak and too

ephemeral to endure. And this anguish is intensified by the realization that Dostoevsky intended, as he admitted in a letter to a friend, "to portray a wholly beautiful individual. 11 That the writer acknowledged the extreme difficulty of that challenge "in our age especially" highlights the trepidation with which he set out to create the character of Prince Myshkin, who finally emerged from the crucible of Dostoevsky's artistically-tortured mind after eight distinct plans for the novel. 32 The fundamental question is, therefore, whether Myshkin fulfilled Dostoevsky's expectations. In particular, did the development of the plot and the characterization of the protagonist display the essential divine-human goodness that Dostoevsky hoped to capture in words? Mochulsky termed this quality "the grace-filled image of the innate just-man. 11 33 We may prefer to describe this ideal-type as a .fictional version of the non-violent, nonresistant, Passion-Bearing saint in the Eastern Orthodox moral tradition, or an apotheosis of exemplary kenotic holiness. We shall examine in tum each of these three qualities as they relate to the spiritual and moral value of the character of Prince Myshkin.

I. EXEMPLARYQUALITY The formal ingredient that summarizes most aptly Dostoevsky's purpose in creating Myshkin is "exemplary." In a letter to his niece, S. A. Ivanovna, dated January 1, 1868, the novelist re-iterated his goal of depicting a Christ-like character and referred to Cervantes' Don Quixote as "the most petfect 11 of "all the noble figures in Christian literature." Noting that the noble and the comic are inseparable, he· continued, "The reader feels sympathy and compassion with the Beautiful, derided and unconscious of its own worth. The secret of humor consists precisely in this art of wakening the reader's sympathy. 11 34 From this declaration there can be no doubt that Dostoevsky's primary goal in writing The Idiot was an affective one. The Idiot is, to be sure, an aesthetic enterprise, but it is also an inspirational work meant to touch the hearts of readers through a spiritual as well as literary experience. Myshkin ultimately is an exemplary figure for the reader.

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The literary problem concerns how Dostoevsky achieved this purpose with the tools and talents available to him as a creative artist. In the polyphonic novel the author's "voice" may not always be heard directly and unhindered. In this case, however, by his own admission, and by the structure and dramatic flow of the novel, Dostoevsky's voice was essentially that of his protagonist. This is evident in the crescendo of the plot toward the climactic bedroom scene where Dostoevsky virtually poured himself into Myshkin's soul even as the latter pours his into Rogozhin's. But Dostoevsky hoped to inspire not so much through what Myshkin says in dialogue, although the Prince does relate some powerful revelatory stories, and his speech against the emerging atheistic socialism in the Roman Catholic Church is vintage Dostoevsky.

Rather Dostoevsky seems to have spotlighted

Myshkin's dramatic impact on others through personal encounters.

From his

relations with other characters as developed in dialogue and narration there emerges a sense of the value of his personal being. Myshkin's virtues are easily recognizable as myriad and pure in expression: humility, forgiveness, justice, mercy, honor, courage, faith, hope, self-sacrificing love, etc. Not only can the reader perceive those qualities; the other characters are frequently disarmed by the virtuous innocence of the Prince. When Nastasya leaves Myshkin at the end of Part One, for example, she calls him "the first human being I've seen. 11 3 5 Even the misguided "Pavlishchev's son" and the embittered Ippolit come to appreciate the Prince for his inherent justice and goodness. According to an account of the delightful little Kolya Ivolgin, "Ippolit took hold of the prince's hand and kissed it twice. 11 36 Indeed, the others seem drawn to the Prince, perhaps like moths to a pure flame, but certainly through a sense of fascination with this highly unusual person. What Myshkin offers, in Ottonian terms, is a numinous experience of the fascinans variety:37 others are drawn to him by his exemplary qualities, even as

they sometimes mock and deride him for what they incorrectly conclude are character weaknesses or faults. But Myshkin was not intended as a viable character is his own right, as if Dostoevsky had fashioned him ex nihilo. The ideal prototype already existed when Dostoevsky shaped Myshkin into the role of protagonist in The Idiot. The model himself had a model, for Dostoevsky anticipated, as it were, C. S. Lewis' maxim for Christian literature. 38 What allows Myshkin to be a truly exemplary religious figure is reflection of the only original Beauty, the only real holiness or numen. At

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least as well as any fictional character could be, Myshkin's development is reminiscent of the Word described in John 1:11-12: "He came to his own home, and his own people received him not. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God."

2. HOLINESS

What is it that subsequently makes Myshkin "holy"-a human reflection of the divine, a living opportunity for others like satellites to experience the numen? As an Ottonian "ideogram, 11 the Prince incarnates several attributes traditionally associated with the divine in Russian Orthodoxy or Christianity in the broader sense. His role as a "holy fool" (iurodiv' in Russian) has particular relevance to the present discussion as a canvas for Dostoevsky to paint his vision of voluntary suffering and nonresistance to evil. Though sometimes abused, the tale of the holy fool, or "fool for Christ," was a venerable one in Orthodox Christianity, dating from the Byzantine era, if not from St. Paul's remark in 1 Corinthians 4: 10. It reached its apogee in Russia in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Particularly prominent figures include Tsar Theodore (+ AD. 1598); St. Basil the Blessed(+ AD. 1552), whose most lasting monument is the cathedral bearing his name in what used to be called Red Square in Moscow; and the anonymous subject in the popular nineteenth century work, The Way of a Pilgrim. Holy fools (iurodivyi in the plural number) voluntarily appeared as imbeciles, renouncing all

intellectual powers and forms of worldly wisdom in order to achieve the ideals of humility and self-denial. The personal value of this lifestyle as an extraordinary spiritual exploit, or podvig, was complemented, strangely enough, by a useful social function. Like the court jesters in medieval palaces, the iurodivyi were able to exercise a critical prophetic role vis-a-vis those in political power, a role not easily assumed by others recognized as more "sensible." In addition, holy fools would often cross the country on foot, collecting donations for the construction of new churches throughout Holy Russia. The key factor, in short, was the pretense of foolishness, together with the rejection of worldly standards of rationality and propriety in favor of internalized spiritual canons.

In all of Russian Orthodox

history there was no better depiction of what may be termed the "exemplary ke-

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notic holiness" of the iurodiv' than Prince Myshkin in The Idiot. This feature of Myshkin's characterization also highlights his inherent value as a religious figure and helps to explain why the other characters are attracted to him in the religious experience that Otto termed fascinans. It is no coincidence that, in their initial encounter, Rogozhin, the primary antagonist, says to Myshkin: "[Y]ou are a regular holy fool, Prince, and such as you God loves. 11 39 In the sixth plan for the novel, according to Dostoevsky's Notebooks for The Idiot, the author included the following revealing, albeit cryptic, remark: "Prince Yurodivyi. (He is with the children.)?!"40 The relations with children never panned out in this novel save for Myshkin's tales of Marie and the children in the Swiss village; this theme would achieve fiuition in The Brothers Karamazov, where Alyosha becomes the great friend and spiritual benefactor of

children and young people. But the motif of the holy fool pervades The Idiot from the title itself to the very last page, where the often sensible Mrs. Lizaveta Yepanchin, deeply moved by the apparent demise of "this poor fellow" the Prince, and speaking to the increasingly sensible Radomsky, vindicates the witness of Myshkin by pronouncing "all this, all this life abroad, and all this Europe of yours . . . just a delusion. 11 41 She seems to be asking, "Who are the real fools in the long run?" As a genuinely innocent, naive person, Myshkin is not always as conscious of his actions as were the classic iurodivyi in Russia, whose behavior was more feigned than natural. Referring to Myshkin's "peculiar" attentiveness and naive sincerity in his conversations with others, the narrator observes, "This naivete, this good faith, unsuspicious of derision or ridicule, seemed to be reflected on his face and even in the way he carried himself 11 42 What the classic iurodivyi endeavored to effect, the Prince displays by the very constitution of his personality. Moreover, he is sometimes acutely aware of his seeming foolishness as a potential hindrance to his relations with others. In his first meeting with the Yepanchin women he confesses, "I know perfectly well myself that I've lived less than other people and that I know less of life than anyone. I'm afraid I talk rather strangely sometimes ... 11 43 And yet that same honest humility explains in part his disarming effect on those around him. Even when Myshkin in unhappier moments wishes he could escape the strain of human discourse and "the idea of trying to solve the problems that filled his mind and heart to overflowing," he reveals a beguiling

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tendency to blame himself for everything, a characteristic that strikes others intermittently as foolish or endearing. 44 Three specific episodes, however, bring the Prince more closely into conformity with the type of the holy fool. In the "poor knight" incident, Aglaya Yepanchin recites the Pushkin poem with critical remarks about the presumed comparison to Don Quixote. But the entire event is filled with subtle allusions to Myshkin's role as a Russian "man of La Mancha," foolishly tilting at imaginary windmills, though driven by a single purpose rooted in a magnificent idealistic vision of noblesse oblige. The Prince himself senses Aglaya's "obvious and malicious mockery," but what even he fails to comprehend in that troubled moment is the alloy of begrudging admiration that Aglaya is also revealing.45 Much later in the narrative, on the occasion of his formal introduction to society and to the self-centered Princess Belokonsky at a party hosted by the Yepanchins, the Prince presents his "simple" ideas in the prophetic style of a holy fool. Myshkin's own princely lineage notwithstanding, only a merely tolerated iurodiv' could address an assemblage of nobles in starkly critical terms mixed with selfcondemnation: "It's quite true that we are absurd and frivolous, that we have bad habits, that we are bored, that we don't know how to look at anything or understand anything. 11 46 The long-dreaded epileptic fit abruptly terminates this address, and the immediate reaction of everyone present is shock tinged with pity or scorn. But Myshkin's genuinely prophetic role is assured by the end of the novel, when Mrs. Yepanchin, now obviously persuaded by the Prince about the shallowness of the Europe-oriented Russian nobility, utters her conclusive remark to Radom sky. Finally, toward the beginning of the novel, Dostoevsky recorded an incident that powerfully sets the tone for the entire work. When he intervenes to prevent Ganya Ivolgin from striking his sister, Varya Ivolgin, Myshkin suffers a humiliating "resounding slap in the face" from Ganya to the horror of all the others in the room.47 What transpires next might be better included in the following section on kenoticism in the present chapter, but the eventual outcome warrants its mention here under the rubric of holy fool. At first Myshkin responds quietly, "Oh, well, I don't mind you striking me, but I shan't let you touch her. 11 But then, having repaired to a corner of the room and covered his face with his hands, the Prince says in a quivering voice, "Oh, how you'll be ashamed of what you've done!" Here

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again in the emotion of the moment, without realizing what he has done, Myshkin has acted the holy fool in his prophetic role. For the significant effects of this critical prophetic statement are indeed profound. First, Rogozhin exclaims, "You'll be ashamed, Ganya, of having insulted such a-sheep!"-a choice of words pregnant with kenotic meaning (that is, a possible allusion to "the Lamb that was slain" in Revelation 5: 12) and indicative of the powerful religious effect of the Prince on Rogozhin froin the· very beginning of their tempestuous relation. Second, and more overwhelming for the reader, is Ganya's own moral transformation, however nascent and subsequently underdeveloped, in much the same way that St. Tikhon of Zadonsk effected a remarkable change in the behavior of the violent nobleman. Shortly after the slap, Ganya visits the Prince now shut up in his own room. "Prince, I've behaved like a cad," he said suddenly with deep emotion. "Forgive me, my dear fellow. 11 48 And a few moments later, Ganya continues, "And what made me think this morning that you were an idiot. You notice things other people never notice. 11 49 Like the historic iurodivyi, the non-violent, nonresistant Prince continually demonstrates, in the words of Nicolas Zemov, "that God is stronger than man, and that a helpless and despised human being, if he trusts in divine love and protection, can achieve greater things than a clever but self-centered person. 11 50 The corollary to the holy fool's apparent, exterior foolishness was his interior spiritual discernment, a power that both reflected and drew him closer to the divine model and telos in whose image and likeness the holy fool was created. Dostoevsky supplied Myshkin, too, with gifts of spiritual and moral insight that likened him to the mystical, knowing, pacific Christ of the Gospel of St. John. Besides the wonderful discernment revealed in Mysbkin's horror at the violence inherent in capital punishment and his delightful story about Marie, the downtrodden Swiss girl, the Prince also demonstrates a serene, lucid ability to "read" people such as the self-indulgent and flighty Yepanchin women, as well as Nastasya's madness and Rogozhin's "love" mixed with "malice" that would ultimately erupt in his violence against both Nastasya and Myshkin himself. In his address to the nobility at the Yepanchins' party, the Prince, despite his at once endearing and

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distracting self-deprecation, manages to offer sound practical as well as spiritual advice "to save you all, so as to prevent our class from vanishing for nothing into utter darkness, without realizing anything, abusing everything and losing everything. 1151

Virtually straight from the gospel message of Jesus Christ to His

disciples, the Prince urges, "Let us stay in the front rank and be leaders. Let us be servants in order to be leaders." Finally, Myshkin displays an uncanny, unrelenting desire to see the best in people and in his surroundings. Besides Nastasya, whom he pursues in this vein all the way to her death, as if she were a Russian "Dulcinea," Myshkin correctly, as it turns out, perceives even the repulsive Antip Burdovsky as a "defenceless" and "innocent man who is being deceived by everybody. 11 52 As Mochulsky commented, "The prince convinces unseemly and evil people that they are beautiful and good, persuades the unfortunate that they are happy, looks at the world lying in evil and sees only the 'image of pure beauty.' 11 53

But Myshkin is more than a self-deluded Don Quixote, however

ennobling in his idealism. He is indeed the living fictional embodiment of the Word described in John 1:9-10: "The true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world knew him not."

3. KENOTICISM

The most impressive and most distinctively Russian Orthodox religious quality of the character of Prince Myshkin is his Christ-like kenoticism. This aspect of both the plot and the characterization of the protagonist also best exemplifies Myshkin's holiness and religious value. When the Prince announces to General Ivan Yepanchin early in the narrative, "I'm in need of good, kind people," a careful reader should begin to wonder whether he has witnessed Myshkin sounding ~s own death knell in advance. 54 For almost immediately it becomes obvious that not only are those simple needs of the Prince not met (indeed, he is regularly mocked and treated contemptuously), but the Prince continually diverts all of his own energies to meeting the needs of everyone around him, ranging from the greatly troubled Nastasya to the presumptuous, hostile Burdovsky.

In particular, his one-sided, self-sacrificing

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relation to Nastasya virtually destroys his one fleeting chance for normal romantic love for Aglaya, and yet he is aware of the risk (if not of Aglaya's own extreme sensitivity) and accepts it freely. Myshkin literally empties himself kenotically of his conscious mental presence as he exhausts his human spiritual resources in reaching out to both Nastasya and Rogozhin. The progress of the Prince through the plot of the novel is reminiscent of a statement issued by Winston Churchill when he finally attained the position of prime minister of Great Britain in 1940: "I felt as ifl were walking with destiny and that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and for this trial." The structure of the plot is loose at first, and yet the characterizations of Myshkin, Nastasya, and Rogozhin are so beguiling that they hold the narrative together until Part Four of the novel, when the action builds rapidly to a suspenseful climax.55 From another perspective, the narrative begins with the Prince newly-released from a Swiss sanitarium and heading back on a train into "the world" with Rogozhin and his picture of Nastasya next to him; the plot effectively ends with the murder of Nastasya by Rogozhin and with Myshkin "reduced" at the scene to his original "idiocy," or mental and perhaps spiritual departure from this "world." One literary critic, Murray Krieger, has compared Myshkin's pilgrimage in Russia to the Elder Zossima's worldly phase in The Brothers Karamazov and the safe withdrawal to the sanitarium to Zossima's monastery.56 I would proffer a more venturesome comparison:

a classic Christian "descent-ascent" motif analogous to Christ's

Incarnation, crucifixion, and, in more optimistic moments, resurrection. The climactic bedroom scene, toward which the Prince appears almost predestined, is indeed his crucifixion and descent into hell. Owing to its unmatched spiritual and emotional impact and literary eloquence, it is worth quoting at length. After Rogozhin forcibly ushers Myshkin into the bedroom with the slain body of N astasya enshrined with disinfectant, the Prince repairs to a chair and sits in terror for half an hour while Rogozhin rants and raves. The prince jumped up from his chair in new terror. When Rogozhin grew quiet (and he grew quiet suddenly), the prince bent over him gently, sat down beside him, and began looking at him closely with a violently beating heart, breathing heavily. Rogozhin did not tum his hand to him, and indeed seemed to have forgotten all about him. The prince looked and waited; time was passing, it

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began to get light. Now and again Rogozhin began to mutter suddenly, loudly, harshly, and incoherently; he began uttering little screams and laughing; then the prince stretched out his trembling hand and gently touched his head and his hair, stroking them and stroking his cheeks-he could do nothing more! He began trembling again himself, and again his legs suddenly seemed to give way under him. Quite a new sort of sensation was oppressing his heart with infinite anguish. Meanwhile it had grown quite light; at last, he lay down on the cushion, as though in utter exhaustion and despair, and pressed his face against Rogozhin's pale and motionless face; tears flowed from his eyes on Rogozhin's cheeks, but perhaps he no longer noticed his own tears and knew nothing about them.... At any rate, when, many hours later, the door was opened and people came in, they found the murderer completely unconscious and in a raging fever. The prince was sitting motionless beside him on the cushions, and every time the sick man burst out screaming or began rambling, he hastened to pass his trembling hand gently over his hair and cheeks, as though caressing and soothing him. But he no longer understood the questions he was asked, and did not recognize the people who had come into the room and surrounded him. And if Schneider himself had come from Switzerland now to have a look at his former pupil and patient, remembering the condition in which the prince had sometimes been during the first year of his treatment in Switzerland, he would have given him up with a despairing wave of a hand and would have said, as he did then: "An idiot! 11 57 In this "vigil of lamentation," to use George A Panichas' vivid description, 58 the Prince exemplifies the role of the "suffering servant" in the Old Testament that foreshadowed Christ. Myshkin assumes the burden ofRogozhin's egomaniacal evil and Nastasya's death wish as a "co-sufferer11 59 who, like the patristic teachers of vicarious atonement such as St. Mark the Ascetic and St. Symeon the New Theologian, so identifies with those others that their evil is redeemed by the overwhelming, empathetic sorrow that engulfs the Prince and drains him of his last moments of consciousness. But he does so not out of faith in Christ but graciously and freely in imitation of Christ's voluntary kenotic humiliation for the world, like the Passion-Bearers, SS. Boris and Gleb ofKyiv. Martin Luther King,

Jr., was fond of saying that all innocent suffering is somehow redemptive. That

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theological hunch applies perforce to the Prince as a Christ-figure. To be sure, the climactic scene of the physical shell of Myshkin comforting the feverish Rogozhin with a reflective compassion that surpasses any produced by the conscious will is at once pathetic and terrifying. We may feel overcome at first by a sense of defeat and sheer human futility. But the reflective Orthodox Christian reader should soon come to his spiritual senses and realize what Dostoevsky most probably intended through this climactic scene: that Myshkin, and Alyosha Karamazov to follow later, were, in Nadejda Gorodetzky's apt phrasing, "true conquerors of life because they are not afraid of any suffering or abasement of their persons. 11 60 In a more optimistic mood, we may even suppose that this scene also testifies to Myshkin's "ascent," as it were, to another, higher "world"-to his being "lifted up," in the Johannine sense, through the voluntary "crucifixion" of his personal consciousness. Having achieved all that he could in this paradoxical, antinomical world of freely-chosen spiritual death and self-imposed terror, the Prince, through his mental death, demonstrates the full measure of his pacifist self-sacrifice for and devotion to those in whom he rejoiced in spite of themselves. In this respect, his "departure" to a presumably happier state is one of triumph, not defeat: terror is transfigured finally into pure transcendence as the morning light breaks over the Light that dwelled in the Prince. Any serious doubt as to the ultimate victory of the Prince may be dispelled by the enriched and transformed lives of Vera Lebedev, Kolya, Radomsky, and Mrs. Y epanchin. A clearer, more powerful and meaningful depiction of the resurrection in the same literary, metaphoric manner would have to await Dostoevsky's final and greatest work, which traces Alyosha's mystical rebirth in his early life and his hopeful expectation (and not mere anticipation, as in The Idiot) of the heavenly kingdom of brotherhood. In Myshkin, however, Dostoevsky, despite his own selfcritical reservations, still succeeded in portraying a Christ-like "wholJy beautiful individual," who was not really destroyed by the world but rather emptied his personal existence kenotically for the world. If The Brothers Karamazov is the preeminent novel of resurrection, then The Idiot is perhaps the finest work of fiction ever to fulfill St. Paul's apostolic commission in 1 Corinthians 1:23 to preach Christ crucified.

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B. THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV Since this novel is generally recognized as Dostoevsky's greatest work, and the characters are far more familiar to educated readers than Prince Myshkin in

The Idiot, we shall not devote as much attention as we might wish to Alyosha Karamazov and the Elder Zossima.61

Those two artistic creations are so ka-

leideoscopic that the brief treatment of the one facet that space allows may even render them, and through them Dostoevsky himself, a grave disservice. Similarly, the dominant and underlying themes and the intricate plot of this polyphonic novel are far more rich and complex than the use of the novel here may suggest. Having entered these caveats, however, we shall now. attempt to demonstrate the implicit pacifist import of Zossima and Alyosha. One of the key themes in this novel-the struggle within man's soul between God and virtue, on the one hand, and Satan and immorality, on the other-governs the thought and behavior of each of the three brothers-Dmitri, Ivan, and Alexey, or Alyosha-and their illegitimate sibling, Smerdyakov.

The eldest brother,

Dmitri, sounds the keynote early in the novel, when he declares to his youngest brother Alyosha, "God and the devil are fighting there and the battlefield is the heart of man. 11 62 If Dmitri's anguished, uncertain inner turmoil personifies that battleground, Ivan, the benighted atheist, furnishes the dark tones of the literary artist's pallet. This middle brother struggles continually with the problems of evil and suffering, ultimately rejecting both God and His creation and, in the process, losing his mind and soul. The "whole natural law," he argues repeatedly, consists in man's belief in immortality. If there is no God and no immortality, "nothing then would be immoral, everything would be lawful. 11 63 Ivan throws down the gauntlet that the spiritual heroes must retrieve.

His cogent arguments against human

freedom and the existence of a loving, caring, providential God, though informed by mysterious dreams, daydreams, and visions, pose the greatest challenge to Christianity that Dostoevsky could conjure.

Through Ivan's case for atheism

Dostoevsky constructed the scaffolding on which he endeavored to hang the brightly-illuminated tableaux that serve as "rebuttals" by the positive characters. The intricate plot of The Brothers Karamazov centers on a murderspecifically the parricide of the pagan, hedonistic father Karamazov by one of his sons-and the question: Who is responsible for this terrible act of violence? In

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this respect, it parallels The Idiot, which builds to a climactic murder by the shadowy Rogozhin. Both novels also use the central murder as an easel for a canvas on which Dostoevsky, the Orthodox artist, creates his spiritual-moral alternative to the dark, insane violence to which the self-imposed absence of God in one's soul inexorably commits a person.

In The Idiot that alternative is

Myshkin's personal kenosis, a freely-chosen lifestyle that is so uncompromising, so all-encompassing, that it appears to the unwary reader unaccustomed to Dostoevsky's religious background to be all-consuming and self-destructive. In The Brothers Karamazov all causes of spiritual uncertainty or doubt have vanished. The author's unyielding aversion to physical violence remains both implicit and explicit. But the overall impact of this novel is unmistakably positive and uplifting. The power of universal forgiveness, rooted firmly in the inverse of Ivan's contention, and hope in the future resurrection of mankind shine forth with a brilliance arguably unsurpassed in all of Westem literature. To be sure, nowhere in this novel can the reader find a discursive or neatlyargued rebuttal to Ivan's fundamental challenge. Dostoevsky .himself worried whether his refutation of "the atheistic thesis ... will be a sufficient answer," given the "exigencies of art. 11 64 What awaits the patient reader, however, is the "answer" that Job in the Old Testament received to his persistent questioning of God's justice, and what Alyosha himself experiences in his greatest moment of spiritual anguish-a theophany. Through his dramatic characterizations of Zossima and Alyosha, Dostoevsky proved decisively that God and virtue are ultimately victorious in the hearts of men. Whether inspired by his knowledge of St. Tikhon of Zadonsk's reputation or a personal familiarity with the stare ts Amvrosy of Optina Pustyn, 65 Dostoevsky fashioned in the Elder Zossima an Orthodox spiritual-moral exemplar for his time and place-indeed, for all times and places. Although he affirms the continuing value of the obedience, fasting, and prayer of "the monastic way, 11 66 Zossima is not, as Mochulsky perceived, a classic Russian Orthodox monk. The Elder is instead "a herald of the new spiritual consciousness of the Russian people" characterized by a sense of the mystical unity of the universe, a spiritual insight that eclipses theological fine points about God, the Church, and the mysteria.61 It should come as no surprise, therefore, that the monks of Optina Pustyn, one of the great spiritual fonts in nineteenth century Russia, disowned the figure of Zossima. 236

And yet Zossima is sufficiently grounded in the traditional Orthodox spirituality elucidated in the preceding chapter and typified also by St. Tikhon of Zadonsk. Two episodes in Zossima's life-one from his earlier years related by Zossima himself and the other in the course of the main narrative-reveal this curious synthesis of the traditional and the innovative in Dostoevsky's spiritual genius. When the contentious Karamazovs visit Zossima en masse, seeking spiritual guidance and a resolution of the incessant bickering between the father, Fyodor, and the eldest son, Dmitri, they engage in a crude display of mutual recrimination. In a kenotic act clearly reminiscent of an actual incident in St. Tikhon's life Zossima terminates the scene suddenly by moving silently toward Dmitri, deliberately bowing at Dmitri's feet in a full prostration with his head touching the floor, and, with 11 a faint smile on his lips, 11 begging the forgiveness of everyone in the little cell. 68 The rational meaning of this gesture, if indeed there is one, was apparently of no interest to the author. What mattered was the dramatic impact on Dmitri and Alyosha-and hence on the reader as well. Mystical effect was more important than logical purpose. This seemingly irrelevant response by Zossima does not solve the problem that led the rambunctious Karamazovs to the Eler in the first place. But Zossima does dramatize the Christian way of disarming and resolving all human conflicts-namely, voluntary self-abasement and mutual forgiveness. The second episode explains the genesis of Zossima's-and Dostoevsky'sgreatest spiritual-moral insight.

In a special section of Book VI subtitled,

"Biographical Notes," the Elder recalls a duel that became the turning point of his

life. Heretofore, he had been "a cruel, absurd, almost savage creature" as a student at a military academy in St. Petersburg.69 Four years into his service as a military officer, Zossima found himself involved in a duel with a rich landowner over a young married girl who happened to be the wife of his adversary. On the eve of the duel Zossima flew into a rage with his orderly and struck him twice in the face, drawing blood.

The next morning officer Zossima felt something "vile and

shameful" and realized that the cause was the thrashing he had rendered his servant. The "crime" of "a man beating a fellow creature" weighed heavily upon him as he remembered what his brother Markel had said on his deathbed to his servants: "Am I worth your waiting on me?" Convicted of his own guilt and lack of worth, Zossima realized next that he was about to engage in a violent act 237

against an innocent man for no valid reason. He would be killing a good man and "torturing and killing" the man's wife, too, by depriving her of happiness with her rightful spouse. Zossima hastened to his servant's room, asked forgiveness, and, perceiving the uncertainty in the servant's face, prostrated himself before him. When he arrived at the scene of the duel, Zossima confessed his foolishness to his opponent, suffered the first shot to be fired at himself, and then cast aside his pistol, to the consternation of his second, who worried about the honor both of Zossima and of their regiment. But Zossima persisted in denouncing the potentially "great and deadly sin" that might have occurred and preached his newly discovered, seemingly novel spiritual message to his opponent: "[L]ife is heaven" and each of us is "responsible to all for all." The latter was convinced of Zossima's sincerity and declared the duel moot. Even Zossima's military colleagues accepted his behavior, when they learned that he had decided already to resign his commission and enter a monastery.70 The ramifications of this mystical experience become clear a few pages later, as Dostoevsky expounded through Zossima the precise nature of his great insight. Zossima teaches a truly three-dimensional spiritual-moral doctrine of love, or what Orthodox moral tradition terms philanthropia. First, he exhorts his monastic brothers to "have no fear of men's sin," but rather to love everyone and everything as God's creation, even when, in the case of men and women, it is fallen and sinful. In a passage at once vintage Dostoevsky and reminiscent of the Orthodox spiritual writers who would assume the passions and afflictions of others, Zossima preaches: Love a man even in his sin, for that is the semblance of Divine Love and is the highest love on earth. Love all God's creation, the whole and every grain of sand on it. Love every leaf, every ray of God's light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an allembracing love.71 Second, not only is this love indiscriminate, universal, and unlimited, but it also must be experienced and manifested continually. The "image" of Zossima's spiritual sons must be carefully nurtured and protected, so that it might always be 238

"a seemly one." He concludes this thought: "For we must love not only occasionally, for a moment, but forever.

Everyone can love occasionally, even the

11

wicked can. 72 Third, the maximalist quality of this mystico-spiritual-moral way of love exceeds even these far-reaching bounds of other-directedness. Dostoevsky revealed through Zossima his understanding of the ultimate demonstration of kenotic selfabasement, voluntary suffering, mutual responsibility, and nonresistance to evil: There is only one means of salvation. Make yourself responsible for all men's sins. As soon as you sincerely make yourself responsible for everything and for all men, you will see at once that you have found salvation. 73 This teaching is, in short, simple yet profound: love all men in their sins, always, and even assume personal responsibility for them. It is in Alyosha, however, that this teaching becomes incarnate as action. A

mere lad of twenty, Alyosha barely begins his spiritual journey in The Brothers

Karamazov. His role would have been greatly magnified in a planned sequel, which Dostoevsky never lived to write. Alyosha would have left the monastery forever, in accordance with his mentor Zossima's wishes, marry, and participate in the revolutionary movement, before returning, more worldly-wise and experienced, to the pure Orthodox faith in Christ that Dostoevsky believed he himself had discovered.74 In the present novel, however, Alyosha is, though comparatively undeveloped, a character marked by innocence, commitment, loyalty, generosity, inner serenity, and a kind of adolescent holiness. The narrator notes at the outset that Alyosha is "not a fanatic and in my opinion, at least, . . . not even a mystic." The narrator describes him as follows: "He was simply a lover of humanity, and that he adopted the monastic life was because at that time it struck him as the ideal escape for his soul struggling from the darkness of worldly wickedness to the light oflove. 11 75 Alyosha's entire, carefully demarcated world is shattered by the death of the Elder Zossima and the totally shocking event that occurs almost immediately thereafter.

Contrary to the virtually unanimous expectations of the monastic

brothers, the remains of their esteemed and saintly starets not only fail to become incorruptible and generate heavenly myrrh, as often occurs with Orthodox saints;

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they decompose more rapidly than normal, emitting a terrible stench. Instead of vindication through a miracle, Zossima, in Alyosha's innocent mind, seems to suffer degradation, dishonor, and judgment. At this critical juncture, as he agonizes over the unexpected turn of events at the side of Zossima's coffin, while listening half-attentively to the reading of the passage in the Gospel of St. John about the wedding in Cana of Galilee, Alyosha has a daydream in which the Elder imparts some final spiritual wisdom to him concerning the simple love that opens the doors of paradise. In this climactic scene for Alyosha's role in the novel the young monk has a mystical experience that can only be appreciated at a distance, and hardly comprehended, by readers who do not share Dostoevsky's Orthodox Christian faith and worldview. At this point the author seems content to allow his truth to be "caught," since it can not properly be taught.

Baptismal imagery,

Dostoevsky's almost mystical love for the Russian soil, and the spiritual-moral message of Zossima are all intertwined in this dramatic moment. Alyosha stood, gazed out before him and suddenly threw himself down on the earth. He did not know why he embraced it. He could not have told why he longed so irresistibly to kiss it, to kiss it. But he kissed it weeping and watering it with his tears, and vowed passionately to love it, to love it forever and ever. "Water the earth with the tears of your joy and love these tears." His eider's words echoed in his soul. Why was he weeping? Oh! In his rapture he was weeping even over those stars, which were shining to him from the abyss of space, and "he was not ashamed of that ecstasy." There seemed to be threads from all those innumerable worlds of God, linking his soul to them, and his soul was trembling all over "in contact with other worlds." He longed to forgive everyone and for everything, and to beg forgiveness. Oh, not for himself, but for all men, for all and for everything. "And others are praying for me too," echoed again in his soul. But with every instant he felt clearly and, as it were, tangibly, that something firm and unshakable as that vault of heaven had entered into his soul. It was as though some idea had seized the sovereignty of his mind-and it was for all his life and forever and ever. He had fallen on the earth a weak soul, but he rose up in strength, and he knew and felt it suddenly at the very moment of his ecstasy. And never, never, all his life, did Alyosha forget that minute.76

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In this magnificent scene Dostoevsky offered at last the exclamation point to all of his previous attempts to portray holiness in the most positive way imaginable.

If Prince Myshkin must descend into hell with Rogozhin, thereby mystically reliving the crucifixion of Christ, then Alyosha descends to the ground in confusion and despair, only to rise again from it with a purified spirit, a renewed mind, and a clear purpose. This spiritual regeneration affects his entire being. Now in this nexus between heaven and earth, in this theophanic moment he has experienced the presence of God. No defense of that presence is necessary; no explanation is demanded. From this moment Alyosha is divinely commissioned "to go forth into the world," as the Elder had instructed him. Alyosha's would be a loving entrance, mystically linked to the souls of all other human beings, seeking peace and harmony with everyone on very uneven terms unfavorable to himself. He would practice the Dostoevskyan virtue of universal mutual forgiveness;

he would

assume the sins of others into his own soul; he would offer no resistance to anyone for any reason. For everyone was his brother forever. The final scene of the novel extends this vision from Alyosha to his little circle of little friends, the boys who formerly tormented the now deceased Ilusha by throwing stones at him-an act of petty violence and cruel, albeit pubescent, insensitivity. Around Ilusha's gravestone, Alyosha bids his proteges to covenant together that they "never forget Ilusha and one another," and that they be, "first and above all, kind, then honest. 11 77 One of the boys, Kolya, an erstwhile misanthrope, asks whether the teaching of the Church about the resurrection of the dead is indeed true. Alyosha replies with a joyous enthusiasm, "Certainly we shall rise again, certainly we shall see each other and shall tell each other with joy and gladness all that has happened!" When Kolya exclaims, "Oh, how wonderful it will be!" Dostoevsky provides all the punctuation that he needs. 78 As God lives, so shall those in whom He dwells. Everything else pales in comparison to this fervent hope grounded in the experience of the Dostoevskyan Orthodox Christian. The evil that men do to one another, all the violence and suffering that humanity inflicts on itself, is dwarfed by the resurrection experience. Those who, like Zossima and Alyosha, choose to embody true Christian faith, hope, and love may expect the peace of soul and the joy of creation that only Christ can offer. There has never been a richer, more inspirational, more simultaneously

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idealistic and practical portrayal of authentic Orthodox Christian pacifism than Dostoevsky's last, great novel.

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Chapter 11

CONCLUSION: THE PACIFIST OPTION In the renascence of popular and scholarly interest in virtue as a key to morality and ethics, there are almost as many lists of "the virtues" as there are proponents. William Bennett's wildly successful book, The Book of Virtues, groups various texts from Western Civilization under ten classic virtues. I Every few years the U.S. Army reformulates its "core values": the latest version coincidentally parallels the "downsizing" that has overtaken the military force structure by reducing the number of such core values from twelve to seven, including these classic military stalwarts: loyalty, respect, and personal courage. Reaching back to the foundation of this country, we find the eighteenth century awash with moral philosophies grounded firmly in the virtue tradition. Benjamin Franklin's list, as recorded in his Autobiography written from 1771 to 1788, was a harbinger of the peculiar characteristics that would enable the new American nation-to be sure, a polyglot people still basically English in their cultural heritage-to subdue a continent and emerge as the world's only superpower by the end of the twentieth century. Franklin's personal path to "moral perfection," as he termed it, included the following virtues: temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquillity, chastity, and humility. 2

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Even when theologians or philosophers find themselves in rare agreement as to the nature of virtue as a moral category, a single catalog of specific virtues may still prove elusive. But that is not a serious problem. There are perhaps thousands of virtues that we could identify, many of them proper, or at least more pertinent, to persons in particular professions. In this concluding chapter, we shall propose a distinctive set of virtues that constitute the essence of the absolute pacifist trajectory in Eastern Orthodox moral tradition. These are not the only virtues that an Orthodox pacifist ought to cultivate, since the pacifist, like his just warrior co-religionist, is, above all, a disciple of Christ, who manifested the fullness of divinity and modeled perfect, virtuous human behavior in all of its splendor. But the pacifist virtues do provide a powerful meaning and motivation to the Orthodox pacifist as he wends his way in a very violent world. We shall also connect the pacifist moral option to the key theological concepts enumerated in chapter 2 and to other themes addressed throughout the present study. Finally, we shall assess the relative values and disvalues of the Orthodox pacifist option and consider how Orthodox pacifists in the United States may witness personally and publicly on behalf of their moral position.

THE PACIFIST VIRTUES The previous chapters have attempted to demonstrate that the Orthodox absolute pacifist trajectory is grounded in four specific virtues. First, an emphasis on mutual non-violence is everywhere present in the Orthodox pacifist trajectory. Although the Old Testament stage of the trajectory reveals God as "Warrior" for His People against their enemies, human military might is either downplayed or scorned. Even in the apocalyptic age to come, Israel-or, by extension, the Church in patristic understanding-is expected to play a passive, non-violent role. The prophets-above all, Ezekiel-also warn Israel against imitating the violent, pagan ways of their neighbors and rivals; the prophets also envision a future messianic era of non-violent, pastoral harmony among peoplesthe peace of shalom. A layer of pacifist non-violence also occupies the core of Jesus' moral

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teaching. His own actions clearly eschew any use of violence to solve problems, including His ultimate fate at the hands of His earthly enemies. Domini cal sayings that condemn the use of "the sword" and exalt peacemakers leave little room for misinterpretation. A sectarian apocalyptic strain is evident in several epistles but preeminently in the book of Revelation, where an "apocalyptic holy war" waged exclusively by the Lord finally resolves the problems of sin, evil, and death. Faithful followers of Christ are called not to combat, but rather to witness on behalf of their faith in His power through non-violent testimony. Among the pacifist Church Fathers, both before and after the Pax Constantini in AD. 313, the imperative of non-violence was linked to an explicit aversion to bloodshed as unsuited to followers of the Prince of Peace. War, militarism, and mutual slaughter were equated with murder and worldliness, which Christ had declared anathema for all time. Military service and service on behalf of Christ were deemed mutually exclusive. The canonical corpus further amplified this insight by prohibiting all clergy without exception from engaging not only in acts of violence, but also in any military activities whatsoever. Clergy, who consecrate and handle the "holy mysteries," must refrain from worldly occupations and particularly from the military, given the actual, or at least potential, bloodshed endemic in that profession. But clergy are merely the vanguard of the Kingdom, not a special caste. Therefore, what is immediately incumbent upon them is also ideally or eschatologically required from the Orthodox Christian community as a whole as incompatible with Christian holiness and theosis-namely, absolute non-violence. Hagiographic texts tend to support the universally normative quality of this expectation.

Non-clerical martyrs like St. Maximilian and confessors like St.

Martin of Tours came to regard military service as a sin, owing to the human bloodshed that it entails. In the liturgical rites of the Orthodox Church invocations of and paeans to peace appear frequently, sometimes in surprisingly close proximity to more bellicose hymns thanking God the Holy Trinity for military victories under the sign of the Cross. But in the other component of the devotional literature of the Church, the spiritual writings of the Church Fathers and some of their medieval and modern descendants, the teaching about spiritual warfare against the passions paradoxically employs violent imagery metaphorically to describe the absolute non-violence of

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the human actors. 3

Once again the universally normative dimension of this

struggle means that every Orthodox Christian is summoned to "battle" in order to achieve eirene: the peace of spiritual serenity, specifically "stillness" and "dispassion." Characteristic "pacifist" virtues such as patience, meekness, longsuffering, and forbearance ought to displace passions such as anger that give rise to violent feelings and actions. Finally, modem Russian Orthodox kenoticism has maintained this spirituality, while adding insights such as St. Tikhon's that violence is a breach of brotherly love, or Dostoevsky's discernment of the redemptive effects of seemingly foolish, non-violent, despised human beings on those around them. Second, nonresistance to evil, a more refined, exalted, and exacting degree of non-violence, is a decisive component of the Orthodox version of absolute pacifism. This leaves little room, incidentally, for the activist variety currently in vogue among many Western Christian pacifists. If non-violence merely posits the peace of the absence of war (classical eirene), requiring that one refrain from resorting to lethal force, perhaps any physical force, to attain one's ends, nonresistance goes a moral quantum leap farther by rejecting categorically any efforts to reform or change the oppressor or the perpetrator of violence through active manipulative opposition.4 The pacifism of nonresistance entails a pure witness to the moral theological virtue of philanthropia rooted in the peace of spiritual serenity (New Testament eirene). For only a Christian at peace with God and the world is truly able to endure insult, injury, and injustice without resistance. Beginning with the prophetic counsel of Jeremiah to the Kingdom of Judah to capitulate to the pagan Chaldeans, the Orthodox pacifist trajectory has urged those who would be holy to refrain from doing wrong in response to wrongdoing, or from repaying evil with evil. The Lord Himself exhorts His disciples to flee rather than resist the Romans, but He Himself neither resists arrest nor tries to escape the Passion. Also in the New Testament, St. Paul's vivid military metaphor concerning "the whole armor of God" provides for defensive protection from spiritual assaults, with the one "offensive" device-the "sword of the Spirit"-tantamount to a vigorous, verbal proclamation of the Word of God. Similarly, the early Church Fathers took pride in the Christian practice of dying willingly, while confessing Christ, turning the other cheek, or at least praying for their enemies. The hagiographic corpus is full of vitae and acta of Christian soldier martyrs who 246

suffered torture and death rather than defend themselves from pagan Roman political and military might. Royal martyrs, especially SS. Boris and Gleb, the Passion-Bearers of Kyivan Rus', also exemplified the virtue of nonresistance to evil. Orthodox mystico-ascetic spirituality, on the one hand, wages active spiritual warfare against the passions, and, on the other hand, the unique hesychast tradition of prayer seeks a peaceful condition of dispassion whereby the soul (or spirit) neither yields to evil impulses nor preoccupies itself with the sins of others. The soul at peace with God and with all men is marked by quiet acceptance, not righteous resistance. In modern Russian Orthodox kenotic works nonresistance is a recurring theme, ranging from Tareev's hope in "the victory of meekness" to the anecdote about a face slap in an account of the life of St. Tikhon to the episodes of nonresistance to violent abuse in The Idiot. Third, the theme of voluntary kenotic suffering seems to wax and wane in the Orthodox pacifist trajectory, sometimes emerging in the sources with a whitehot intensity, but usually as the necessary corollary to the practice of nonresistance to evil.

The high points in Holy Scripture include Second Isaiah's magnificent

prophecy of the "Suffering Servant," St. Paul's view of the self-emptying, or kenotic, Son of God, and the vivid imagery of the blood of the Lamb and the suffering martyrs in the book of Revelation. The salutary effect of voluntary martyrdom for the faith graces the writings of many Church Fathers and rnartyrologies of soldier saints. But the extraordinary value of voluntary kenotic suffering and martyrdomnot for the faith in Christ, but rather in moral imitation of His Passion-is a hallmark of the Kyivan Rus' Passion-Bearers and their possible predecessors in Bohemia and Serbia. Long-suffering is a virtue that many Orthodox spiritual writers have extolled in the pursuit of self-refonn and the peace of spiritual serenity. They would reserve the exalted title of peacemaker to those who are "blessed" with "dishonor," abuse, and external provocation, for they alone are afforded the opportunity to overcome such trials with Christ-like love. Several spiritual writers have even perceived a dimension of vicarious atonement for the passions and sins of others in the pacifist virtue of patient long-suffering. The voluntary kenotic suffering of the Orthodox pacifist is most evident, not surprisingly, in the modem Russian Orthodox kenotic writings. The venerable tradition of the iurodiv', or "holy fool," received a modern dress in references by Muscovite theologians to 247

"the humiliated Lamb" and, above all, in Dostoevsky's characterization of Prince Myshkin. Voluntary self-abasement in Christ perhaps best describes the life and teachings of St. Tikhon and several dramatic episodes in The Idiot-particularly the climactic bedroom scene-and in The Brothers Karamazov, especially the unexpected prostration by the Elder Zossima before Dmitri Karamazov. Finally, a marvelous tendency toward universal forgiveness elevates the Orthodox pacifist trajectory to a level of moral and mystical spirituality perhaps unequaled by any of its Western counterparts. The peace of shalom, the peace of universal brotherhood, and the peace of the tranquillity of order (tranquillitas ordinis) converge and are transcended in this ultimate pacifist virtue. Though rooted firmly in God's constant, free forgiveness of His unworthy, wayward People in the Old Testament and in Jesus Christ's exhortations to forgive one another and to love one's enemies-teachings echoed frequently in the patristic writings, hagiographic texts, and devotional writings-the virtue of universal forgiveness is preeminently the greatest legacy of St. Tikhon and Fyodor Dostoevsky. The latter's insight, as expressed through his characterization of the Elder Zossima and Alyosha Karamazov, that everyone is responsible for everything, and that everyone ought to forgive everyone else for everything and to beg forgiveness in return, leads inexorably to a sense of universal peace and harmony, not in some distant, misty future age, but rather in the present-in the here and now of each person's life. If non-violence is the minimal formal condition for Orthodox pacifism, then universal forgiveness is its principal material content-the positive, other-affirming, organic link with the rest of humanity in a genuine brotherhood of love under the sovereign Fatherhood of God. An Orthodox pacifist, therefore, refrains from violence against his fellow human beings, chooses not to offer active resistance of any kind, and even suffers abuse, persecution, and death, if necessary, in order to demonstrate his uncompromising, unrelenting, unlimited solidarity with the rest of humanity created in the image and likeness of God the Holy Trinity. As John Dear observed recently in theological language dear to any Orthodox Christian's heart, the Holy Trinity "models the human community of nonviolence which we are called to become," because the Trinity is "the supreme communion of persons in free, selfless love. "5 For the Orthodox pacifist as for God Himself, there is no calculus here, no weighing of risks and consequences, no assessment of merit and 248

culpability. The Orthodox pacifist loves even unto death because he is called by God so to do, and because God first loved us even unto death on the Cross. The Orthodox pacifist loves infinitely because it is his God-given nature to be a person in communion with all other persons. He truly cannot and ought never to do otherwise.

THEOLOGICAL DIMENSIONS As a social ethical trajectory pertaining to the moral problem of war and peace, Orthodox pacifism embodies several additional dimensions of the kaleideoscopic Eastern Orthodox moral tradition and the Western pacifist tradition. Each of the five foundational theological concepts outlined above in chapter 2 finds full expression in the Orthodox pacifist trajectory. Although absolute pacifism, like any moral perspective that stresses fidelity to principle, has an inherently strong deontological flavor, the Orthodox version is firmly rooted in the fundamentally teleological process of deification or transfiguration known as theosis. Nowhere is this better demonstrated than in the eschatological norm entailed in the canonical tradition of clerical non-violence. The canons prohibit the killing of anyone under any circumstances by clergy, not to separate the clergy and monastics from the unholy masses of laity, but rather to enable the clergy and monastics to point the way more effectively and decisively toward the moral telos in the life of every Orthodox Christian-namely, the non-violent nonresistance modeled by Christ Himself. By suffering voluntarily at the hands of persecutors, the Orthodox Christian, through this kenotic "descent, 11 actually enhances his theotic "ascent" toward God the Holy Trinity in an ever-improving, ever-deepening, ever-fulfilling process. Orthodox collective entities such as local churches, autocephalous Churches, and even nations also may participate in the particular theosis afforded by the pacifist option.

By rejecting parochial or chauvinistic

preoccupations, especially ecclesial, ethnic, or national pride and "honor," and accepting whatever suffering might befall them in a forgiving, non-violent, nonresistant manner, Orthodox communities may attain qua community a higher, more fulfilling, more God-like, and truly inter-personal existence than that which is available through recourse to the usual worldly ways of sinful, passionate men in

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communities. What gives Orthodox pacifism its essential teleological character, however, is the conviction that all of this unmerited suffering will, in the end, be vindicated by God the Warrior against evil, even as Christ's innocent death was vindicated through His resurrection. The Orthodox pacifist option may issue in death and destruction for the present. But at the Last Judgment, when the Lord arrives on His "white horse" to slay the wicked, and in the epektasis beyond that meta-historical event, the pacifist faithful in Christ will enjoy the reward of theosis for their sacrifices. The self-denial entailed in askesis naturally flows from this. The Orthodox pacifist option requires the cultivation of self-denying virtues such as patience, long-suffering, and forgiveness, as well as those twin qualities of a soul (or spirit) possessing the peace of spiritual serenity-" dispassion" and "stillness."

The

devotional writings and modern Russian kenotic writings in the pacifist trajectory obviously provide the most clearly articulated motivation for this "interior renunciation for the love of Christ," as Bulgakov defined askesis. But the entire trajectory is redolent of such self-denial. Indeed, we may argue persuasively that the pacifist option is for individual persons and communities alike the most perfect form of askesis:

through kenotic non-violent nonresistance a person (or

community) reaffirms the "emptied" self (or collectivity) in full, undeterred communion with other persons (or collectivities). As the other-regarding, complementary virtue to the basically self-regarding practice of askesis, philanthropia characterizes the free, unconditional love that any Orthodox pacifist who would remain faithful to his divine calling must necessarily exhibit toward his persecutor, oppressor, or "enemy." This love for mankind is obviously a hallmark of the New Testament passages adduced in chapter 5, and it undergirds the patristic understanding of normative Christian non-violence toward non-Christian powers, irrespective of the provocation or the apparent justice of retribution.

But the most advanced and exalted expression of phi-

lanthropia in the Orthodox pacifist trajectory is the component of universal forgiveness, which, as shown in chapter IO, achieves its apogee in the works of Dostoevsky. Perfect philanthropia is found in the person who, as St. Maximos the Confessor observed, is able to love everyone equally in imitation of God.

The

Orthodox pacifist who forgives everyone for everything and who, in turn, begs forgiveness of everyone for everything is such a person. If it is possible for Or250

thodox communities such as congregations, Churches, and nations to act with a single purpose in this regard, then they, too, through their peculiar non-violent nonresistance, would demonstrate a collective philanthropia such as the world has never seen. The other two key theological concepts discussed in chapter 2, mysteria and

sobornost', bear directly on the communal context of the Orthodox pacifist trajectory. Although an Orthodox Christian may effect a personal witness to the Orthodox pacifist ideals of non-violence, nonresistance, voluntary kenotic suffering, and universal forgiveness, his witness may never properly be individualistic. For his witness to be Orthodox it must participate in the Orthodox social ethical trajectory of absolute pacifism; it must conform to that which has been revealed through the historical experience of the Church. The depth of true communion with the divine Truth, which the term sobornost' denotes, prescribes the parameters for a genuine Orthodox pacifist witness.

Therefore, certain goals and methods are

acceptable, while others are not. Fidelity to the presumably objective truth of this delimited Orthodox version of pacifism is more important ultimately than the number and geographic extent of those persons, groups, governments, and nations who are effectively influenced. In other words, the validity of the message takes precedence over the efficacy of results. Not any form of "pacifism" will suffice, but only that which Orthodoxy has championed through the centuries, which is none other than that which God has revealed as salutary for His People and for the world. Similarly, the "holy mysteries," or mysteria, are a precondition for any authentic Orthodox pacifist witness. As the mysteria require the Church as the necessary context for their celebration and reception by the faithful, so is the converse true. The Church, and hence its personal members, requires the mysteria for its spiritual sustenance and inspiration. The Orthodox Christian who wishes to serve God and man by living the life of an absolute pacifist must ground his life in the mysteria, not as an isolated individual, but rather as one member of a celestial brotherhood, the communion of saints. Through this organic unity with God and one another, Orthodox pacifists are enabled to witness to the world around them in the hope of assisting in the transformation of its violent, sinful, fallen kingdoms into the non-violent, peaceful, eschatological Kingdom of God, which is experienced proleptically in the Church. The transformation of the world by joy, 251

as Fr. Alexander Schmemann described this process, begins with the collective experience of the mysteria and the return "into the world" by spiritually energized and empowered Orthodox Christians. Ultimately, therefore, no Orthodox pacifist can witness alone: his spiritual and moral witness must always be, in some sense, communal-connected to the hearts and minds of his fellow Orthodox Christians. Otherwise he is truly alone-"ethical" perhaps in his pacifism, but not "moral" in accordance with the divine will as revealed in Orthodox moral tradition. The other dimensions of the Orthodox pacifist trajectory delimit further the parameters for a genuine Orthodox pacifist witness. As chapter 4 proposed, the pacifist trajectory is a particular extension of the set of broad social ethical trajectories labelled "sect, 11 "separation," and "ethnos. 11 In the social ethical matrix that we constructed in that chapter, those types collectively reflect a fundamentally anti-world antipode that views the Church and its members as playing a severely restricted role in the sociological, political, and cultural life of the larger, nonOrthodox community. Chapter 5 illustrated the apocalyptic and world-rejecting features of the Orthodox pacifist trajectory in both the Old and New Testaments. Similarly, several Church Fathers and soldier-martyrs clearly endeavor to distance themselves sharply from either the pagan or Christian militarism that so offends their understanding of the gospel. The canonical corpus erects an impenetrable wall of separation between clergy and worldly affairs. The devotional writings also exude a critical rejection of worldly cares, ·activities, and distractions from one's proper spiritual-moral focus. However, this relentlessly sectarian or separationist quality is moderated by the world-affirming spirit that prevails in the philanthropic motive that undergirds much of the voluntary kenotic suffering in the sources. A more balanced view also is afforded by the mystical unitive thrust of the teachings on universal forgiveness in the gospels and in Dostoevsky's novels. The key point is this: the Orthodox pacifist trajectory tends toward a sectarian rejection of non-Orthodox social elements without, however, falling into the dangerous trap of Manichean dualism. The pacifist trajectory is perched precariously on the edge of moral and doctrinal heresy, even as it seeks to witness on behalf of the highest moral ideals concerning peace, love, and brotherhood. A strange creative tension is always present within this particular social ethical trajectory. While loving one's life, the pacifist is willing, even committed, to sacrifice it. While loving one's ecclesial and social communities, he is willing to surrender 252

to injustice, violence, and destruction. But remaining unshakable in his fidelity to the revealed truth of Orthodox moral tradition, he will not consent to any violation of his conscience by any secular authority. He will not allow other loyalties to state, nation, or society to obscure his fundamental loyalty to the Orthodox pacifist ideals of non-violence, nonresistance, voluntary kenotic suffering, and universal forgiveness. This means that Orthodox pacifists, whether individually or in community, usually will find themselves on the periphery of their social context. Even as they seek to adapt their witness to their peculiar religio-social context, they are seemingly destined for a marginalized role, at best, in their public moral witnessing. The broad set of social ethical trajectories of which the Orthodox pacifist trajectory is a particular extension should serve always to remind Orthodox pacifists of these constraints, lest, in striving to improve their impact on society, they lose their moral and spiritual integrity. Another factor that may mitigate the scope and intensity of Orthodox pacifist public witness is the personal vocational style of the sources of this trajectory. The devotional texts of the Orthodox spiritual witness considered in chapter 9 are intended to instruct individual readers, so their ramifications for communal witness might not seem immediately apparent. Much of the primary source material in the last six chapters, with the possible exception of the categorical vocational distinctions in the canonical corpus, has a strong personal flavor. This may conflict with the contentions of Christos Y annaras and Vigen Guroian, among other contemporary Orthodox theologians, that Orthodoxy is fundamentally social or communal, and that Orthodox morality is necessarily communal. 6 A resolution of this seeming paradox is possible, however, in light of the typological distinction in chapter 4 between "vocational" and "activist" pacifism in Western moral theology and ethics. There is no evidence in the sources of the Orthodox pacifist trajectory of anything approaching the activist pacifism exemplified by Dale Aukerman, James W. Douglass, or the increasingly numerous radical Protestant and Catholic Christians in America who engage in all manner of political protests, demonstrations, and acts of civil disobedience. Political efficacy is not one of the goals of the writers of Holy Scripture, pacifist Church Fathers, Ecumenical Councils, soldier saints and Passion-Bearers, spiritual writers, or modern Russian kenotic theologians. Nor is non-violence ever viewed as a means of resistance to evil save for evil 253

of a strictly demonic origin; on the contrary, non-violence and nonresistance to evil by men and women are complementary parts of the distinctive Orthodox mode of pacifism. Nowhere in this moral trajectory, least of all the dichotomous canonical corpus, may we find an intolerant categorical rejection of alternative Christian positions on the vexing moral problems of war and peace. In keeping with the essential insight in chapter 3 concerning the Orthodox understanding of antinomy, the Orthodox pacifist trajectory ·requires those who would be at once faithful to Christ and morally consistent to eschew all violence, resistance, and military activity in their own lives and to reject, in principle, the moral validity of anti-human violence by anyone. However, since coercion is forbidden explicitly in the patristic writings cited above and by the inner logic of the pacifist option, there follows necessarily at least a prima facie tolerance for alternative moral perspectives such as the justifiable war position.

From this pacifist standpoint, any activist

interference with national military operations or their political and

economic

support systems would be out of the question. The strongly "vocational" style of Orthodox pacifism not only precludes the militant social activism of the primary alternative type in Western pacifism; it also gives an overwhelmingly personal rather than communal impetus to this moral position. Whether we compare it to Gordon Zahn's "spirituality of pacifism" or John Howard Yoder's "revolutionary sub-ordination," the upshot is the same: Orthodox Christians are called by God (hence "vocational" from the Latin vocare-"to call") to embody the moral example of Jesus Christ. Communities may do this, too, but only insofar as a majority or consensus of their constituent members take the initiative in their personal lives.

Thus in the Orthodox Churches in America a

communal public witness on behalf of the pacifist option will be warranted-and feasible-only when a significant portion of their respective memberships become convinced of the moral imperative of absolute pacifism for themselves. Even in that eventuality, the Churches, as communities of personally committed pacifists, ought to maintain a communal vocational pacifism, while avoiding the activist sort for which there is no grounding for individuals or communities in the Orthodox pacifist trajectory.

Mere magnitude or numbers can not change the essentially

vocational style of Orthodox pacifism. Finally, the revelatory dimension of the Orthodox pacifist trajectory deserves mention. The ultimate authority on which this moral option rests is divine reve254

lation, not rational or prudential judgment. The sources examined in the last six chapters clearly ground this moral position in the divine will for mankind as revealed in the historical experience of the Church. Although human reason may support the pacifist option, man is unable, through reason alone, to deduce absolute pacifism as a normative ethical behavior. Indeed, non-violent nonresistance seems contrary to rational self-interest. Thus the Orthodox pacifist option is, in terms of the categorical distinctions proffered in chapter 1, a function of morality instead of ethics and an expression of the "maximalist transfigurative morality of the gospel" rather than the "minimalist civilizing ethic of the natural law." As a higher, universally normative moral position, pacifism enables men and women to transcend their own limitations, including their imperfect human reason, which insists on the justice of self-defense, and to advance along the path of personal transfiguration and theosis. Although pacifism is deemed good for humanity, the faith in Christ that undergirds and generates this moral position is not necessarily shared by all men and women.

Thus pacifists may not expect their moral posi-

tion, as a moral conclusion derived from a peculiar faith experience, to be adopted by those who do not share its religious premises.

Obviously that means the

majority, or at least a sizable minority, of Americans at present. The Orthodox pacifist option is, therefore, at this juncture, a morality preeminently for the Orthodox community, not an ethic for the world or even the U.S. government. Until the secular American society becomes converted to Christ through the evangelistic witness of Orthodox (and other) Christians in this nation, the latter can hardly expect their moral positions-including the pacifist option-to become public policy. These sobering thoughts aside, this Orthodox personal and communal morality still has wider social ramifications, which the next section of the present chapter will explore. Figure 4 (next page) summarizes the salient characteristics of the Orthodox pacifist trajectory.

VALUES AND DISVALUES It is one thing to teach formal moral norms such as the pacifist virtues: that is, that we ought to be non-violent, or nonresistant, or willing to accept suffering, or

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KEY VIRTUES

NON-VIOLENCE NONRESISTANCE VOLUNTARY KENOTIC SUFFERING -{ UNIVERSAL FORGIVENESS

SOCIAL ETHICAL TRAJECTORY

SECT-TYPE SEPARATION-TYPE - [ ETHNOS-TYPE

PERSONAL STYLE

--[VOCATIONAL (NOT ACTIVIST)

ULTIMATE SOURCE OF AUTHORITY

DIVINE REVELATION - { (NOT RATIONAL PRUDENTIAL JUDGMENT)

Figure 4. KEY CHARACTERISTICS OF ORTHODOX PACIFISM

universally forgiving. But it is quite another thing to derive material norms that govern how we may act in the real world. How may we live the pacifist virtues in particular situations? How may we apply this moral perspective to cases? The remainder of this concluding chapter will propose some preliminary answers to these challenging questions.

A. A ZERO-SUM DILEMJvfA Though internally consistent and integral as a moral perspective, the Orthodox pacifist trajectory does not, as we have seen, exhaust the moral possibilities pertaining to the problem of war and peace in Orthodox moral tradition. Chapter 4 has already laid the theoretical and historical foundations for a dual morality in accordance with two distinct, parallel trajectories, and chapters 5 through 10 have illustrated the presence of the pacifist trajectory, in particular, in the sources of Orthodox moral tradition. The evidence for a dual morality notwithstanding, why does Orthodox moral tradition provide for its faithful adherents not one course of action but two logically incompatible moral options? How may we begin to explain this fundamental antinomy in Orthodox social ethics?

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One reason for the antinomy also points to a crucial value and an equally significant disvalue of the Orthodox pacifist option. Referring to those who justify the use of violence in some cases and those who reject it altogether, Jesuit moral theologian Fr. David Hollenbach has observed astutely: "In practice both groups grant priority to one fundamental human value or prima f acie duty over another such value or duty. 11 7 For advocates of justifiable war, "the goods of peace and justice are interdependent, but justice is regarded as the precondition of peace in the concrete political order. 11 8 They conclude that the use of force in the pursuit of justice sometimes may be the only way of promoting both peace and justice. For pacifists, however, the "priority assigned to justice as a precondition of peace by the just war theory is reversed. 11 9 The only way to achieve peace is by peaceful, or non-violent, means. A similar duality appears in The Challenge of Peace, the widely influential Pastoral Letter of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops issued in 1983. "Catholic teaching," they declare, "sees these two distinct moral responses as having a complementary relationship, in the sense that both seek to serve the common good. 11 10 Sharing "a common presumption against the use of force as a means of settling disputes, 11 both "the just-war teaching and non-violence" represent "distinct but interdependent methods of evaluating warfare," especially in the nuclear age, for "each contributes to the full moral vision we need in pursuit of a human peace ... each preserving the other from distortion. 11 11 To be sure, the Roman Catholic bishops in America still posit a "fundamental right of defense" by individuals and governments; the latter in particular "must defend their people . . . by armed force if necessary as a last resort" when "threatened by armed, unjust aggression." 12 Although the American bishops are by no means absolute pacifists where social entities such as governments are concerned, their insight, like that of Fr. Hollenbach, still commands attention. Pacifism and justifiable war constitute two parts in a zero-sum game, as it were. The pacifist trajectory seeks to maximize the virtue of mercy, which we should prefer to Hollenbach's more ambiguous "peace." Mercy exerts a prima facie claim upon the Orthodox Christian pacifist. It may, and often does in fact,

override the moral demand for rectificatory justice. Mercy, as a moral duty, necessarily governs the means of the pacifist, who would never do evil that good may come, in accordance with what John Finnis of Oxford University has labelled the 257

"Pauline principle" of teleological morality.13 On the other side, the justifiable war trajectory would maximize the social virtue of justice-namely, that each person and, by extrapolation, each collective entity such as a nation is rendered what he or it is due. In the matter of war and military activities the "innocent" peaceful citizens of a nation are deemed to have a right to be free from unjust aggression by a foreign

power~

that right obligates the government to defend them by force if

necessary. The relative justice of aggressor and victim and the duty to offer protection to the latter exert a prima facie claim upon the Orthodox Christian advocate of justifiable war. In wartime this claim may override the moral demand for mercy toward our fellow human beings as epitomized in the four Orthodox pacifist virtues. Justice determines not only the primary goal of the advocate of justifiable war, but also his means-namely, limited, controlled, proportional violence, but lethal violence nevertheless. In this moral see-saw or trompe l'oeil, to use Michel Desjardins' clever insight, 14 the values of the Orthodox pacifist option seem clear. Its deontological quality remains undiluted by concerns about consequences. The cost of discipleship is paid in full. The inherent worth of other men and women as creatures of the divine Creator is affirmed without compromise. The pacifist has the blood of no one on his conscience, or at least his own hands are unstained. However, the disvalues of the Orthodox pacifist option are also readily apparent. Its emphasis on purity of moral means tends to bear poisoned fiuit: the actual consequences are seldom salutary for those who must suffer, therefore, at the hands of unchecked aggressors. The philanthropic dimension may effectively vanish, insofar as the innocent go unprotected through the willful inaction of pacifists, not simply because the latter are incapable of responding in time. The cost of discipleshipthe cross-is often borne more painfully by the "innocent" victims of the aggressor than by their righteous pacifist brethren. Human dignity, freedom, and happiness are sacrificed on the altar of sheer survival or perhaps, more optimistically, to the right-to-life above everything else. The pacifist's conscience must grapple with the involuntary human suffering by others that results from his voluntary kenotic moral decision. In the immediate context, therefore, mercy is exalted but justice may be denied. There seems to be no way out of this functional dilemma. The only consolation available to the Orthodox pacifist may be his sustaining hope that in the end 258

justice, too, will prevail, when the Lord vindicates those righteous disciples who endeavor to conquer Satan and all of his evil in the world, not through the usual prudential means represented by armed might, but rather "through the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony" (Revelation 12:11). In that best of all possible worlds, merciful means and goals will yield the moral and spiritual fruit of ultimate universal justice. In the meantime, until the eschaton, Orthodox moral tradition will continue to offer two distinct social ethical trajectories pertaining to the moral problem of war and peace. If Orthodox Christians, whether individually or in community, choose the pacifist option, they ought at least to comprehend the pitfalls of that moral perspective and then proceed to witness publicly, unwavering in their fidelity to the virtue of mercy.

B. THE RANGE OF PERSONAL/COMMUNAL OPTIONS A variety of alternatives awaits Orthodox pacifists who wish to extend their moral convictions to the public arena. That arena is necessarily public because the problem at hand-war and peace--is the domain of governments, communities such as nations and political or ideological parties, and movements that are larger than the Church, at least sociologically speaking. In the United States, as in less democratic societies, a pacifist citizen can not pretend to be a pacifist in isolation from the government whose laws and public policies affect him, his own preferences notwithstanding. The range of alternatives that we shall consider briefly here represents not so much concrete choices or material norms as general directions for the pursuit of the pacifist virtues in society. The movement proceeds from most radical to most nuanced. 1. ACTIVISTOPPOSITJON

The Orthodox pacifist may attempt at once to withdraw from all things military in America and to engage in militant resistance to national military policies, practices, and institutions. Walter E. Wiest, professor emeritus at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, has catalogued several of the ways in which what he calls "a Christian ethic of resistance" may take shape. Proceeding from those which are

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legal and non-violent to more drastic measures, he suggests producing and disseminating printed materials, issuing public statements for the media, providing educational forums, participating in protest marches and demonstrations, lobbying legislators and furnishing testimony before legislative and judicial bodies, resigning from defense-related jobs, supporting ostensibly peaceful resistance movements such as "Sanctuary," engaging in illegal acts of civil disobedience such as refusing to pay a portion of one's income taxes or refusing to register with the selective service board, obstructing access to military facilities, and destroying military property as a symbolic gesture.15 Some of these activities are individualistic in scope, but others could be initiated by the Orthodox Churches as expressions of communal public moral witness. In every instance save the last one, the activity would conform to the ideals of non-violence. But most of these specific activities would fail to. cultivate the virtue of nonresistance. Educational or informational measures and personal decisions of noncooperation with government edicts might prove at once activist and nonresistant, but aggressive, albeit "non-violent," agitation in the streets and in government institutions would clearly exceed the moral constraints of a truly nonresistant Orthodox pacifist witness. Obstructionist tactics and acts of vandalism, however well-motivated, would betray a coercive tendency diametrically opposed to the pacific spirit of Christ, the Church Fathers, the spiritual writers, and modem Russian kenotic theologians. Any authentic activist posture by Orthodox in America would have to be tempered by the additional condition discussed earlier in the present chapter that the officially secular American society and its government must first share the fundamental religious convictions of Orthodox pacifists before the latter may rightly expect all of America to mirror the moral perspectives that emanate from that religious foundation.

An activist witness without a prior-

instead of merely simultaneous-evangelistic thrust would be not only doomed to failure, practically speaking; it would also deserve to go unheeded. What remains, therefore, under this rubric is indeed limited. Perhaps the most radical nonresistant forms of activist opposition would include refusals by Orthodox individuals to continue working in defense-related jobs or to comply with government mandates to register for possible conscription or to pay all of their taxes; these decisions would entail acts of omission rather than overt positive resistance. Orthodox ecclesial bodies in America could, at most, declare

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themselves "peace churches" like the Mennonites and Quakers and urge-but not require-their constituent members to act accordingly.

2. STRICT SEPARATION The Orthodox pacifist in America may content himself with a strict separation from any overt military activity such as uniformed service on active or reserve duty. Under the current U.S. national policy of an all-volunteer military force structure, this would entail a simple decision neither to enlist nor to seek an officer's commission in any of the branches of the armed forces nor to work as a civilian for the military or in defense-related industries or projects. Whereas the first half of this voluntary decision may be implemented without complications, the second part is more easily said than done. The roots of the Department of Defense run deep in many industries and in numerous institutions for specialized research, including university departments of science and engineering. Complete disengagement from all of these military tentacles may prove unrealistic in practice. If the U.S. Congress were to reinstate the requirement of selective service for young males, which was known as military conscription, or more popularly as "the draft," or adopt a policy of universal military service as in some Western societies, the Orthodox pacifist who would effect a strict separation from the U.S. military might declare himself a "conscientious objector" (or CO) on religious grounds. According to current U.S. Army regulations (AR 600-43), for example, this would entail a selective service classification of 1-0:

"A member who, by reason of

conscientious objection, sincerely objects to participation of any kind in war of any form." 16

At the communal level in either case, Orthodox ecclesial bodies in

America may declare themselves "peace churches," as in the first alternative, and urge their constituent young male members to refrain from joining the armed forces or, if necessary, to request CO status. These bodies also may urge all of their faithful, irrespective of age or sex, to separate themselves completely from defense-related industries or projects. The chief value of this alternative consists in its low-key fidelity to all of the pacifist ideals of the Orthodox pacifist option. Orthodox pacifists would simply remove themselves from the U.S. military system and, by refusing to participate in

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it at any level, witness powerfully but unprovocatively on behalf of their vocational pacifist ideals. Michael Walzer of the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton has compared this personal exemption of conscientious persons from military obligations to the personal decision of monks to refrain from sexual activity.17 There is some truth in this analogy, insofar as the personal nature of the choice does not seem, at first, to preclude or denigrate the activity in question, whether war or sex, for others. But Walzer does not seem to appreciate the spiritual power of the witness provided by a CO. Implicit in his refusal to serve in any military capacity is the conscientious objector's absolute, universal, normative rejection of the violence endemic to the profession of arms. The CO not only maintains the greatest possible distance from the war-making machinery of his government; he also implicitly, if not explicitly, condemns it. The primary difference between this course of action and the first alternative rests in the purely vocational style of strict separation. There is no attempt to coerce the state to adopt a pacifist agenda. A nagging problem remains, however, even with this alternative of strict separation from the U.S. military system. While striving to be faithful to his religious and moral vocation as a pacifist, the Orthodox pacifist might shirk his civic duty, as a citizen of the United States, to keep faith with his public community. Fr. Harakas has warned against a "weasel mentality," which would refuse military service without serving in an alternative way the nation whose military confers the benefits of peace and well-being.18

Political theorists prefer to describe this

dilemma in less picturesque language as the "free rider" problem.

A. John

Simmons defines it as "unfairly benefiting from the cooperative benefits of others. 11 19 The "free rider" contributes nothing to the community for which others make sacrifices, and he also endangers "the whole beneficial structure. 11 20 In the case at hand, the Orthodox pacifist may, in effect, be asking that the U.S. body politic permit him to join what Walzer describes as "a privileged class of citizens, the class of the conscientious, narrowly defined in religious terms and freed from burdens that anyone else can be obliged to bear. 11 21 While professing his personal pacifist witness on behalf of non-violent nonresistance, the Orthodox pacifist still benefits from the protection afforded him by others who serve in the armed forces and the domestic police force; he witnesses for peace in peace, while others risk their lives to preserve that peace or to restore it when violated. Walzer regards this problem with sanguinity, since the "state can always find other ser-

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vants" and 11 can tolerate refusals of 'personal service' without permitting or opening the way to general nullification. 11 22 He is certainly correct in the era of the allvolunteer force. The absence from the U.S. armed forces of all Orthodox personnel would have a negligible adverse impact on the force structure, given the minuscule numbers of Orthodox currently serving or even the potential number of those who might choose to serve.

The moral dilemma would become acute,

however, if the Orthodox Churches ever showed tangible signs of evangelizing this nation. As the number of Orthodox Christians in America increased, so would the significance of a strict separation from military service by Orthodox pacifists. The 11

free rider" problem might begin to challenge the national purpose.

Orthodox

pacifists, whether as individual citizens or in community, must be aware of this potential consequence of their witness. In the meantime, they must somehow resolve the immediate problem of the "free rider":

how may they in good

conscience refuse any involvement in the same military system that safeguards the government that, in tum, grants them the freedom, indeed the privilege, to witness on behalf of their pacifist ideals?

3. RELATIVEDISTANCING

The Orthodox pacifist may refrain from any direct participation in those activities of the U.S. armed forces and in defense-related industries which entail violence against fellow human beings. This would not exclude a priori everything that could conceivably be connected to the military defense of the U.S. government. The dedicated French Reformed pacifist, Jean Lassere, declared in a classic pacifist analysis of war and gospel values that "to accept being integrated into the armed forces is to adhere to the paganism of Mars, and therefore to deny Jesus Christ. 11 But in the very next paragraph he added, "I believe that a Christian has no reason for refusing to take part in the non-violent-that is non-murderous non-military-defence of his country. 11 23 Herman A. Hoyt goes a step further, arguing that what he terms "biblical nonresistance" enjoins Christians to submit to their governments in everything that is not "contrary to the higher law of God (Acts 4:17-20; 5:28-29)."24 Since taking human life is prohibited by the Law of Moses, Christians may not serve in the usual military capacities. But they may, he

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suggests, serve as noncombatants in the medical corps and as chaplains: "In this way they can serve their country and at the same time faithfully discharge their responsibilities as Christians in everything that pertains to life and godliness. 11 25 In chapter 7 we, too, concluded that some Orthodox priests may serve as chaplains in the U.S. armed forces, notwithstanding their personal vocational pacifism. Orthodox pacifist laymen and laywomen might request a 1-A-O classification according to the selective service taxonomy: "A member who, by reason of conscientious objection, sincerely objects to participation as a combatant in war in any form, but whose convictions are such as to permit military service in a noncombatant status. 11 26 They could serve as noncombatants and thereby avoid the "free rider" problem. What this third alternative would permit is nothing less than limited approval, tacit or more direct, of the U.S. defense posture by all Orthodox pacifists, clerical and lay, without, however, compromising the fundamental loyalty of those Orthodox pacifists to the pacifist virtues taken as a whole. How may Orthodox pacifists, particularly in community, walk a fine, nuanced line between an unequivocal rejection of anti-human violence, on the one hand, and, on the other, public advocacy of any policies and practices of the U.S. military system that could conceivably be conducive to absolute pacifist means and ends? Finding that delicate nexus is the chief task for those Orthodox Christians who would be both faithful pacifists and responsible citizens. A strategy of "relative distancing" would seem to be the most amenable to that task. One correlation, however, seems certain. As my previous study, The Price of Prophecy, painfully demonstrates, the more specific the particular social and moral issue and the more concretely detailed the Orthodox moral position, the greater the danger of witnessing falsely by incorporating empirical error, misjudgment, and subjective opinion.

It would

behoove Orthodox pacifists in America to confine their public moral witness to the broader issues in U.S. defense policy without succumbing to the temptation to pontificate on the details of specific policy choices. General directions in U.S. defense policy, not concrete alternatives, ought to furnish the objects of Orthodox pacifist public moral witness. In any case, this is an area eminently. worthy of exploration by those conscientious souls who would call themselves both Orthodox and pacifist.

In the

United States of America, they have, to quote John Paul Jones, the great Scottish264

American patriot and naval officer, "not yet begun to fight"-non-violently, of course.

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NOTES CHAPTER 1 I Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, East and West (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1980), 71, 59.

2Jbid., 62. 3George Weigel, "Back to Basics: Moral Reasoning and Foreign Policy 'After Containment,'" in Gerard F. Powers, et al. (eds.), Peacemaking: Moral and Policy Challenges for a New World (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1994), 58. 4Jbid., 68. 5Reinhold Niebuhr, Christianity and Power Politics ([Hamden, CT] Archon Books, 1969 reprint of 1940 original), 25, 28, 175. 6John Howard Yoder, "On Not Being in Charge," in J. Patout Burns (ed.), War And Its Discontents: Pacifism and Quietism in the Abrahamic Traditions (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1996), 85. 7stanley Hauerwas, "Pacifism: A Fonn of Politics," in Michael Cromartie (ed.), Peace Betrayed? Essays on Pacifism and Politics (Washington, D.C. Ethics and Public Policy Center, 1990), 139. 8stanley Harakas, "The Morality of War," in Joseph J. Allen (ed.), Orthodox Synthesis: The Unity ofTheologica/ Thought (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1981), 87. 9lbid, 89. He adds, however, that such a pacifist "is ethically required to commit his total life to the principle of nonviolence." Ibid., 90. Someone who enjoys hunting and boxing matches, for example, would be adjudged morally inconsistent. But I believe Fr. Harakas is too strict in this regard. Must a commitment to non-violence against human beings necessarily ex-

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tend to animals or to competitive sporting events where the participants are willing and uncoerced? IOvassilios Giultsis, "An Ethical Approach to Justice and Peace," in Gennadios Limouris (ed.), Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation: Insights From Orthodoxy (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1990), 68. llGeorge Dragas, "Justice and Peace in the Orthodox Tradition," in Limouris, Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation: Insights From Orthodoxy, 42. Unlike the absolute pacifism of Giultsis and Dragas, an assembly of Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox representatives who gathered in May 1989 in the Soviet city of Minsk (now capital of the post-Soviet nation of Belarus) issued a confusing and contradictozy statement. "The Orthodox Church," the participants declared, "unreservedly condemns war as evil," but "also recognizes that in the defence of the innocent and the protection of one's people from unjust, criminal activity and the overthrowing of oppression, it is sometimes necessazy, with reluctance, to resort to arms." But they refused to connect this justification of militazy action, this "evil," to a "just war theozy." See "Orthodox Perspectives on Justice and Peace," in Limouris, Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation: Insights From Orthodoxy, 18. But the Orthodox moral tradition, contra the Minsk assembly, neither embraces the fundamentally Protestant notion of "necessazy evils" as ethical (preferring instead, with the Church Fathers, to construct moral dilemmas as a choice among greater and lesser goods) nor categorically rejects the ·~ust war theozy" (which, in any case, is better labelled the ·~ustifiable war tradition"). Those contemporazy Orthodox theologians and bishops who maintain this curious position-which affinns neither absolute pacifism nor the justifiable war tradition-succeed only in painting themselves into a moral corner. For a brief analysis of the non-Orthodox sources of this new tendency to frame the moral option to engage in war as sometimes the "lesser of two evils," see Alexander F. C. Webster, "Lesser Morality," St. Sophia Quarterly, no. 3 (Summer 1995): 1-3. 12Quoted in "World News" section, The Orthodox Church (Monthly Newspaper of the Orthodox Church in America) 23:4 (April 1987): 7. 13Quoted in ibid. 14soon after his conversion to Orthodoxy, Forest published a diary-like account of his travels in Russia in the 1980s. See Jim Forest, Pilgrim to the Russian Church: An American Journalist Encounters a Vibrant Religious Faith in the Soviet Union (New York: Crossroad Publishing Co., 1988). 15oPF's Internet address is . 16one relentless critic of the partisan left-wing politics of the major American pacifist organizations since the Vietnam War has dubbed Jim Forest the "keeper of the pacifist conscience" of the FOR for his moral consistency. See Guenter Lewy, Peace and Revolution: The Moral Crisis ofAmerican Pacifism (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, 1988), 73. For an astounding example of the political hypocrisy that drew Forest's criticism, see the excerpt of a May 11, 1972, letter by Bronson Clark, the executive secretary of the American Friends' Service Committee, in ibid., 46f.

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17Georges Florovsky, Collected Works, vol. 5: Ways of Russian Theology (Part One), transl. Robert L. Nichols (Belmont, MA: Nordland Publishing Co., 1979), 135. For example, Polish Latin influence was pronounced in the Kyiv Academy under the leadership of Metropolitan Peter Mohila in the first half of the seventeenth centwy. The primary agent of the so-called "Petrine reform, 11 Bishop Feofan Prokopovich, tried in earnest one centwy later to displace Roman Catholic learning with the doctrines and ethos of the German Reformation. Caught between this Scylla and Charybdis of rival foreign scholasticisms, the genuine native Orthodoxy of Russia waned for centuries in academic circles, if not necessarily among the faithful in villages and fanns. 18George Khodre, "The Church as the Privileged Witness of God," in Ion Bria (ed.), Martyria/Mission: The Witness ofthe Orthodox Churches Today (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1980), 37. 19Alasdair Macintyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (2d ed.; Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984), 8, 5, llf, 22, 252, 253. 20Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, transl. Martin Oswald (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Educational Publishing, 1962), 33 (11.1, 1103a).

21Maclntyre, After Virtue, 38. 22James M. Gustafson, Christian Ethics and the Community (Philadelphia: Pilgrim Press, 1971), 102f. 23stanley Samuel Harakas, Toward Transfigured Life: The Theoria of Eastern Orthodox Ethics (Minneapolis: Light and Life Publishing Co., 1983), 5-9. 24All quotations from Holy Scripture, unless otherwise noted, are ta.ken from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible as found in The New Oxford Annotated Bible With the Apocrypha (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977). Most of the so-called "apocrypha" are deemed Old Testament Scripture by the Eastern Orthodox Churches, since these books are found in the Septuagint.

2 5Gerhard von Rad, Genesis: A Commentary, transl. John H. Marks (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1961), 148. Cf. the useful, though overstated, treatment of this theme in Dale Aukerman, Darkening Valley: A Biblical Perspective on Nuclear War (New York: The Seabury Press, 1981), 2-5.

26Jacques Ellul, Violence: Reflections From a Christian Perspective (New York: The Seabury Press, 1969), 100. 27Roger L. Shinn, Wars and Rumors of Wars (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1972), 295. I have amplified several of his ideas. 28G. R. Beasley-Murray, The Book of Revelation ("New Century Bible Commentary"; Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1978), 278.

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29Harakas, Toward Transfigured Life, 136. 30stanley S. Harakas, "The Natural Law Teaching in the Ante-Nicene Fathers and in Modem Greek Orthodox Theology" (Unpublished Th.D. dissertation, Boston University School of Theology, 1965), 329, 235. 31Harakas, Toward Transfigured Life, 119. 32Ibid., 135. 33see above, 9. 34Harakas, Toward Transfigured Life, 136f 35For example, Exodus 21:15-17 lists offenses, almost trivial by modem cultural standards, for which execution is required. 36stantey S. Harakas, "The Natural Law Teaching of the Eastern Orthodox Church," Greek Orthodox Theological Review 9 (Winter 1963-1964): 222. 37useful contributions to this debate include Charles E. Curran and Richard A. McConnick, SJ., Readings in Moral Theology No. 1: Moral Norms and Catholic Tradition (New York: Paulist Press, 1979), esp. the essays by Louis Janssens, Joseph Fuchs, and Bruno Schtiller, S.J.; Richard A. Gula, S.S., What Are They Saying About Moral Norms? (New York: Paulist Press, 1982), esp. chs. 3 and 4; Joseph Fuchs, SJ., Christian Ethics In A Secular Arena, transl. Bernard Hoose and Brian McNeill (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1984), esp. chs. 1,2, and 8; Timothy E. O'Connell, Principles For a Catholic Morality (New York: The Seabury Press, 1978), ch. 15; Charles E. Curran, Themes In Fundamental Mora/Theology (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1977), ch. 8. The "classicist" versus "historicist" dichotomy proposed by these revisionist moral theologians, however, misreads the nature language of the Church Fathers and caricatures it falsely as "static" and "detenninistic." Among Protestant theologians, who generally reject the tradition of natural law as contrary to the doctrine of justification by grace through faith, Emil Brunner, The Divine Imperative: A Study in Christian Ethics, transl. Olive Wyon (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1937), 140-51, 20819, still retains considerable value for his insights about the "orders of creation," or "natural orders." 38see, for example, Gula, What Are They Saying About Moral Norms? 35, and Curran, Readings in Moral Theology No. 1, 35ff. Curran is especially persuasive in his analysis of the influence ofUlpian, the pagan Roman lawyer(+ A.O. 228), on St. Thomas Aquinas. The result of Ulpian's definition of natural law as "that which nature teaches all the animals" is "the definite danger of identifying the human action with a mere animal or biological process." The impact of this Thomistic tradition on the modem moral issue of contraception has been extraordinary. Less obvious are the implications for the contemporary debate on war and peace. A "physicalist" interpretation of the natural law clearly would affirm the necessity of both self-defense and survival-"natural" functions that seem to be headed on a collision course in the nuclear age! 39Harakas, "The Natural Law Teaching," 222.

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40Harakas, Toward Transfigured Life, 145. 41This comment appeared originally in Alexander F. C. Webster, "Orthodox Reflections on Nuclear Defense (Notes and Comments)," St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 19:4 (1985): 347f. 42Jonathan Schell, The Fate of the Earth (New York: Avon Books, 1982). 43George Gallup, Jr., "Religion in America, 11 Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, no. 480 (July 1985): 173. 44Emest W. Lefever and E. Stephen Hunt (eds.), The Apocalyptic Premise: Nuclear Arms Debated (Washington, D.C.: Ethics and Public Policy Center, 1982), viii. 45Gordon D. Kaufman, "Nuclear Eschatology and the Study of Religion, 11 Journal of the American Academy ofReligion 51:1(March1983): 9. 46Ibid., 13, 9. 47Ibid., 13. 48From the standpoint of an Eastern Orthodox moral theologian, the displacement of theology by "religion studies" would be as unwelcome as the parallel trend in which secular psychology has supplanted spiritual direction and the "holy mystery," or sacrament, of confession among peoples of the modem, technological, secular Western world. In a previous article I have commented on the distinctive intellectual tasks of theologians and "religionists," as I have described Kaufman's type of non-religious specialists in religion. See "Orthodox Mystical Tradition and the Comparative Study of Religion: An Experimental Synthesis," Journal ofEcumenical Studies 23:4 (Autumn 1986): 622f. 49chemus defines "myth" in the academic, not popular, manner: "any publicly-shared story, either explicit or implicit, that both reflects and shapes some important aspect of worldview and ethos and evokes powerful emotional responses." See Ira Chemus, "War and Myth: 'The Show Must Go On, 111 Journal of the American Academy ofReligion 53:3 (September 1985): 456n. 501ra Chemus, "Mythologies of Nuclear War," Journal of the American Academy of Religion 50:2 (June 1982): 255-73. Additional myths of this sort that may prove useful to academically-oriented persons are (1) the myth of the "Fall of creation 11 : by partaking of the nuclear "fruit" of the technological "tree of the knowledge of good and evil, 11 man has lost his pre-nuclear relative innocence, and his "paradise" has degenerated into a dangerous hellish environment; and (2) the ancient Greek myth of Prometheus: man has stolen the "fire" of nuclear energy from the hidden "heavens" of science and consequently will suffer "punishment" for his "transgression." 5lchemus, "War and Myth," 46lf. The quoted phrase is found in Kaufman, "Nuclear Eschatology," 14.

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52For a chronicle of the initial responses of the religious community to President Truman's decision to use the atomic bomb as a means of "total war," see Robert C. Batchelder, The Irreversible Decision: 1939-1950 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962), 237-46. The churches have sought to question in particular the nuclear implications of the Korean War in 1950 and the development of the thermonuclear warhead (the so-called "super" or hydrogen bomb) in 1952; the U.S.-Soviet tensions generated during the Kennedy-Khrushchev confrontations from 1961 to 1962; the Vietnam War, particularly Barry M. Goldwater's proposal during the 1964 presidential election campaign that the United States resort to "tactical nuclear weapons" in Southeast Asia; the debate over anti-ballistic missiles in the late 1960s, which culminated in the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty and the first Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) in 1972; the policy debates about the MX missile and the "neutron bomb" during the Carter administration in the late 1970s; and the massive increase in defense spending that marked the early years of the first Reagan administration in the 1980s. 53National Conference of Catholic Bishops, The Challenge of Peace: God's Promise and Our Response 0 Pastoral Letter on War and Peace) (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1983). 54The United Methodist statement on war and peace is conveyed in two forms: a concise 1,500-word pastoral letter designed for mass appeal, which is taken from a detailed 30,000-word "foundation document." Both may be found in United Methodist Council of Bishops, In Defense of Creation: The Nuclear Crisis and a Just Peace (Nashville: Graded Press, 1986). 55These "nuclear" and "absolute" pacifist positions, as well as the contributions of particular Roman Catholic and Protestant theologians and church leaders, will be examined in ch. 4 below. 56Alexander F. C. Webster, The Price of Prophecy: Orthodox Churches on Peace, Freedom, and Security (2d rev. ed.; Grand Rapids and Washington, D.C.~ William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. and Ethics and Public Policy Center, 1995). 57For example, the Minsk assembly described in nl I above and even Fr. Stanley S. Harakas himself.

CHAPTER2 IRobert Jastrow, God and the Astronomers (New York: W.W. Norton, 1978), 116. 2pages two through seven of this chapter are adapted from Alexander F. C. Webster, "Orthodox Mystical Tradition and the Comparative Study of Religion," 623-25, and idem, "Antinomical Typologies For An Orthodox Christian Social Ethic For the World, State, and Nation," Greek Orthodox Theological Review 28:3 (Fall 1983): 222-24. Eastern Orthodoxy does not reserve the term "theologian" for formal scholars or academicians. Among the three Church Fathers officially honored by this title, only one was such a scholar-St. Gregory of Nazianzos. Indeed, the term is applied to any person who "talks with God"-i.e., any person whose spiritual life is such that he is continually perfecting his communion with God both intellectually in the sense of knowledge and, more importantly, transrationally through a self-surrendering openness or "transparency" to God's communicative actions.

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3see, for example, Karl Barth, Kirchliche Dogmatik, vol. l, 2.17, excerpted in Rolf Joachim Erler and Reiner Marquard (eds.), A Karl Barth Reader, ed. and transl. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1986), 24: "Because it is a grasping, religion is the contradiction of revelation, the concentrated expression of human unbelief, that is, an attitude and activity which is directly opposed to faith. 11 4For this theme of "fullness" of revelation (pleroma), see, for example, Vladimir Lossky, In the Image and Likeness of God (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1974), · 160f, and John Karmiris, A Synopsis of the Dogmatic Theology of the Orthodox Catholic Church, transl. George Dimopoulos (Scranton: Christian Orthodox Edition, 1973), 2. One concrete expression of this theme is Orthodoxy as a perfect spiritual-communal way of life grounded in the objective reality of God, which uniquely transfigures mundane creation. See Archbishop Ilarion Troitsky, Christianity or the Church? transl. Lev Puhala and Vasili Navokshonoff (Jordanville, NY: Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Monasteiy, 1971), 8; Durnitru Staniloae, Theology and the Church, transl. Robert Barringer (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1980), 218; and Georges Florovsky, Collected Works, vol. 5: Ways of Russian Theology (Part One), transl. Robert L. Nichols (Belmont, MA: Nordland Publishing Company, 1979), xviii. A similar but more comprehensive argument appears in Nicholas Arseniev, Revelation of Life Eternal (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1982), esp. 13f, 15, 17f, 80f. Another refinement of the theme of fullness distinguishes Orthodox Tradition-the essential dogmatic truth as lived by the faithful-from mere human traditions, whether religious or cultural. See John Meyendorff, Orthodoxy and Catholicity (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1966), 97. 5st. Justin Martyr, Apologia, I, xlvi. English translation (ET): Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (eds.), The Ante-Nicene Fathers (American Reprint of the Edinburgh Edition; Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1975), 1:178. Hereafter this series will be cited as ANF.

6see, for example, Theodore Stylianopoulos, "Orthodoxy and Catholicism: A New Attempt at Dialogue," Greek Orthodox Theological Review 26:3 (Fall 1981): 157-69. Entire issues of this journal devoted to such dialogues include 22:4 (Winter 1977); 24:4 (Winter 1979); 27:1 (Spring 1982); and 31:1-2 (Spring-Summer 1986). Agreed statements by the "official" international and U.S. Orthodox-Roman Catholic dialogue teams have been printed periodically in Diakonia, the journal formerly of the John XXIII Center at Fordham University and currently based at the University of Scranton. 7David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, Book III, part I, section I. Text in Henry D. Aileen (ed.), Hume's Moral and Political Philosophy (New York: Hafner Press, 1948), 43. 8Jesus is quoted, for example, in John 6:61: "Does this offend you?" The Greek verb skandalizein means to "offend," or "scandalize," or "cause to stumble. 11 This peculiar self-consciousness concerning the magnitude of the Christian claim about Jesus highlights the rare historicity among world religions of the personal authoritative source of Christian revelation. For a useful discussion of this theme, see Rudolf Bultmann, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, transl. G. R. Beasley-Murray, et al. (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1971), 444-47. 9Georges Florovsky, "Faith and Culture, 11 in Collected Works, vol. 2: Christianity and Culture (Belmont, MA: Nordland Publishing Company, 1974), 25.

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lOJohn Meyendorff, Living Tradition: Orthodox Witness in the Contemporary World (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1978), 7f. l lThe tenn "social ethics" denotes the application of a moral tradition or system to social problems. Thus Orthodox "social ethics" comprises both casuistry and the construction of mediating structures that relate fundamental theology to those cases. The next chapter will attempt such an application to the problem of war and peace.

226.

12John Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology (New York: Fordham University Press, 1974), .

13christos Yannaras, The Freedom of Morality, transl. Elizabeth Briere (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1984), ch. 1, esp. 23f. 14Harakas, Toward Transfigured Life, 26. 15see, for example, the systematic treatment of this problem in Karl Barth, Ethics, ed. Dietrich Braun, transl. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (New York: The Seabury Press, 1981), 3-61. 16sergius Bulgakov, The Orthodox Church, transl. Elizabeth S. Cram (New York: Morehouse Publishing Company, [1935]), 179: "[T]he ideal foundation of Orthodoxy is not ethic, but religious, aesthetic; it is the vision of 'spiritual beauty."' 17Harakas, Toward Transfigured Life, 26-33; Vigen Guroian, "Notes Toward An Eastern Orthodox Ethic," Journal ofReligious Ethics 9:2 (Fall 1981): 228-44. As an Armenian Orthodox theologian, Guroian views theology and morality from the standpoint of the NonChalcedonian, or "Oriental," Orthodox Churches, which are not in communion with the "Eastern" Orthodox Churches that share a common Byzantine heritage. Whatever differences in dogmatic theology might persist-and these may, if fact, be more semantic than substantive, if recent theological dialogues between the two Church families are truly indicative of the respective traditions-these Orthodox groupings evidently own a common Eastern spirituality and ethos, which unites the moral traditions of both ecclesial families and distinguishes them sharply from virtually all Western Christian communions, whether Roman Catholic or Protestant. To cite one example of this shared Eastern spirituality, St Isaac of Nineveh, the seventh century mystic, though a Nestorian in communion with neither the Byzantine Church nor the so-called "monophysite" Eastern Churches, is universally regarded by Eastern Orthodox Christians and Oriental Orthodox Christians as both a saint and a Church Father. 18For example, Guroian, "Notes Toward An Eastern Orthodox Ethic," 228, declares that an Orthodox ethic is a "virtue ethic." For a more recent survey of this theme, see Joseph Woodill, "Virtue Ethics and Its Suitability For Orthodox Christianity," St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 41: I (1997): 61-75~ for a more ample discussion, see Fr. Woodill's new book, The Fellowship ofLife: Virtue Ethics and Orthodox Christianity (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown U. Press, 1998). My own teaching and research interests are moving toward the Orthodox virtue-tradition, but it is important to avoid equating it with the entire moral tradition. 19For a detailed taxonomy of these components of Orthodox moral decision-making, see Harakas, Toward Transfigured Life, 37, 212-28.

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20lbid., 215, 33. 21st. Irenaios, Adversus Haereses, IV. 38.4, English translation: ANF 1:522. More illustrative of the process of becoming gods (dii, in the extant Latin text) is the following comment in ibid., V.9.2 (535): "[A]s many as fear God and trust in His Son's advent ... possess the Spirit of the Father, who purifies man, and raises him up to the life of God." 22st. Athanasios, De Jncarnatione Verbi Dei, 54.3. ET: Philip Schaff and Herny Wace (eds.), A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, (2d ser.; Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1975), 4:65. Hereafter this series will be cited asNPNF.

23st. Athanasios, Orationes, II.70. ET: "Four Discourses Against the Arians," NPNF 4:386. 24Text in E. Kadloubovsky and G. E. H. Palmer (eds.), Early Fathers From the Philokalia (London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1954), 368. 25For this classic phenomenological tenninology, see Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy, transl. John W. Harvey (New York: Oxford University Press, 1950), 7. 26Text in Festal Menaion, transl. Mother Mary and Archimandrite Kallistos Ware (London: Faber and Faber, 1977), 483. 27st. Gregory of Nyssa, De Vita Moysis, I.7. ET: Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses, transl. Abraham J. Malherbe and Everett Ferguson (New York: Paulist Press, 1978), 31. See also the excellent analysis in Patrick F. O'Connell, "The Double Journey in Saint Gregory of Nyssa: The Life ofMoses," Greek Orthodox Theological Review 28:4 (Winter 1983): 318f. 28st. Gregory of Nyssa, Hom. VIII. ET: Herbert Musurillo, S. J. (transl. and ed.), From Glory to Glory: Texts from Gregory of Nyssa's Mystical Writings (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1979), 212f. 29VJadimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1976), 120-24, has made the distinctions between person, individual, and nature-so firmly rooted in the Greek Fathers-a pillar of his theology. It is a timely alternative to the post-Kantian emphasis in the West on individual autonomy. See also the patristicexistentialist approach ofYannaras, The Freedom ofMorality, esp. 20-24. 30Harakas, Toward Transfigured Life, 248. 3loeorges Florovsky, "Christianity and Civilization," Collected Works, 2:128. Italics his. 32Bulgakov, The Orthodox Church, 178.

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34st. Gregory Palamas, On the Blessed Hesychasts, 2. ET: Kadloubovsky and Palmer, Early Fathers From the Philokalia, 402. Hesychasts (from hesychia-"stillness") teach a spiritual method of attaining the vision of the "Uncreated Light" of God's "energies," or operations, which are derived from His "essence" and afford thereby direct communion with God. For a more detailed discussion of these concepts in Orthodox spirituality, see ch. 9 below and Alexander F. C. Webster, "Orthodox Mystical Tradition and the Comparative Study of Religion," 630, 632f. 351n his compendium of moral and spiritual maxims, Four Hundred Texts on Love, I.35, St. Maximos the Confessor defined a "passion" as "an impulse of the soul that is contrary to nature." ET: St. Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain and St. Makarios of Corinth (comps.), The Philokalia, transl. and ed. G. E. H. Palmer, et al. (London: Faber and Faber, 1981), 2:56 (hereafter cited as The Philokalia 2, with page numbers). 36Demetrios J. Constantelos, Byzantine Philanthropy and Social Welfare (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1968), 32. Cf. 19. The preferred term in the Divine Liturgy of the Greek Orthodox Church is still philanthropia, particularly in doxological statements: "Hoti agathos kai philanthropos Theos . .. " ("For you are a good and man-loving God ... "). 371bid., 18. Guroian, "Notes Toward an Eastern Orthodox Ethic," 232, observes that agape "more properly expresses love from the divine point of view," as it were, insofar as the "human modality of agape images the divine life of the triune Godhead." 38The hospitals, hospices, homes for the aged, orphanages, poor-houses, homes for the blind, and reformatory institutions established in the theocratic Byzantine Empire would rival proportionately the accomplishments of the modem secular welfare state! See Constantelos, Byzantine Philanthropy, 149-276. 391bid, 20. 40st. Maximos the Confessor, Four Hundred Texts on Love, I.17, 24 (54, 55). 41Jbid, Il.30 (70). 42For an especially lucid argument by an American Catholic that Christian (specifically Roman Catholic) morality does not "possess unique ethical obligations or a unique ethical sense," see Timothy E. O'Connell, Principles For a Catholic Morality (New York: The Seabury Press, 1978), 199-208. 43For an insightful attempt to differentiate, rather than equate, these Greek and Latin terms, see Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World: Sacraments and Orthodoxy (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1973), 135-51. Although the English derivative "sacrament" is used customarily by Orthodox theologians, this usage obscures the significant distinctions of which Fr. Schmemant). so forcefully reminded us. 44Nicholas Cabasilas, The Life in Christ, transl. Carmino J. deCatanzaro (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1974), 1.6 (52f).

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451bid, IV. 8 (126). 46Ibid, I. 6; VII.2 (49, 197). 47schmemann, For the Life of the World, 27f, 42f, 45f, 55. 48Nicholas Arseniev, Mysticism and the Eastern Church, transl. Arthur Chambers (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1979), 58. 49The Koine Greek original is: "Ta sa ek ton son, soi prospheromen, kata panta kai dia panta."

50Emst Benz, The Eastern Orthodox Church: Its Thought and Life, transl. Richard and Clara Winston (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1963), 151. 51Bulgakov, The Orthodox Church, 75. 52Benz, The Eastern Orthodox Church, 158. 53Guroian, "Notes Toward an Eastern Orthodox Ethic," 233. For a theological explanation of these twin emphases on humans as persons who "participate" in the one human nature (essence), see ch. 2 n29 above. 54christos Yannaras, "Proclamation and Articulation of the Christian Faith," in The New Valamo Consultation: The Ecumenical Nature of the Orthodox Witness (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1977), 65f. 55Bulgakov, The Orthodox Church, 75f. 56Alexei Khomiakov, The Church is One (New York: Eastern Orthodox Catholic Church in Axnerica, 1953),20( 57 11Lettre au redacteur de l'Union Chretienne a !'occasion d'un discours du Pere Gagarine, Jesuite, 11 in A.-S. Komiakoff, L'figlise Latine et la Protestantism au point de vue de l'figlise d'Orient (Lausanne & Vevey: B. Benda, Librarie-Editeur, 1872), 391-400, esp. 398: "selon l'uni-te de tous. 11 58st. Augustine of Hippo, De Civitate Dei, XVIII.43. ET: Augustine, Concerning the City of God Against the Pagans, transl. Henry Bettenson (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1976), 822. 59Harakas, Toward Trans.figured Life, 9. 60The Greek New Testament, ed. Kurt Aland, et al. (2d ed.; New York: United Bible Society,

1968). 61A useful critical edition of the Septuagint is The Septuagint Version of the Old Testament

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and Apocrypha, ed. and transl. Charles Lee Brenton (London: Samuel Bagster and Sons, 1851 ). 62Georges A. Barrois, The Face of Christ in the Old Testament (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1974), 19. 63Georges Florovsky, "Revelation and Interpretation," in Collected Works, vol. 1: Bible, Church, Tradition: An Eastern Orthodox View (Belmont, MA: Nordland Publishing Company, 1972), 33. 641bid, 31. This approach admittedly conflicts sharply with that which has come to dominate one school of ecumenical historico-critical interpretation of Holy Scripture. According to the latter approach, the Old Testament ought to be categorized as the "Hebrew Bible" and any christological hermeneutic eliminated in favor of a supposedly strict understanding of these texts as the historical product of Israel's response to God's actions to and for Israel. Such a view is impossible for any Orthodox Christian who would affirm the validity of his own religious experience as one who stands squarely in the continuum of developing Orthodox Christian Tradition from the time of Abraham and Sarah onward. 65Georges Florovsky, "Antinomies of Christian History: Empire and Desert," in Collected Works, 2:69. 66Ibid, 70. 67For initial citations of theANF and NPNF series, see ch. 2 n5 and ch. 2 n22 above. 68For the similar concern of two Roman Catholic scholars who recognize this problem but, unfortunately, contrast the heretical dimensions of part of the literary tradition to the supposedly "official" currents in the Church of Rome, see Ignio Giordani, The Social Message of the Early Church Fathers (Boston: Daughters of St. Paul, 1977), 181, 183, and J. Newman's reply to G. S. Windass, "The Early Christian Attitude to War," Irish Theological Quarterly 19 (1962): 247. 69For example, the former explanation has been advanced in Edward A. Ryan, "The Rejection of Military Service by the Early Christians," Theological Studies 13 (1952): 14f, and John Helgeland, "Christians and the Roman Anny A.D. 173-337," Church History 43 (1974): 156. The latter, strict pacifist interpretation of these texts may be found in Roland H. Bainton, Christian Attitudes Toward War and Peace (New York: Abingdon Press, 1960), 77f. 70The original texts may be found in G. A. Ralles and M. Poties (eds.), Syntagma. Ton Theion kai Jeron Kanonon ("The Order of the Divine and Holy Canons"), 6 vols. (Athens 1852). See also (SS.] Agapius and Nicodemus (eds. and comps.), The Rudder, transl. D. Cummings (Chicago: The Orthodox Christian Educational Society, 1957). 71These Byzantine Greek commentaries are excerpted and interspersed throughout Railes and Poties, Syntagma Ton Theion kai Jeron Kanonon. 72Lewis J. Patsavos, The Canon Law of the Orthodox Catholic Church (unpublished notes, Brookline, MA: 1975), 39.

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73one of the most comprehensive collections consulted for the present study is Herbert Musurillo (ed. and transl.), The Acts of the Christian Martyrs (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1972). 74The original, untranslated Old Russian texts of these vitae (or zhitija in Russian) are available in the excellent critical edition by Ad. Stender-Petersen (ed.), with Stefan CongratButlar, Anthology of Old Russian Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, n.d.), 8099, and in Dmitrii Ivanovich Abramovitch, Die altrussischen hagiographischen Erzahlungen und liturgischen Dichtungen iiber die Hei/egen Boris und Gleb (Miinchen: W. Fink, 1967). 75For a concise summary of Eastern Orthodox canonization procedures, which rarely have been elucidated in English, see Archbishop John Maximovitch, 11 The Canonization of the Saints of God," The Orthodox Word 5:5 (1969): 4f. Cf. Vladimir Demshuk, Russian Sainthood and Canonization (Minneapolis: Light and Light Publishing Company, 1978), 40-45. 76Hippolyte Delehaye, S.J., Les /egendes grecques des saints mi/itaires (Paris: Librairie Alphonse Picard de Fils, 1909), 108. He concluded that the vitae of all six saints considered in that volume were purely artificial and full of hagiographic conventions. Ibid, 112. For an introduction to this hagiographic hermeneutic, see idem, The Legends of the Saints: An Introduction to Hagiography, transl. V. M. Crawford (Notre Dame, IN.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1961). 77There are numerous English language editions of the Orthodox liturgies both "sacramental" (or, more properly, "mysteriological") and non-sacramental. The texis cited in this study are taken most often from The Priest's Service Book (Parts 1 and 2) (New York: The Orthodox

Church in America, 1973). 78 Alexander Schmemann, Introduction to Liturgical Theology, transl. Asheleigh E. Moorhouse (London: The Faith Press Ltd., 1966), 15. 79Yannaras, The Freedom ofMorality, 82f. 80see ch. 2 n34 and ch. 2 n35 above. These concepts and practices will be elucidated further in ch. 9 below. 81Lossky, The Mystical Theology ofthe Eastern Church, 8. 82Florovsky, Ways ofRussian Theology (Part One), xvii. 83staniloae, Theology and the Church, 219. 841bid 85Nadejda Gorodetzky, The Humiliated Christ in Modern Russian Thought (London: S.P.C.K., 1938), 27.

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CHAPTER3 lchristos Yannaras, Elements of Faith: An Introduction to Orthodox Theology, transl. Keith Schram (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1991), 155. 2see ch. 2 nll. Without undennining the general distinctions in ch. l between "moral" and "ethical," we shall use the tenns "social ethics" and "social ethic" for the sake of convenience to denote moral theology as applied to social problems. 3Much of this chapter is adapted from Alexander F. C. Webster, "Antinomical Typologies For An Orthodox Christian Social Ethic For the World, State, and Nation," 221-54. 4For the concept of "trajectories" in Church history, I am indebted to the signal work of James M. Robinson and Helmut Koester, Trajectories Through Early Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971), esp. 8-14. These two students of Rudolf Bultmann envision a "processoriented" metaphysics toward which the perspective of "trajectories" is designed to contribute, but that should not prevent its use here as a perspective on the organic growth of the moral branches of Orthodox Tradition. 5Referring to one typological scheme discussed below, Fr. Stanley S. Harakas, "The Church and the Secular World," Greek Orthodox Theological Review 17:1(Spring1972): 184, observes with insight: "There is need, I believe, to emphasize all three of these dimensions of the relationship of the Church and world and to keep them in dynamic tension and not to succumb to the ancient temptation of subsuming all experiences under the rubric of one." 6Quoted in ibid, 183. ?Georges Florovsky, "Antinomies of Christian History: Empire and Desert," Collected Works, vol. 2-Christianity and Culture (Belmont, MA: Nordland Publishing Company, 1974), 67-100. 8Harakas, "The Church and the Secular World," 182, 187. 91n effect, I may be trying here to have my cake and eat it, too. I recognize the conflicting impulses that issue in acceptance of a dualistic antinomical structure, on the one hand, and, on the other, in a detennination to achieve some kind of reasonable solution to such a suprarational dilemma. The careful efforts to qualify the terms that I employ reflect this realization. In a deeper sense, however, the conflict may be only apparent, or prima facie at most, and indeed typical of the inner "logic" of the antinomical mentality itself. lOoepending on the historical context, I suppose, the second and third spheres of this "concentric" scheme could be reversed. For example, the government or political elite of a modem nation-state certainly is smaller in size than the population of the nation, and "politics" is tantamount to a subset of culture. But I am allowing in advance for the peculiar Orthodox circumstance throughout the last sixteen hundred years: the political reality, at least, was ecumenical in scope, as epitomized in the Byzantine and Russian empires, and nationality was originally subordinated to the imperial political structure and culture. Only with the elimination of these Chris-

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tian empires as a result of conquest by alien powers was Orthodox political theory gradually reduced to conformity to the modem Western European notion of the nation-state. llThe great German sociologist, Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, transl. Talcott Parsons (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1958), 98, acknowledged the "artificial simplicity of ideal types, as they could at best but seldom be found in history." Ideal types are, nevertheless, sociological phenomena abstracted from more fluid historical reality and investigated "in their most consistent and logical forms." 12 As any student of the "higher criticism" of the Bible knows, Holy Scripture seldom provides neat, universally applicable position statements on controversial social issues. To extract passages from their contexts obviously is a violation of the integrity of the New Testament documents and a poor substitute for thorough, contextual exegesis. But the broad scope of the present study in the field of moral theology allows for only heuristic use of biblical texts. 13H. Richard Niebuhr, Christ and Culture (New York: Harper and Row, 1951). 14Ernst Troeltsch, The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches, vol. 2, transl. Olive Wyon (London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1931), 993. 15Harakas, "The Church and the Secular World," 180ff, esp. 184. 16My use of the "sect-type 11 category, as evidenced below, also differs from Troeltsch's emphasis on voluntarism and legalism, which was rooted in his European environment. An example of an inaccurate and simplistic assessment of "Slavic" Orthodoxy in America as a "sectarian church" is Joseph Hayden, "Slavic Orthodox Christianity in the United States: From Culture Religion to Sectarian Church" (Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, State University of New York at Buffalo, 1973), esp. 17f, 68f. This term was devised by Hayden as a Weberian ideal type and supposedly combines aspects of Troeltsch's "church" and "sect" types. The basic problems are Hayden's overemphasis on ecclesiastical "multiplication" (which lacks proper appreciation for the unprecedented sociological conditions of the United States as a "diaspora" for the Orthodox) and his exaggeration of the symptoms of democratic polity on the parish level. 17These three types actually more closely parallel, respectively, Niebuhr's "Christ against culture," "Christ of culture," and "Christ the transformer of culture." See Niebuhr, Christ and Culture, chs. 2, 3, and 6. An argument may be advanced for the "church-type" as "Christ above culture," especially in light of the spiritualizing tendency so evident, for example, in the popular acceptance of soul/body similes for political and social contexts. But the preponderance of "transfiguration" motifs points to the transformative relation as primary. 18Florovsky, "Antinomies of Christian History," 88. 19see Alexander F. C. Webster, "The Canonical Validity of Military Service by Orthodox Christians," Greek Orthodox Theological Review 23:3-4 (Fall/Winter 1978): 258-62. 20Nicolai A. Zabolotsky, "The Churches' Responsibility in the World Today," in The New Valamo Consultation: The Ecumenical Nature of the Orthodox Witness (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1977), 82.

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2llbid, 80, 73. 22For an analysis of canon 13 of St. Basil, see Webster, "Canonical Validity," 273-75. 23Harakas, "The Church and the Secular World," 173. 24Nicos A. Nissiotis, "Church and Society in Greek Orthodox Theology," in John C. Bennett (ed.), Christian Social Ethics in a Changing World: An Ecumenical Theological Inquiry (New York: Association Press, 1966), 88, 91. 25G. P. Fedotov, "The Church and Social Justice," St. Vladimir's Seminary Quarterly 7:3 (1963): 139, 135. This could be interpreted also as a Niebuhrian "Christ above culture" expression. 261bid, 139-42. 27This is a rather popular topic for Orthodox Church historians, but there is not much literature that analyzes this relation from a normative ethical perspective. 28see Metropolitan Antony's untitled encyclical in The Christian East 8:4 (Winter 1927): 178-81. For an explanation of the historical context of this disagreement among Russian Orthodox both in the Soviet Union and abroad, see Alexander F. C. Webster, "Concerning Christians in the Soviet Military: Several Russian Orthodox Views," Diakonia 13:2 (1978): 148-51. 29George Grabbe, The Dogma of the Church in the Modern World (Jordanville, NY: Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Monastery, 1976), 18. He also criticized the Byzantine and Russian monarchies for their tendency to reduce the Church to "a servile position." 30stantey S. Harakas, "Orthodox Church-State Theory and American Democracy," Greek Orthodox Theological Review 21:4 (Winter 1976): 399-421. Cf. Sergius Bulgakov, The Orthodox Church, 188, 190, who suggested that "the ultimate influence" of the Church on the life of the state "will only be increased by the separation of Church and state" that, "under different forms, has replaced the ancient alliance. 11 31Harakas, "Orthodox Church-State Theory," 416. The implied inner/outer dichotomy is ontologically impossible from an Orthodox ecclesiological perspective. 321 am inclined to agree with Nissiotis, "Church and Society in Greek Orthodox Theology," 101, that the Church "should never introduce a separation between sacred and profane or ecclesial and secular," but when others have imposed such a separation the Church ought to endeavor "to incorporate everything into the Body of Christ by a martyria," or positive witness, even if this includes martyrdom. Fortunately, in the United States martyrdom does not yet seem to be necessary. 33Ernst Benz, The Eastern Orthodox Church: Its Thought and Life, transl. Richard and Clara Winston (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1963), 173f; Bulgakov, The Orthodox Church, 183. This Lutheran notion was gradually fortified by an Hegelian emphasis on the mon-

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arch in the nation-state. 34codex Theodosiani, 16.5.6. Text in The Theodosian Code and Novels and the Sirmondian Constitutions, transl. Clyde Pharr (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1952), 451. Cf. the similar reversal of roles by pagan spokesmen, as noted in Francis Dvornik, Early Christian and Byzantine Political Philosophy: Origins and Background, vol. 2 (Washington, D.C.: The

Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies, 1966), 764: "Ironically the only remaining defenders of the principle of religious freedom, which the Christian apologists had once so vigorously claimed for themselves, were the last pagan orators." Dvornik named in particular Symmachus and Themistius. 35steven Runciman, The Byzantine Theocracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 5-25. Cf. Alexander F. C. Webster, "Varieties of Christian Military Saints: From Martyrs Under Caesar to Warrior Princes," St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 24:1 (1980): 15-17. 36This term has been laid to rest in Deno Geanakoplos, "Church and State in the Byzantine Empire: A Reconsideration of the Problem of Caesaropapism," Byzantine East and Latin West (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1966), 57-83. In particular, he notes that after the Iconoclastic Controversy in the eighth and ninth centuries, the emperors were able to impose their will on the doctrine of the Church only during their own reigns and then usually amidst public outcry. The so-called "liturgical privileges" of the emperor were no more than "sacramentals" (mysteriakai teletai), for he was no more than a layman who had not even received the "setting aside" (cheirothesia) of the minor orders of clergy. 37ET of text in Ernest Barker, Social and Political Thought in Byzantium: From Justinian I to the Last Palaeologus (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1957), 76. 38Alexander Schmemann, Historical Road of Eastern Orthodoxy (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1977), 148, 151, 153. 391 have attempted elsewhere to show exegetically that St. Paul apparently has no intention of furnishing a political theory in the conventional sense of the term. See Alexander F. C. Webster, "St. Paul's Political Advice to the Haughty Gentile Christians in Rome: An Exegesis of Romans 13:1-7," St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 25:4 (1981): 259-82. 40Quoted in Bishop Antonie [Plamadeala], "Church and State in Romania," in Church and State: Opening a New Ecumenical Discussion (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1978), 104. 41Harakas, "Orthodox Church-State Theory,' 1 408f. 42ET in Barker, Social and Political Thought in Byzantium, 195. Patriarch Antony IV cited !Peter 2:13-17 in support of his argument for the necessity of an emperor-a weak case indeed. 43stanley S. Harakas, "The Orthodox Approach to Modern Trends," St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 13:4 (1969): 7f.

44Bulgakov, The Orthodox Church, 185f. Cf. Harakas, 11 0rthodox Church-State Theory, II 415f, for a similar case for the assumption of the functions of the basileus by the taos in modem

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democracies, most notably the United States. 45Reinhold Niebuhr, The Children of Light and the Children . of Darkness (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1944), xiii. 46For an historico-moral analysis of the prospects of restored Orthodox constitutional monarchies in post-Communist Romania, Bulgaria, and Serbia, see Alexander F. C. Webster, "Kingdoms of God in the Balkans?" East European Quarterly 27:4 (Winter 1993): 437-51. 47Harakas, "Orthodox Church-sra:te Theory," 399. 48The Old Testament should prove more fertile ground for such non-monarchical theocratic ideas. 49Epanagoge, Titulus II. ET: Barker, Social and Political Thought in Byzantium, 89-91. 50Epanagoge, Titulus III. ET: ibid, 91-93. 51Runciman, The Byzantine Theocracy, 95. 52John Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology (New York: Fordham University Press, 1974), 193. 53oaniel Elazar, "Covenantal and Ethnic Dimensions in Modern Nationalism." Public lecture for the Ph.D. Colloquium in Religion, University of Pittsburgh, February 10, 1982. 54cf. the explanation of physical and "spiritual" components in Stefan Zankov, "Nation and Church in the Orthodox Lands of Eastern Europe," in Kenneth S. Latourette, et al., Church and Community (London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1938), 144-48. I am doubtful, however, about his emphasis on an "irrational" dimension of the nation as, above all, "a great spiritual entity" and "an idea of God." Ibid, 148. 55(Kallistos) Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1964), 86. 56Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology, 199f; Schmemann, Historical Road of Eastern Orthodoxy, 289-91. 571oannes N. Karmiris, "Nationalism in the Orthodox Church," Greek Orthodox Theological Review 26:3 (Fall 1981): 172f. The Bulgarian theologian, Stefan Zankov, "Nation and Church in the Orthodox Lands of Eastern Europe," 13 9-44, vigorously challenged the decision of this synod in terms of its parochial motivation. At that time the heavily Hellenized Patriarchate in the Phanar ghetto of Turkish Istanbul (Constantinople) was struggling to retain canonical and spiritual control over the Bulgarian Church, which had just declared its autocephaly from the Patriarchate. Notwithstanding the possibly sinful political circumstances of these pronouncements, I contend that their enduring moral value is indisputable. 58For this explanation I am indebted to Steven Runciman, The Orthodox Churches and the Secular State (New Zealand: Auckland University Press, 1971), 27-38

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59For a view of Dostoevsky's messianism by a great twentieth century Russian critic of the "Russian soul," see Nicholas Berdyaev, Dostoevsky, transl. Donald Attwater (New York: New American Library, 1974), 160. For an insightful assessment of Saguna's moderate ethnic mysticism, see Keith Hitchins, "The Sacred Cult of Nationality: Rumanian Intellectuals and the Church in Transylvania, 1834-1869," in Stanley B. Winters and Joseph Held (eds.), Intellectual and Social Developments in the Habsburg Monarchy to World War I (Boulder, CO: East European Quarterly, 1975), esp. 147-50 60For a detailed moral analysis of this ostensibly Orthodox fonn of Romanian nationalism, see Alexander F. C. Webster, The Romanian Legionary Movement: An Orthodox Christian Assessment of Anti-Semitism ("Carl Beck Papers," No. 502; Pittsburgh: Center for Russian and East European Studies, University of Pittsburgh, 1986). The key primary sources are the manifestos of the Legion's founder and his successor: Comeliu Zelea Codreanu, For My Legionaires (/'he Iron Guard) (Madrid: Editura "Libertatea," 1976), and Horia Sima, Histoire du mouvement Legionnaire, I (1919-1937) (Rio de Janeiro: Editora Dacia, n.d.). 61cr. Philippians 3:20, where he declares that the citizenship of a Christian is in heaven. One must always be wary of St. Luke's Romanizing trend in Acts. It is possible that the Paul in Acts is more Lukan than Pauline. 62ET of text in Matthew Spinka, The Church in Soviet Russia (New York: Oxford University Press, 1956), 161-65. For an historico-moral analysis of this seminal document, see Webster, "Concerning Christians in the SovietMilitruy, 11 148f. In his pre-exile years in the Soviet Union, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, too, appeared willing to accept a "public-type" moral standard for the involvement of Orthodox believers in Soviet society. For him the U.S.S.R. was no exception to the rule that a "nation is mystically welded together in a community of guilt." Alexander Solzhenitsyn, "Repentance and Self-Limitation in the Life of Nations," in idem, et al., From Under the Rubble, transl. Michael Scammel, et al. (New York: Bantam Books, 1975), 142. 63Bishop Antonie [Plamadeala], "Church and State in Romania," 103, 106, 94. 64Harakas, "Orthodox Church-State Theory," 399-421. 65George Khodre, "The Church and the World," St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 12:1-2 (1969): 39 66Karmiris, "Nationalism in the Orthodox Church," 175-77. This policy does not, however, prevent the Church from taking into account the "political peculiarities and other ethnic differences of the various peoples." Ibid., 180. Particularly in times of critical national danger, the Church "has energetically participated in the national struggle for defence, salvation, and liberation of her peoples, thus contributing effectively to the restoration of the nation." Ibid, 181. Kanniris does not address the problem of what the respective Churches ought to do when two Orthodox nations or states are in conflict. 67zankov, "Nation and Church in the Orthodox Lands of Eastern Europe," 159, 166. Surprisingly, he explicitly disowns the term "antinomy" in this context! 68The classic presentation of this particular typology is Roland H. Bainton, Christian Atti-

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tudes Toward War and Peace: A Historical Survey and Critical Re-Evaluation (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1960), 13-15. For two recent quadripartite typologies of ethical (i.e., not necessarily Christian) approaches to the problem of war and peace suggested by Protestant theologians, see John Howard Yoder, When War Is Unjust: Being Honest in Just-War Thinking (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1984), 17 (an amoral "national-interest" approach, plus Bainton's typology), and Stanley Hauerwas, Against the Nations: War and Survival Jn a Liberal Society (Minneapolis: Winston Press, 1985), 132-55 (anti-nuclear "survivalist" and "sovereign-states deterrence"-which is analogous to Yoder's "national-interest" approach-plus 11 paci.fism" and "just war"). 69Edward LeRoy Long, Jr., War and Conscience in America (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1968), 22-47. Long's separation, however, of "agonized participation," rooted in the Protestant Neo-Orthodoxy of Reinhold Niebuhr, et al., from ''just-war" in his tripartite division of theories of war is rather forced and hence less useful. For an attempt to show the more analogous relations of the just war and holy war theories among the classic Christian theorists, see LeRoy Walters, "The Just War and the Crusade: Antitheses or Analogies?" Monist 57 (October 1973): 584-94. In the present study, "crusade" and "holy war 11 are used interchangeably for the sake of brevity and to confonn to Long's useful typology, despite the careful distinctions on which some historians insist. See, for example, Frederick H. Russell, The Just War in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 38f, and Harold 0. J. Brown, "The Crusade or Preventive War," in Robert G. Clouse (ed.), War: Four Christian Views (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1981), 155f. 70David Little, '"Holy War' Appeals and Western Christianity: A Reconstruction of Bainton's Approach," in John Kelsay and James Turner Johnson (eds.), Just War and Jihad: Historical and Theological Perspectives on War and Peace in Western and Islamic Traditions (New York: Greenwood Press, 1991), 122. 71carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and transl. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), Bk. 1, ch. 1, esp. 75, 81, 87. 12Baron de Jornini, The Art of War, transl. G. H. Mendell and W. P. Craighill (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, Publishers, 1971 reprint of 1862 original), 35.

73codex Theodosiani, 16.5.6. See ch. 3 n34 above. 74webster, "Varieties of Christian Military Saints," 16. 75For a detailed comparative ethical analysis of this case, see Alexander F. C. Webster, "Just War and Holy War: Two Case Studies in Comparative Christian Ethics," Christian Scholar's Review 15:4 (1986): 362-71. The dynamic evolution of the views of St. Augustine was especially grievous. This North African Church Father, who, despite his theological deviations from mainstream Eastern Christian theology, is still esteemed by most of the Orthodox world as a great saint and teacher, grounded his final position on the "bodily chastisement," or just coercion, of heretics in his theology of teleological love! 76oemetrios J. Constantelos, "Religious Minorities and the State in Sixth Century Byzantium," St. Vladimir's Seminary Quarterly 7:4 (1963): 190-200.

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77George Ostrogorsky, History of the Byzantine State (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1957), 90. Cf. 320. For a blend of bloodshed, victory, and the Christ-child all rolled into one appeal, see the quotation of St. Sophronios, Patriarch of Jerusalem, in Walter E. Kaegi, Jr., Army, Society and Religion in Byzantium (London: Variorum Reprints, 1982), 141. 78Nicolas Zemov, The Russians and Their Church (London: S.P.C.K., 1968), 97-104. Ironically, the 1974 Sobor, or Council, of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia removed all of the centuries-old strictures against the Old Believers in a remarkable act of ecclesial penitence. John L. Opie, "The Enemy Within: A Reply to the Letter of Aleksandr Isaevich to the Council of the Russian Church Outside Russia, 11 Eastern Churches Review 7 (1975): 188. 79Jlarold W. V. Temperley, History of Servia (London: G. Bell and Sons Ltd., 1917), 125. The severe penalties imposed on the Serbs by their Turkish overlords included the desecration in A.D. 1595 of the relics of St. Sava, the patron saint of the Serbian people. The Turks exhumed his body, burned it to ashes at Vrachar in Belgrade, and scattered the ashes. 80Dimitrije Djordjevic and Stephen Fischer-Galati, The Balkan Revolutionary Tradition (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), 5-9. Among the Orthodox clergy in alliance with the Romanian voevod was Metropolitan Dionisie Rally Palaeologos of Trnovo, Bulgaria. 81During the First Serbian Insurrection from 1804 to 1813, the Serbian rebels also had received valuable financial aid from Metropolitan Dositei Filiti in Wallachia. Ibid., 75. 82Mitosh also urged his compatriots to kill anyone who wore the distinctive green garb of the Turks-an example of the unrestrained crusader mentality. Leopold Ranke, The History of Servia and the Servian Revolution, transl. Mrs. Alexander Kerr (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1853), 199. Nevertheless, the massive brutalities of the Turkish authorities and the intolerable conditions of life under their suzerainty served in the long run to justify a revolution in accordance with the standards of the justifiable war trajectory. For a brief chronicle of the "Turkish reign of terror" that constituted the aftennath of the First Serbian Insurrection, see Michael Boro Petrovich, A History ofModem Serbia, 1804-1918, vol. 1 (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976), 81. The excesses of extreme religiously-motivated and/or nationally-motivated violence alone would appear to relegate this revolt, as well as the military struggle against the Catholic Croatian Ustashi oppressors waged by the Serbian Orthodox "Chetniks, 11 or Royalists, in Yugoslavia from 1941to1945, to the less salutary category of holy war. 83charles Frazee, "Church and State in Greece," in John T. A Koumoulides (ed.), Greece in Transition: Essays in the History ofModern Greece 1821-1974 (London: Zeno Booksellers and Publishers, 1977), 128. 84Ibid, 129. See also Philip Sherrard, "Church, State and the Greek War oflndependence," in Richard Clogg (ed.), The Struggle for Greek Independence: Essays to Mark the 150th Anniversary ofthe Greek War ofIndependence (Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1973), 182f. Patriarch Polykarpos of Jerusalem also condemned the Greek rebellion. Notwithstanding the mixed political and spiritual motives that drove these decisions, the anathemas reflect the extreme hesitancy to endorse violent insurrections and military campaigns that characterizes the more normative Orthodox social ethical trajectories on war and peace.

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85steven Runcirnan, The Great Church in Captivity: A Study of the Patriarchate of Constantinople from the Eve of the Turkish Conquest to the Greek War ofIndependence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), 404. 86Frazee, "Church and State in Greece," 130. 87webster, "Concerning Christians in the Soviet Military," 137-40. 87Nicholas Oikonornides, "The Concept of 'Holy War' and Two Tenth Century Byzantine Ivories," in Timothy S. Miller and John Nesbitt (eds.), Peace and War in Byzantium: Essays in Honor of George T. Dennis, S.J. (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University Press, 1995), 68, 63. 89Mark C. Bartusius, The Late Byzantine Army: Arms and Society, 1204-1453 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992), 21 lf. 90 A. H. M. Jones, "Military Chaplains in the Roman Army," Harvard Theological Review 46 (1953): 239f~ Walter Emil Kaegi, Jr., Byzantine Military Unrest 471-843 (Amsterdam: Adolf M. Hakhert, Publisher, 1981), 76; Eric McGeer, "Military Religious Services," in Alexander Kazhden (ed.), The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, vol. 2 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991): 1371. 91ET of text in George T. Dennis (ed.), Three Byzantine Military Treatises (Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae), no. 25 (Dumbarton Oaks Texts, no. 9; Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 1985), 21.

92Maurice's Strategikon: Handbook of Byzantine Military Strategy.

Transl. George T.

Dennis. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1984), xiv. 93 Angeliki Laiou, "On Just War in Byzantium," in John S. Langdon, et al. (eds.), To Ellenikon: Studies in Honor of Speros Vryonis, Jr., vol. 1 (New Rochelle, NY: Aristide D. Caratzas, Publisher, 1993), 170. And yet, according to John Haldon, State, Army and Society in Byzantium: Approaches to Military, Social and Administrative History, 6th to 12th Centuries (Brookfield, Vf: Variorum, 1995), 161, the emperor "was, in effect, a spiritual father to his armies." 94For a detailed analysis of St. Augustine's views on justifiable war and holy war, see Webster, "Just War and Holy War: Two Case Studies in Comparative Christian Ethics," 347-50, 36466.

95The Homilies of Photios, Patriarch of Constantinople. Transl. Cyril Mango (Dumbarton Oaks Studies, no. 3; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1955); Joseph A. Munitz, S.J., "War and Peace Reflected in Some Byzantine Mirrors ofPrinces," in Timothy S. Miller and John Nesbitt (eds.), Peace and War in Byzantium: Essays in Honor of George T. Dennis, S.J., 53. 96Webster, "VarietiesofChristianMilitarySaints," 12-15, 17-35. 97webster, "Just War and Holy War: Two Case Studies," 358-61. In a subsequent study I

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expect to amplify these brief remarks in much the same manner as Part Two of the present study will present the case for the Orthodox pacifist trajectory.

CHAPTER4 lcharles Chatfield, "Pacifism and Patriotism: A Basic Theme in U.S. History," in Theron F. Schlabach and Richard T. Hughes (eds.), Proclaim Peace: Christian Pacifism from Unexpected Quarters (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1997), 19, 22. Cf. James Childress, "Contemporary Pacifism: Its Major Types and Possible Contributions to Discourse About War," in George Weigel and John R. Langan, SJ., The American Search for Peace: Moral Reasoning, Religious Hope, and National Security (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1991), 110.

2Roger Scruton, A Dictionary of Political Thought (New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1982), 348; Marilyn McMorrow, R.S.C.J., "Creating Conditions of Peace: A Theological Framework, 11 in Gerard F. Powers, et al., Peacemaking: Moral and Policy Challenges for a New World, 44. 311Eirene, 11 in Gerhard Kittel (ed.), Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, transl. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1964), 2:400f; Roland H. Bainton, Christian Attitudes Toward War and Peace (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1960), 17. 4Liddell and Scott's Greek-English Lexicon (Abridged) (22d ed.; Oxford: Clarendon Press,

1887), 112. 5Bainton, Christian Attitudes Toward War and Peace, 31.

7The term "ideology" has different meanings among political theorists. It is defined "in its most common colloquial sense as a set of ideas involving visionary and grandiose schemes of social change" in Isaac Kramnick and Frederick M. Watkins, The Age of Ideology-Political Thought, 1750 to the Present (2d ed.; Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1964), 2. A more distinctly political definition may be found in Scruton, A Dictionary of Political Thought, 213: "Any systematic and all-embracing political doctrine, which claims to give a complete and universally applicable theory of man and society, and to derive therefrom a programme of political action." That definition, if accurate, would appear to embrace both Christianity and Islam! 8vtadimir I. Lenin, Selected Works (New York: International Publishers, 1943), 3:339. 9Mao Tse-Tung, "On Protracted War (May 1938)," in Selected Works ofMao Tse-Tung (Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1975), 2: 149. lOw. B. Gallie, Philosophers of Peace and War: Kant, Clausewitz, Marx, Engels and Tolstoy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), 101.

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l lLeo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God and Peace Essays, transl. Alymer Maude (London: Oxford University Press, 1936), 584. 12Ibid., 584, 591.

BL. N. Tolstoy, My Religion, transl. Huntington Smith (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1885), 110. 14Ibid, 108, 109. 151mmanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysic ofMorals, transl. H.J. Paton (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1964), 70, 96. 16Jeffrie G. Murphy, "The Killing of the Innocent," in Malham M. Wakin (ed.), War, Morality, and the Military Profession (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1979), 361. 171mmanuel Kant, "Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch," in Hans Reiss (ed.), Kant's Political Writings, transl. H. B. Nisbet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 93130+. Although the treatise was included in a classic collection of pacifist works [P. Mayer (ed.), The Pacifist Conscience (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1966)], the work hardly stakes such an absolute position against violence. While rejecting the use of mercenaries as a violation of human dignity, Kant would allow citizens to undertake "voluntary military training from time to time in order to secure themselves and their fatherland against attacks from outside." Kant, "Perpetual Peace," 95. Gallie, Philosophers ofPeace and War, 20, prefers correctly to label Kant "a passionate legalizer, or prophet or evangelist of progressive legislations, in international relations." 18Kant, "Perpetual Peace," 96. 19Ibid, 102, 104. 20Ibid, 107f. 21Ibid, 123f. Michael Howard, War and the Liberal Conscience (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1978), 27, states the case more forcefully: "To struggle for peace was therefore for Kant in itself a moral absolute." 221n Kittel, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, 2:406. 23Kittel, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, 2:402-406; E. M. Good, "Peace in the OT," in George Arthur Buttrick (ed.), The Interpreter's Bible Dictionary: An Illustrated Encyclopedia (New York: Abingdon Press, 1962), 3:704-706; James Turner Johnson, "Peace," in James F. Childress and John Macquarrie (eds.), The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Ethics (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1986), 460. For another useful-and very readable-discussion of both shalom and eirene, see Ulrich Mauser, The Gospel of Peace: A Scriptural Message for Today's World (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1992), 13-35.

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24Kittel, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, 2:411. 25This typology is derived from the analyses in ibid., 511-20; C. L. Mitton, "Peace in the NT," in Buttrick, The Interpreter's Bible Dictionary, 3:706; Johnson, "Peace," 460f. 26George Weigel, Tranquillitas Ordinis: The Present Failure and Future Promise ofAmerican Catholic Thought on War and Peace (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 43, 44.

21st. Augustine, De Civitate Dei, XIX.13. ET: Augustine, Concerning the City of God Against the Pagans, transl. Henry Bettenson (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1976), 870. 28st. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II-Il.40.1. ET: St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica (Complete American Edition in Three Volwnes), transl. Fathers of the Dominican Province (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1947-1948), 1359f. 29weigel, Tranquillitas Ordinis, 36, 37. 30we may note the dual role of St. Augustine as a Latin Father of the undivided Orthodox Church of the first Christian millenniwn and a "doctor" of the Roman Catholic tradition in particular. In the present context he is indisputably the wellspring of a particularly Latin Catholic moral doctrine. 31Pacem in Terris, V.167. ET: Pope John XXIII, Peace on Earth: Addressed to All Mankind (Boston: St. Paul Editions [1963]), 44. 32Pacem in Terris, I.l, 9, 12 (ET: 7, 9).

33see ch. 1 above, 11-13. 34cardinal Joseph Bernardin, "The New Challenge of Peace," in Gerard F. Powers, et al., Peacemaking: Moral and Policy Challenges for a New World, 23.

35Bruce Russett, "Peace and the Moral Imperative of Democracy," in Gerard F. Powers, et al., Peacemaking: Moral and Policy Challenges for a New World, 107 36Douglas P. Lackey, Moral Principles and Nuclear Weapons (Totawa, NJ: Rowman and Allheld, Publishers, 1984), 9. 37Elizabeth Anscombe, "War and Murder," in Richard A. Wasserstrom (ed.), War and Morality (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company, Inc., 1970), 49.

38Jan Narveson, "Pacifism: A Philosophical Analysis," in Wasserstrom, War and Morality, 63. 39M. Jay Whitman, "Is Pacifism Self-Contradictory?" Ethics 76:4 (July 1966): 307f.

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40Narveson, "Pacifism: A Philosophical Analysis," 64, judges, correctly in my estimation, that only the absolute type of pacifism "is of philosophical interest." It is, however, beyond the scope of the present study to rehearse the arguments for and against each of the types of pacifism mentioned in this section. 41 Richard Wasserstrom, "On the Morality of War: A Preliminary Inquiry," in Wasserstrom, War and Morality, 93.

42oavid Malament, "Selective Conscientious Objection and the Gillette Decision," in Marshall Cohen, et al. (eds.), War and Moral Responsibility (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974), 163f. 431bid, 164. 44wasserstrom, "On the Morality of War," 93. 45Narveson, "Pacifism: A Philosophical Analysis," 69f. 461bid, 65-67. 47Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1932), 264-77. 48see the useful analysis of Niebuhr's position in James F. Childress, Moral Responsibility in Conflicts: Essays on Nonviolence, War, and Conscience (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1982), 36-41. 49National Conference of Catholic Bishops, The Challenge of Peace: God's Promise and Our Response (,4 Pastoral Letter on War and Peace), 37, 24 (paragraphs 119, 75). 50wasserstrom, "On the Morality of War," 93. 51 James Turner Johnson, "The Muddle of American Pacifism," in Cromartie, Peace Betrayed: Essays on Pacifism and Politics, 129.

52James F. Childress, "Contemporary Pacifism: Its Major Types and Possible Contributions to Discourse About War," in Weigel and Langan, The American Search for Peace, 114-20. 531bid., p. 115. 54Lackey, Moral Principles and Nuclear Weapons, 10. 55James F. Childress, "Pacifism," in Childress and Macquarrie, The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Ethics, 447.

56Narveson, "Pacifism: A Philosophical Analysis," 68.

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57childress, "Pacifism," 447. 58childress, "Contemporary Pacifism," 117. 59Edward J. Laannan, Nuclear Pacifism: ''Just War" Thinking Today (New York: Peter Lang, 1984), 37. 60childress, "Pacifism," 447. 61Thomas Donaldson, "Nuclear Deterrence and Self-Defense," Ethics 95:3 (April 1985): 537-48. 62Daniel A. Dombrowski, Christian Pacifism (Philadelphia: 1991), 94. Cf. the sununary chart on 83.

Temple University Press,

63Robert E. Goodin, "Nuclear Disarmament as a Moral Certainty," Ethics 95:3 (April 1985): 641-58. 64Douglas P. Lackey, "Missiles and Morals: A Utilitarian Look at Nuclear Deterrence," Philosophy and Public Affairs 11:3 (Summer 1982): 189-231. The glaring weakness of this artificial, abstract argument, particularly its failure to include values other than the mere survival of individuals and masses, its unrealistic assessment of the probable consequences of unilateral nuclear disarmament by the United States, and its lack of appreciation of the historical roles of the major nuclear adversaries, are vigorously exploited in Gregory S. Kavka, "Doubts About Unilateral Nuclear Disarmament," Philosophy and Public Affairs 12:3 (Summer 1983): 255-60. 65Robert S. McNamara, "The Military Role of Nuclear Weapons: Perceptions and Misperceptions," Foreign Affairs 62: I (Fall 1983): 59-80. 66stan1ey Hauerwas, Against the Nations: War.and Survival In a Liberal Society (Minneapolis: Winston Press, 1985), 140-46. 67nouglas P. Lackey, "Disarmament Revisited: A Reply to Kavka and Hardin," Philosophy and Public Affairs 12:3 (Summer 1983): 263. 68Karl Barth, "Recapitulation Number Three," The Christian Century 77:3 (January 20, 1960): 73. He rejected as a denial of the Christian faith any connection whatsoever with the "infamous A- and H-bombs." 69Quoted in Donald L. Davidson, Nuclear Weapons and the American Churches: Ethical Positions on Modern Warfare (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1982), 128. 70Robert Heyer (ed.), Nuclear Disarmament: Key Statements of Popes, Bishops, Councils and Churches (New York: Paulist Press, 1982), 269. 71John C. Bennett, "Moral Tensions in International Affairs," in Kenneth W. Thompson (ed.), Moral Dimensions ofAmerican Foreign Policy (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books,

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1984), 193, and John C. Bennett, "Nuclear Deterrence Is Itself Vulnerable," Christianity and Crisis 44:13 (13 August 1984): 296-301. Other relevant works by Bennett include "Moral Urgencies in the Nuclear Context," in John C. Bennett (ed.), Nuclear Weapons and the Conflict of Conscience (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1962), 92-121; "The Ethics of Force in the Nuclear Age," in John C. Bennett, Foreign Policy Jn Christian Perspective (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1966), 102-26; "Soviet Aims and Priorities: The Need for a New Debate," Christianity and Crisis 41:15 (19 October 1981): 275-79; and "An Evaluation ofMilitazy Deterrence," in John C. Bennett and Harvey Seifert, U.S. Foreign Policy and Christian Ethics (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1977), 101-21. Like Lackey among the philosophical ethicists and many in the various segments of the anti-nuclear "peace movement," Bennett manifested a pronounced tendency to discount the enormities of Soviet history, while viewing "both sides" of the nuclear balance of power with an ostensibly dispassionate, albeit disturbing, equanimity. 72charles S. Thompson (ed.), Morals and Missiles: Catholic Essays on the Problem of War Today (London: Clarke, 1959). 73Laannan, Nuclear Pacifism, 153. 74Francis X. Winters, SJ., "Ethical Considerations and National Security Policy," Parameters 5:1 (1975): 20, and Francis X. Winters, S.J., "Morality in the War Room," America 132:6 (15 February 1975): 110. 75Francis X. Winters, SJ., "The Nuclear Arms Race: Machine Versus Man," in Harold P. Ford and Francis X. Winters, S.J., Ethics and Nuclear Strategy? (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1977), 151, 153. 76Francis X. Winters, S.J., "The Bow or the Cloud? American Bishops Challenge the Arms Race," America 140:2 (25 July 1981): 29. 77Francis X. Winters, SJ., "After Tension, Detente: A Continuing Chronicle of European Episcopal Views on Nuclear Deterrence," Theological Studies 45:2 (June 1984): 351. 78see ch. 4 n47 above. In paragraph 175 the bishops insist that "the moral duty today is to prevent nuclear war from ever occurring," while upholding the virtues of justice, freedom, and independence. The "strictly conditioned moral acceptance of nuclear deterrence" appears in paragraph 186. Throughout the section on deterrence the bishops argue consistently against the probability of limited nuclear war and any policies that might enhance a nuclear war-fighting capability of the United States. Although the second draft of this Pastoral Letter asserted these claims more boldly, the final version gives the impression of some :flexibility: the burden of proof, in the bishops' estimation is on anyone who would counter their presumptions. Thus the results of their collective rejection of the use of any nuclear weapons is a materially functional, if not officially formal, nuclear pacifism. 79Fr. Hehir has maintained a consistent position against any use of nuclear weapons, while allowing for the continued possession of these weapons on an ad interim basis alone, their value deriving from the ambiguity surrounding the intention of the United States to resort to actual use. Hehir's "mixed model" version of nuclear pacifism precludes any use, so the net result is deterrence through bluff, or, as he would prefer to describe it, "uncertainty." Of course, if the adver-

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sary is cognizant of this bluff, its utility would seem non-existent. The demise of the Soviet Union seems to have slowed the nuclear pacifist juggernaut in the West, and Hehir, now teaching at Harvard Divinity School, is not as vocal on this topic in the late 1990s as he was two decades ago. For Hehir's earlier views, see J. Bryan Hehir and Robert A. Gessert, The New Nuclear Debate (New York: Council on Religion and International Affairs, 1976), esp. 47-69; J. Bryan Hehir, "The Catholic Church and the Anns Race," Wor/dview 21:7-8 (July-August 1978): 16; J Bryan Hehir, "The Just War Ethic and Catholic Theology: Dynamics of Change and Continuity," in Thomas A. Shannon (ed.), War or Peace: The Search for New Answers (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1980), 27-29; J Bryan Hehir, "P.D. 59: New Issues in an Old Argument," Worldview 23:11 (November 1980): 12; J. Bryan Hehir, "Opposing the Nuclear Threat: The Convergence of Moral Analysis and Empirical Data," in Lester Grinspoon (ed.), The Long Darkness: Psychological and Moral Perspectives on Nuclear Winter (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986), 175f. For a less than flattering analysis of Fr. Hehir's impact on the thinking of the American Catholic bishops for whom he has served as advisor and secretary, see Weigel, Tranqui/litas Ordinis, 314-24. 80"Appeal to the Leaders and Followers of All Religions," Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate 11 (1982): 72-75, esp. 75. 8lstan1ey S. Harakas, "The NCCB Pastoral Letter: 'The Challenge of Peace'-An Eastern Orthodox Response," in Charles Reid (ed.), Peace in a Nuclear Age: The Bishops' Pastoral Letter in Perspective (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1986), 271. 82John Howard Yoder, Nevertheless: Varieties and Shortcomings of Religious Pacifism (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1971). In an earlier study he outlined only five types of "theological pacifism." See John Howard Yoder, Karl Barth and the Problem of War (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1970), 53f. 83Joseph L. Allen, War: A Primer for Christians (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1991), 20f. 84Lisa Sowle Cahill, Love Your Enemies: Discipleship, Pacifism and Just War Theory (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994), 13, 2, 229. Cf. 236 85Edward LeRoy Long, Jr., War and Conscience in America (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1968), ch. 3-"Religious Opposition to Participation in War." A third category"Trans-moral Pacifism"-is rooted in distinctively Asian assumptions about the nature of man, human history, and good and evil. Consequently, it is irrelevant to the present discussion. Cf. ibid, 71-75. 86Ibid, 53, 58, 61. 87For a brief account of the Roman Catholic pacifist movement in America, see Tom Cornell, "The Catholic Church and Witness Against War," in Shannon, War or Peace: The Search for New Answers, 200-13. 88weigel, Tranquillitas Ordinis, 153, 157. 89Gordon C. Zahn, "Pacifism and the Just War," in Philip J. Murnion (ed.), Catholics and

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Nuclear War: A Commentary on The Challenge of Peace, The U.S. Catholic Bishops' Pastoral Letter on War and Peace (New York: Crossroad Publishing Company, 1983), 119. Among the many other works in which Zahn expressed his absolute vocational pacifism, the following major studies are particularly noteworthy: War, Conscience, and Dissent (New York: Hawthorne Books, 1967); Thomas Merton on Peace (New York: McCall, 1977); An Alternative to War (New York: Council on Religion and International Affairs, 1963); German Catholics and Hitler's Wars (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1962); and Jn Solitary Witness: The Life and Death of Franz Jaegerstaetter (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964). 90zahn, "Pacifism and the Just War," 121-24. 91Jbid, 125. 92Jbid, 128. 93yoder, When War Is Unjust: Being Honest In Just-War Thinking, 7lf. 94John Howard Yoder, The Christian Witness to the State (Newton, KS: Faith and Life Press, 1964), 51f. 95John Howard Yoder, The Original Revolution: Essays on Christian Pacifism (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1971), 48, 50f, 172, 175, 153, 155. 96John Howard Yoder, The Politics of Jesus: Vidt Agnus Noster (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1972), 245. 971bid, 175, 191, 190, 214. 981bid' 238. 991bid, 242, 242f.

lOOlbid, 245. lOllbid, 256. 102John Howard Yoder, "Living the Disarmed Life: Christ's Strategy for Peace," in Jim Wallis (ed.), Waging Peace: A Handbook for the Struggle to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (San Francisco: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1982), 132-34. 103Long, War and the Christian Conscience, 63, 66f, 69f. 104Robert McAfee Brown, Religion and Violence (2d ed.; Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1987 [1973]), 8. 105one of the best analyses of this principle, which Gandhi attributes in part to Jesus of

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Nazareth, and which, in turn, helped to shape Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s, concept of "nonviolent direct action" during the American civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s, is Will Morrisey, A Political Approach to Pacifism, vol. 1 (Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1996), 267-86. 106Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 186f, 227. 107Gene Sharp, "Beyond Just War and Pacifism: Nonviolent Struggle Toward Justice, Freedom and Peace," The Ecumenical Review 48:2 (April 1996): 235 108William R Marty, "The Liberal Protestant Peace Movement Between the World Wars: A Realist Critique," in Schlabach and Hughes, Proclaim Peace: Christian Pacifism From Unexpected Quarters, 200. 109George Weigel, "Five Theses for a Pacifist Reformation," in Cromartie, Peace Betrayed? 72. llODale Aukennan, Darkening Valley: A Biblical Perspective on Nuclear War (New York: The Seabury Press, 1981), 135. Aukerman reveals an explicitly leftist tinge in his vision of the "shalom community" to which he feels Christians are called: "The community in its own economic life seeks to point toward the radical redistribution of available resources with the goal of worldwide equality." Ibid, 204. llllbid, esp. 6-11, 44-48. 112Ibid, 8.

114Ibid, 44, 48. 115Ibid, 182, 183. 116charles E. Curran, American Catholic Social Ethics: (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1982), 242.

Twentieth Century Approaches

117useful, though critical, biographical infonnation about Douglass and analyses of his impact may be found in Weigel, Tranqui/litas Ordinis, 170-73, and Curran, American Catholic Social Ethics, 243-82. Details about his numerous protests, arrests, and incarcerations are scattered throughout James W. Douglass' autobiographical theology: Lightning East to West (Portland, OR: Sunburst Press, 1980). Archbishop Hunthausen announced in the 1980s, for example, that he had refused to pay 50% of his federal income tax to demonstrate his disapproval of the military budget in general and the nuclear portion in particular. Moreover, his support for "Dignity," an activist Catholic organization that affirms homosexuality as a viable moral lifestyle, did not help his image at the Vatican while he was still in office.

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118James W. Douglass, The Non-Violent Cross: A Theology ofRevolution and Peace (New York: Macmillan, 1968); Resistance and Contemplation: The Way of Liberation (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1972); Lightning East to West; "Christ is Risen From Nuclear Holocaust," in Wallis, Waging Peace: A Handbook/or the Struggle to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, 244-50. 119Douglass, The Non-Violent Cross, 75. 120Douglass, Resistance and Contemplation, 88f. 121Douglass, Lightning East to West, 78. 122Douglass, "Christ Is Risen," 244, 245. 123Douglass, Lightning East to West, 79-81. 124curran, American Catholic Social Ethics, 266. 125Douglass, "Christ Is Risen," 249, 250. 126Douglass, Lightning East to West, 9; Douglass, The Non-Violent Cross, 55, 211. 127Douglass, Lightning East to West, 18. 128Douglass, The Non-Violent Cross, 22.

129Ibid' 177f. 130Douglass, "Christ Is Risen," 250.

13 lDouglass, Lightning East to West, 80. 132nouglass, Lightning East to West, 74; Douglass, "Christ is Risen," 247. l33Douglass, Resistance and Contemplation, l 7f. 134Jbid, 33. l35Douglass, Lightning East to West, 3-5.

136Ibid, 60. 137Ibid, 93f.

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CHAPTERS 1An apt phrase, however, used derisively in Robert Duncan Culver, The Peacemongers: A Biblical Answer to Pacifism and Nuclear Disarmament (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1985), 72. 2Waldennar Janzen, "War in the Old Testament," Mennonite Quarterly Review 46:2 (April 1972): 165. 3Peter C. Craigie, The Problem of War in the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1978), 43. 4Millard C. Lind, Yahweh Is A Warrior: (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1980), 23.

The Theology of Warfare in Ancient Israel

5lbid, 34. 6lbid, 23.

8Jacob J. Enz, The Christian and Warfare: The Roots of Pacifism in the Old Testament (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1972), 52. 9Lind, Yahweh Is a Warrior, 59f.

IOw. Klassen, "War in the NT, 11 in David Noel Freedman, et al., Doubleday Anchor Bible Commentary (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 6:869. lllbid. 12Lind, Yahweh Is a Warrior, 172.

BJ. Carter Swaim, War, Peace, and the Bible (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1982), 10. 14Lind, Yahweh Is a Warrior, 171. 15Rosemary Radford Ruether, "Augustine and Christian Political Theology," Interpretation 19 (1975): 254f 16For example, Ignio Giordani, The Social Message of Jesus, transl. Albo I. Zizzamia (Boston: Daughters of St. Paul, 1977), 347, concludes that the gospel "condemns war as a principle and activity of evil" but does not condemn the soldiers who must dutifully wage war. The truth is much more complex. Cecil John Cadoux, The Early Church and the World (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1925), 55, derives his conclusion about Jesus' pacifism from His "ethical teaching" generally, which "is obviously and flagrantly incompatible with intentional and organized blood-

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shed, and therefore with war." 17Cecil John Cadoux, The Early Christian Attitude To War: A Contribution to the History of Christian Ethics (New York: The Seabury Press, 1982 reprint of 1919 original), 26. 18J. Massyngbaerde Ford, My Enemy ls My Guest: Jesus and Violence in Luke (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1984), x. She weaves a remarkable tapestry of interpretations of whole sections of the Gospel of St. Luke. The Lukan perspective, in her judgment, elevates the personal example of Jesus Christ's active outreach to social outcasts and other undesirables by contemporary Jewish standards, as well as His living acceptance of "enemies" of all sorts, to a radically new doctrine of non-violence, nonresistance, and universal forgiveness. Cadoux, The Early Christian Attitude to War, 23n, noted that the Greek word for "enemies" in the Gospel of St. Luke (oi echthroi) is used on occasion to refer to national enemies oflsrael (or the Chosen People) in the Septuagint, in Luke 1:71, 74; 19:43, and, as late as the second century A.O., in Origen's Contra Ce/sum, II.30; VIII.69. This political usage raises the love of enemies to a level beyond that of forgiving one's private or personal foes. 19Thus it is odd that the French Refonned pacifist, Jean Lassere, War and the Gospel, transl. Oliver Coburn (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1962), 62, downplays the sources of pacifism in the Old Testament, concluding instead that "the systematic refusal of violence was a personal contribution by Jesus of Nazareth, His original discovery." 20Roland H. Bainton, Christian Attitudes Toward War and Peace (New York: Abingdon Press, 1960), 56f; and Cadoux, The Early Christian Attitude to War, 23-25. 21Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1932). 22John Helgeland, Robert J. Daly, and J. Patout Burns, Christians and the Military: The Early Experience (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), 15. Cf. Culver, The Peacemongers, 92. 23see, for example, Edward J. Ryan, "The Rejection of Military Service by the Early Christians," Theological Studies 13 (1952): 7. 24Even more gnostic-sounding is the magnificent theological analogy in Epistola ad Diognetum, 6:1-10, between the soul in the body, on the one hand, and Christians in the world, on the other. But this imagery, too, whatever its origins, reflects an authentic Christian asceticism grounded in the cross of Christ. 25see 63 above. 26To be sure, this perspective can not be easily reconciled with Romans 13:1-7. It is possible that 2 Thessalonians, if pseudonymous as many New Testament scholars contend, reflects the more advanced view of St. Paul vis-a-vis Rome as recorded by a disciple, extending the trajectory that begins in 2 Corinthians 6: 14-7: 1. 27paul S. Minear, New Testament Apocalyptic (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1981), 117.

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28Ibid' 118. 29G. R. Beasley-Murray, The Book ofRevelation, 278. 30Ibid, 281. 31 The present locus of this episode in Revelation 12 is puzzling, but that is normal for this most mysterious book of the Bible. Michael, incidentally, is the military champion of ancient Israel in Daniel 10:13; 12: I. 32Minear, New Testament Apocalyptic, 99. 33This is what St. Justin Martyr and other Church Fathers seemed to imply when they interpreted Isaiah 2:2-4 not as the messianic age of the Second Advent, but rather as the result of the Incarnation.

CHAPTER6 !Ryan, "The Rejection of Military Service by the Early Christians," IOf; Helgeland, et al., Christians and the Military: The Early Experience, 48-55. For a somewhat dissenting view based on research findings that there was no universal or uniform discouragement of non-pagan worship by low-ranking military officers, see A.D. Nock, "The Roman Army and the Roman Religious Year," Harvard Theological Review 45 (1952): 187-252. 2ch. 8 below will discuss those soldier saints in detail. 3Eusebios, Ecclesiastical History, V.4.3-5.7. For a concise analysis of this legend, see Helgeland, et al., Christians and the Military: The Early Experience, 31-34. Even the dedicated pacifist, Cadoux, The Early Christian Attitude To War, 105, 113, admitted this seeming anomaly, but he challenged the date by noting that "the earliest evidence we have for the enlistment in the army of Christians who were already baptized" is Tertullian's treatise De Jdo/atria, which Cadoux dates ca. A.D. 198-202. See also Ryan, "The Rejection of Military Service by the Early Christians," 12-14; Bainton, Christian Attitudes Toward War and Peace, 67-72; and John Helgeland, "Christians and the Roman Army A.D. 173-337," Church History 43 (1974): 156-61. 4codex Theodosiani, 16.10.21. ET of text in The Theodosian Code and Novels and the Sirmondian Constitutions, transl. Clyde Pharr (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1952), 475f. 5contra the arguments of Helgeland, 11 Christians and the Roman Army A.D. 173-337," 156, and Ryan, "The Rejection of Military Service by the Early Christians," 14f, that the primary, if not exclusive, reason for Christian opposition to the Roman military was the practice of idolatry in the ranks. This view ignores overwhelming evidence to the contrary. 6st. JustinMartyr,Apologia, I.12. ET: ANF 1:166. (Cf. ch. 2 n5 above.) 7Ibid, I.17 (ANF 1:168).

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8Ibid, I.14 (ANF 1:167). 9lbid, I.16 (ANF 1:168). lOJbid, I.39 (ANF 1:176). llst. Justin Martyr, Dia/ogos, 110. ET: ANF 1:254. 12st. Athenagoras, Presbeia peri' Christianon, 1.3. ET: Athenagoras, Legatio and De Resurrectione, ed and transl. William R Schoedel (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1972), 5. 13Jbid, 37.2-3 (87). 14Ibid, 1.4 (5). 15Jbid, 35.5 (85). 16Ibid, 35.6. In light of this consistent position, St. Athenagoras' use of the adverb 0 unjustly" (adikos) in reference to the slaying of "thousands on thousands" in his treatise On the Resurrection, 19.7 (137), may seem to mitigate his otherwise absolute pacifism. The use of this adverb, however, does not necessarily imply the logical necessity of its inverse-i.e., a ''.just" slaying of thousands. Moreover, Athenagoras' statements already quoted above are so clear as to preclude such a dubious intention. 17Louis J. Swift, The Early Church Fathers On War and Military Service (Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, Inc., 1983), 38. 18Tertullian, De Jdolatria, 19. ET: ANF 3:73. 19Tertullian, De Corona, 1-10, 12. ET: ANF3:93-99, lOOf. 20Jbid, 13, 15 (ANF3:101, 102f). 21Ibid, 11 (ANF3:99). 22Jbid (ANF3:100).

25stephen Gero, "Miles Gloriosus: The Christian and Military Service According to Tertullian," Church History 39 (1970): 298. 26st. Hippolytus of Rome, Apostoliki Paradosis, 16, 19. ET: St. Hippolytus of Rome, The Treatise on the Apostolic Tradition, ed. and transl. Gregory Dix (London: S.P.C.K., 1937), 26f.

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27cadoux, The Early Christian Attitude To War, 122f. All quotations of these translations are taken from this secondary source. For a summary discussion of the discoveries and textual history of these documents, see Johannes Quasten, Patrology (Utrecht-Antwerp: Spectrum Publishers, 1975), 2:181-86. 28 According to the translation of the Latin by Achelis. 29 According to the Ethiopic version. 30Arnobius of Sicca, Adversus Nationes, III, 26. ET: Arnobius of Sicca, The Case Against the Pagans, transl. George E. McCracken ("Ancient Christian Writers," Nos. 7 & 8; Westminster, MD: The Newman Press, 1949), 212. Hereafter this ET abbreviated as A CW. 3llbid (ACW7-8:212f). 32Ibid, VII.51 (ACW7-8:538). 33Ibid, VI.2 (ACW7-8:453). 34Ibid, I.6 (ACW7-8:64). 35Ibid, Ill (ACW7-8:114). 36Lactantius, Divinae Institutiones, V.6. ET: Lactantius, The Divine Institutes, transl. Sr. Mazy Francis McDonald, O.P. ("The Fathers of the Church," vol. 49; Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1964), 342. The "axes" here refer symbolically to the power of certain magistrates, but the "swords" are literal weapons. Hereafter this ET abbreviated asFC. 37Ibid, V.10 (FC 49:352). 38Ibid, V.17 (FC 49:370). 39Ibid, VI.18 (FC 49:445f, 446f). 40Ibid, I.18 (FC 49:72). Continuing in this vein, he expressed a wistful hope in peace:

If immortality can be produced in no other manner except through bloodshed, how could it take place if all should agree upon peace? This could certainly happen if, casting out pernicious and impious rage, men should desire to be innocent and just. Would no one then be worthy of heaven? Would virtue perish, since men would no longer rage against other men? But those who regard overturnings of cities and peoples the greatest glory will not endure public leisure; they will seize, rage, and insolently bearing injuries, they will break social relationships in order to have an enemy to destroy as wickedly as they have harassed him.

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Ibid, 1.18 (FC 49:73). 41Ibid, VI.20 (FC 49:452). 42Ibid, V.8. (FC 49:345f). 43Ibid, VII.25, 15 (FC 49:534, 513). 44st. Damasus, Epigram, 8.4-7. ·Quoted in translation in Jean-Michel Homus, It Is Not Lawful for Me to Fight: Early Christian Attitudes Toward War, Violence, and the State, transl. Alan Kreider and Oliver Coburn (Rev. ed.; Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1970), 152. 45Homus, It Is Not Lawful for Me to Fight, 190. 46For a detailed analysis of this canonical tradition in the Eastern Church, see the next chapter. 47Prudentius, Peristephanon Liber, I.31-42. ET: Prudentius, Poems, transl. Sr. M. Clement Eagan, C.C.V.I. ("The Fathers of the Church," vol. 43; Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1962), 98f. 48Ibid, 1.58-66 (FC 43:100f). 49see ch. 8 (174f) below. 501n a subsequent letter to Victricius dated ca. A.D. 404, he peppered his prose with military metaphors taken from the Bible to encourage his colleague then under siege for allegedly heretical teachings. St. Paulinus thus demonstrated an affinity for the themes of war and conflict, albeit on a spiritual, not physical, level. See St. Paulinus, Epistolae, 37.1-7. ET: St. Paulinus of Nola, Letters, vol. 2, transl. P. G. Walsh ("Ancient Christian Writers," No. 36; Westminster, MD: The Newman Press, 1967), 177-83. 51Ibid, 18.7. ET: St. Paulinus of Nola, Letters, vol. 1, transl. P. G. Walsh ("Ancient Christian Writers," No. 35; Westminster, Md.: The Newman Press, 1966), 173. This letter may be dated A.D. 397 or 398. 52Jbid, 25.3. ET: Letters, vol. 2, 74f. This letter may be dated A.D. 400. 53Ibid, 25.8. ET: Letters, vol. 2, 78.

CHAPTER 7 1A. Gorbachev, "The 30th Anniversary of the Great Victory: In the Moscow Theological Schools," Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate, no. 8 (1975): 10-13.

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2Much of this chapter appeared originally in Webster, "The Canonical Validity of Military Service by Orthodox Christians," 258-68, 277f. 3The original Greek texts of these canons can be found in G. A. Ralles and M. Poties (eds.), Syntagma Ton Theion kai leron Kanonon. Cf. ch. 2 n70 above. Hereafter this source will be ab-

breviated with volume and page. For the present canon, RP 2:9. 4charles Joseph Hefele, A History of the Christian Councils, vol. l (2d rev. ed.; Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1872), 460. Hereafter volumes in this series by the Roman Catholic scholar will be cited as Hefele, with volume, year, and page. 5The Rudder is the great collection of canons and interpretations by the late eighteenth centmy monks from Mt. Athos, SS.Agapios and Nicodemos. Cf ch. 2 n70 above. The present reference is to The Rudder, 9. For John Zonaras, see ch. 2 (49) and ch. 2 n71 above. The present reference is to RP 2:9.

6RP 3:342. In The Rudder this is listed as canon 18.

8rhe Rudder, 615.

9st. Paul apparently wishes to imply that one who campaigns (ho strateuomenos) for God as well as for a commander must be single-minded. lORP 2:220f. llrhe Rudder, 248.

12H. J. Schroeder, S.J., Disciplinary Decrees of the General Councils: Text, Translation, and Commentary (St. Louis: B. Herder Book Company, 1937), 890-92. 13William Bright, Notes on the Canons of the First Four General Councils, a nineteenth century work quoted in Herny R. Percival (ed.), The Seven Ecumenical Councils of the Undivided Church ("A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church," vol. 14; 2d ser.; Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1974 reprint), 269f. 14The Rudder, 440.

15RP 2:587f. 16Ibid' 2:686. 17Ibid, 2:104. 18rhe Rudder, 141.

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19RP 2:105. Zonaras also notes the discrepancy. 20Hefele, 1:489f. This famous heresiarch served after A.D. 260 simultaneously as bishop of Antioch and secretary of the treasury for Queen Zenobia of Palmyra. 21RP 4:316. Examples ofother canons are 21and22 of Ancyra (A.D. 314) and 8, 11, 54, 56, and 57 of St. Basil. Cf. canon 43 of St. Basil, which clearly labels as murder any killingeven one in self-defense!

22rhe Rudder, 875. 23Jbid, 876. 24RP 4:317. 25RP 4:319. 26canon 66 of the Holy Apostles deposes a cleric who kills someone by striking him in anger. The Rudder, 114, suggests that the deposition would result, if not because of the involuntary murder, then because the cleric had been overcome by the passion of anger. Canon 55 of St. Basil echoes this judgment, although it refers specifically to a killing that results from selfdefense during a robbery. But canon 27 of the Holy Apostles goes so far as to depose a cleric simply for striking someone! Violence of any sort, especially that related to killing, is clearly incompatible with the office of priesthood. 27RP 2:107. 28The Rudder, 142f.

30RP 2:107. 31 The issue of Orthodox military chaplains will be addressed in detail in the next section of the present chapter.

32This does not mean that a causal relation exists, because the resemblances, though apparent, are not very striking. Cf. Hefele 1: 453-56, 490. 33RP 2:232. 34The common use of strateia as a designation for the military notwithstanding, William Bright in Percival, The Seven Ecumenical Councils of the Undivided Church, 272f, argued that here it means "the public service in general." The term itself is thus a vestigial sign of the military basis of Roman monarchy. He cited in support several examples of the use of this term (beginning with the reign of St. Constantine) as "camp" to designate the court of the emperor; he

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also cited the use of the cognate infinitive strateuesthai to mean holding a place at court. But these examples are quite exceptional. Moreover, canon 3 of the same council already addressed secular business affairs more generally, so the present canon would naturally attempt to complement that one by referring obviously to the military itself. 35RP 2:232f. 36so Zonaras and The Rudder, 252. 37Hefele, 3:392f, and Schroeder, Disciplinary Decrees of the General Councils, 96. Cf. Zonaras in RP 2:232f, who argued less precisely that such renegade priests were deemed worthy of a chastisement greater than deposition. The Rudder, 252, offers the alternative explanation, based on the reference to repentance in the canon, that such clergy are guilty of the grave sin of wuepentance. 38schroeder, Disciplinary Decrees of the General Councils, 96. According to Edward H. Landon, A Manual of Councils of the Holy Catholic Church (London: Francis and John Rivington, 1846), 595, 26, canon 5 of that Tours council "excommunicates those who renounce the ecclesiastical state, 11 while canon 7 of that Angers council simply forbids clerics "to occupy themselves with any secular business." If these two canons do not even allude to the military, then Schroeder may have been guilty of exuberant overstatement. 39Parker C. Thompson, The United States Army Chaplaincy, vol. I-From Its Antecedents to 1791 (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of Chaplains, Department of the Anny, 1978), 127f. Thompson also reports that his "congregation burst into a song which spoke of loyalty in an earlier period of revolution, and of trust in their God: 'Eine feste Burg ist unser Gott.' Rallying around their parson-turned-soldier, 162 men from his congregation enlisted in less than thirty minutes. 11 But that is one more instance of the vast differences between the Lutheran and Orthodox moral traditions pertaining to war and the military. 40(Justinian the Great] Corpus Juris Civilis, vol. 3-Novel/ae, ed. Rudolfus Schoell (Berolini: 1895), 606.

41 Nor should the councils in Greece itself enjoy any privileges with respect to clergy in the wake of the recent political trends in that country including, first, fascist interference from the junta of the colonels (1967-1974) and, second, the anti-religious oppression by the socialist government of Andreas Papandreou. 42origen, Contra Ce/sum, VIII.73. ET: ANF 4:668. 43swift, The Early Church Fathers on War and Military Service, 88. 44Eusebios, Vita Constantini, IV.66. ET: NPNF (2d ser.) 1:554f. 45Ibid, II.12 (1:503). 46Quoted in Hornus, It Is Not Lawful For Me to Fight, 76. Cf. A. H. M. Jones, "Military

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Chaplains in the Roman Anny," Harvard Theological Review 46 (1953): 239f. 471oannis E. Anastasiou, "Can All the Ancient Canons Be Valid Today?" Kanon 1 (1973): 37. 48Ministries to Military Personal (Report of a United Church Task Force to the Ninth General Synod, St. Louis, Missouri, June 22-26, 1973) (Philadelphia: United Church Press, 1973), 82, 91.

49ruchard G. Hutcheson, Jr., The .Churches and the Chaplaincy (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1975), 31. 50Ibid, 188. 5lchaplain Activities in the United States Army (Army Regulation 165-1) (Washington, D.C.: Headquarters, Department of the Anny, 31August1989), sections 4-4a(l) and 4-7a. 52Ibid., 4-4b(l) and 4-5a. 53Ibid., 4-5a(2) and 4-5c(l). 541 have recounted my own bittersweet experience as an Orthodox priest on active duty as a U.S. Anny chaplain in "Crisis in the Chaplaincy: Where Are the Soldiers of Christ?" Homiletic and Pastoral Review 89: 10 (July 1989): 48-55. 55Harakas, "The Morality of War," 86. 56For example, canon 13 of St. Basil recommends excommunication from the "holy mysteries" for three years. Cf. my analysis of this penance in Webster, "The Canonical Validity of Military Service by Orthodox Christians," 273-76, and the brief analysis of interpretation of this canon by the fourteenth century Byzantine canonist, Matthew Blastares, in Patrick Viscuso, "Christian Participation in Warfare: A Byzantine View," in Timothy S. Miller and John Nesbitt (eds.), Peace and War in Byzantium, 33-40. 57Harakas, "The Morality of War," 86. 58Harakas, "The Morality of War," 87, unfortunately does not pursue this point to its necessary, albeit antinomical, conclusion. Instead he stops short by arguing, "If we are to hold that the clergy should not, by virtue of their office, bear arms, the Church must in some way or another permit, allow, and justify for the laity the option of the same alternative." The operative words here are "option" and "alternative." But a consistent application of the pacifist trajectory as one of two fundamental moral positions in the antinomy of war and peace in Orthodox moral tradition would mandate absolute pacifism among at least some of the laity as well as the clergy, instead of merely offering it to such persons for their consideration. 59Georges Florovsky, Collected Works, vol. 3-Creation and Redemption (Belmont, MA: Nordland Publishing Company, 1976), 263.

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CHAPTERS lText in The Festal Menaion, transl. Mother Mary and Archimandrite Kallistos Ware (London: Faber and Faber, 1969), 453f. 2Much of this chapter appeared originally in Webster, "Varieties of Christian Military Saints: From Martyrs Under Caesar to Warrior Princes," 6-11, 17-19, 22, 32f, 34. 3some cases offer no clues as to the views of the martyrs on the compatibility of Christianity with service in the officially pagan Roman Anny. In the Testament of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste, for example, the signatories are not identified as Roman soldiers, for the events leading up to their imprisonment are presumed to be common knowledge. But this document, which, unlike the corresponding acta, Herbert Musurillo deems authentic, also omits any hint as to whether the signatories had rejected their profession on principle or merely because of obligatory pagan observances. Text in Herbert Musurillo (ed. and transl.), Acts of the Christian Martyrs (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1972), 355-61. Cf. xlixf. 4A standard legendary version of this vi ta may be found in what I believe is a chapter from a Russian meno/ogion (that is, a collection of vitae for each day of each month): The Passion and Miracles of the Great Martyr and Victorious Wondenvorker Saint George (Jordanville: Holy Trinity Monastery, 1976), esp. 2-4. 5Text in Michael James Fochios (ed. and transl.), For the Glory of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit: A History ofEastern Orthodox Saints (Baltimore: Phanari Publications, 1974), 139. 6Ibid, 111-14. 7Ibid, 115-17. 8Ibid, 147f. 9Jbid., 17-19. lOibid, 103. llText in Musurillo, Acts of the Christian Martyrs, 261-65. 12Ibid, 273-79. 13Ibid, 251-55. Cf. xxxviif. 14Ibid, 241-43. 15Ibid, 245-49. 16ET: Bernard M. Pebbles, The Fathers of the Church (New York: The Fathers of the

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Church, Inc., 1949), 7:103, 105f. 17Ibid, 108f. 18Hippolyte Delehaye, Les Iegendes grecques des saints militaires (Paris: phonse Picard et Fils, 1909), 112, Cf. ch 3 n76 above.

Librairie Al-

19Ibid, 118. 20 Abbo of Fleury, The Passion o/St. Eadmund, 6, 8-9. ET: Corolla Sancti Eadmundi: The Garland of St. Edmund King and Martyr, ed. Francis Hervey (London: John Murray, 1907), 21, 27, 29. 21Ibid, 35. Abbo even mentioned St. Sebastian, who, according to hagiographic tradition, suffered the same manner of death. The whole account, moreover, may be little more than an idealized legend. For the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle simply records that in the winter of A.D. 870 "King Eadmund fought against them, and the Danes gained the victory, and slew the king, and subdued all that land." Ibid, 3. If Abbo did invent the story of the king's voluntary martyrdom, then the hypothesis of pacifism is all the more likely except that it ought to be attributed to Abbo rather than St. Edmund. 22st. Rembert, Life of Anskar, 30, 35. ET: Anskar, the Apostle of the North. 801-865, transl. Charles H. Robinson ([London:] S.P.C.K., 1921), 97-100, 107.

23The Life of St. John Vladimir, Serbian Prince in Voyestav Yanich, Lives of the Serbian Saints (Willets, CA: Eastern Orthodox Books, 1974 reprint of 1921 original), 4. The folkloristic element consists in the anecdote in ibid., 2, about the serpents that no longer harm anyone on a mountain where the saint had prayed to the Lord. 24Hippolyte Delehaye, The Legends of the Saints, transl., V. M. Crawford (n.p.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1961), 154, suggested that the grotesque typos of the decapitated head is a pagan survival in Christian hagiography.

25rhe Life of St. John Vladimir, Serbian Prince in Yanich, Lives of the Serbian Saints, 4. These explicit anti-violence details are missing from a twelfth century legend about St. John Vladimir. In the extant Latin text the prince simply protests his innocence while going calmly and nobly to his unmerited death, holding in his hands a wooden cross. See "The Legend of Prince Vladimir" in Regnum Salavorum. ET: Mateja Matejic and Dragan Milivojevic (eds.), An Anthology of Medieval Serbian Literature in English (Columbus, OH: Slavica Publishers, Inc., 1978), 31. 26The life ofSt. John Vladimir, Serbian Prince in Yanich, Lives of the Serbian Saints, 3. 27George P. Fedotov, Collected Works, vol. 3-The Russian Religious Mind (I): Kievan Christianity, The 10th to the 13th Centuries (Belmont, MA: Nordland Publishing Company, 1975), 94. Ukrainian Orthodox Christians continue to bristle at the notion of Volodymyr, et al., as "Russians. 11 To be fair to the national sensibilities of both the Russian Orthodox and the Ukrainian Orthodox, and, more importantly, to avoid historical anachronisms, we shall avoid

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using either modem national label to refer to the maternal culture and Church of both peoples. 28For a brief explanation of this key christological tenn, see ch. 7 (166) above. For a more detailed discussion of this concept in modern Russian Orthodoxy, see ch. 10 below. 29Fedotov, The Russian Religious Mind (1), 96. 300ld Russian text in Dmitrii Ivanovich Abrarnovitch, Die altrussischen hagiographischen Erzah/ungen und liturgischen Dichtungen iiber die Heiligen Boris und G/eb (Miinchen: W. Fink 1967), 96. Hereafter this text from the 1916 Petrograd edition will be cited as Abramovitch. All English translations are, however, my own. The translation that appears in Serge A. Zenkovsky (ed.) Medieval Russia's Epics, Chronicles, and Tales (2d rev. ed.; New York: E. P. Dutton and Company, Inc., 1974), 101-105, appears to be instead an expanded version of the actual Chronicle entry. 3101d Russian text in A.D. Stender-Petersen, Anthology of Old Russian Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, n.d.), p. 93. Hereafter these excerpts, as well as those from the skazanie in this collection, will be cited as Stender-Petersen. All English translations are my own.

33Ibid, 84. 34Ibid, 96f. 35 Abrarnovitch, Die altrussischen hagiographischen Erzahlungen und liturgischen Dichtungen iiber die Heiligen Boris und G/eb, 96.

37Nicolas Zemov, The Russians and Their Church, 10. 38Abrarnovitch, Die a/trussischen hagiographischen Erzahlungen und liturgischen Dichtungen uher die Heiligen Boris und Gleb, 96.

40Ibid., 97. 41Dimitri Obolensky, "Popular Religion in Medieval Russia, 11 in Andrew Blaine (ed.), The Religious World ofRussian Culture and Russian Orthodoxy (The Hague: Mouton, 1975), 47. 42Fedotov, The Russian Religious Mind (I), 104. 43For the case of St. John Vladimir of Serbia, see the previous section of the present chapter.

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Another renowned parallel is the death of St. Vaclav (or Vjecheslav), a Bohemian prince who was murdered by his semi-pagan brother Boleslav in A.D. 936. The circumstances of St. Vaclav's death are uncertain, but he, too, was proclaimed a martyr by the Church in Bohemia. See Donald Attwater, The Penguin Dictionary of Saints (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1965), 339f. Cf. Fedotov, The Russian Religious Mind (I), 103f. 44citing the cases of Prince laropolk Iziaslavich (+ A.D. 1086), Prince Igor Olgovich (+ A.D. 1147), and various other saints created "from pity," Fedotov, The Russian Religious Mind (I), 105, observed, ironically: Each time the chroniclers relate the political murder of a prince, they hold the example of Boris and Gleb before their eyes. It means that the assassination is represented as a self-offering sacrifice, made for the atonement of sins. The voluntary character of the death is often contradicted by the circumstances related by the same author. 45 Abramovitch, Die altrussischen hagiographischen Erztih/ungen und liturgischen Dichtungen iiber die Heiligen Boris und Gleb, 136.

CHAPTER9 1Joan D. Chittester, 0.S.B., Wisdom Distilled From the Daily: Living the Rule of St. Benedict Today (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1990), 37f. 2ET of texts in The Festal Menaion, transl. Mother Mary and Archimandrite Kallistos Ware, 133, 141, 142, 145, 148. 3Text in ibid., 140. For a useful summary of Orthodox hymnographic texts on peace, see Mark Pearson's unpublished essay, "The Problem of Peace," on the Orthodox Peace Fellowship website on the Internet: . 4 A standard English language edition of these liturgies is The Priest's Service Book (Parts 1 and 2) (New York: The Orthodox Church in America, 1973). 5Robert F. Taft, S.J., "War and Peace in the Byzantine Divine Liturgy," in Miller and Nesbitt (eds.), Peace and War in Byzantium, 19. 6Jsabel Florence Hapgood (comp. and transl.), Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic Church (5th ed.; Englewood, NJ: Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of New York and All North America, 1975), 366. 7Taft, "War and Peace in the Byzantine Divine Liturgy," 26, concludes that the omnipresence of peace in the Byzantine liturgical tradition implies far more than the mere absence of war: "It was, indeed, a very synonym for the Christian cult itself." 8Hapgood, Service Book, 449-53. The advocacy of justifiable war is evidenced at the outset

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by the hynm that prays "for those who have wrought valiant deeds of the Faith and the Fatherland." Ibid, 449. 9seneca, On Tranquility ofMind, [2]. ET: Moses Hadas (transl.), The Stoic Philosophy of Seneca: Essays and Letters of Seneca (Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1965), 81f.

lOJ. M. Rist, Stoic Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), 29. llst. Maximos the Confessor, Centuries on Love, 1.35. ET: St. Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain and St. Makarios of Corinth (comps.), The Philokalia, transl. and ed. G. E. H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, and Kallistos Ware (London: Faber and Faber, 1981), 2:56. Hereafter this collection will be cited as Philokalia with volume and page number. 12st. Isaiah the Solitary, On Guarding the Intellect, 19. ET: Philokalia, 1:26. 13st. Gregory Palamas, The Triads, 11.ii.6. ET: Gregory Palamas, The Triads, ed. John Meyendorff and transl. Nicholas Gendle (New York: Paulist Press, 1983), 49. 14st. John Klimakos, The Divine Ladder, 26.67. ET: St. John Climacus, The Ladder ofDivine Ascent (2d rev. ed.; Boston: Holy Transfiguration Monastery, 1978), 171. 15st. Thalassios the Libyan, Centuries on Love, Self-Control and Life in Accordance with the Intellect, III.5. ET: Phi/okalia, 2:319. 16st. Maximos, Centuries on Love, III.57 (Philokalia, 2:92). 17st. Maximos, Centuries of Various Texts, 1.60. ET: Philokalia, 2:177. 18st. John Klimakos, The Divine Ladder, 15. 74 (ET: 116). 19st. Symeon the New Theologian, Catecheses, XXVII.l. ET: Simeon the New Theologian, The Discourses, transl. C. J. de Catanzaro (New York: PaulistPress, 1980), 284. 20st. Theodoros the Great Ascetic, A Century ofSpiritual Texts, 10. ET: Philokalia, 2:16. 21st. Peter ofDamaskos,A Treasury ofDivine Knowledge (Philoka/ia, 2:205f). 22st. John Cassian, On the Eight Vices. ET: Phi/okalia, 1:73; St. John Klimakos, The Divine Ladder, 26.2 (ET: 16ln); St. John ofDamaskos, On the Virtues and Vices. ET: Philokalia, 2:337. 23Extract in [Igumen] Chariton of Valamo (comp.), The Art of Prayer: An Orthodox Anthology, transl. E. Kadloubovsky and E. M. Palmer (London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1966), 212. 24Jbid ' 211.

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25st. Theodoros the Great Ascetic, A Century ofSpiritual Texts, 26 (ET: Philokalia, 2:19). 26Extract in Chariton of Valamo, The Art of Prayer, 201. 27Evagrios the Solitary, On Prayer, 23. ET: Philokalia, 1:52. 28st. Phllotheos of Sinai, Texts on Watchfulness, 7. ET: Philokalia, 3: 18. 29st. Macarius (Ivanov) of Optino, Russian Letters of Direction 1834-1860, ed. and transl. Iulia de Beausobre (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1975 reprint of 1944 original), 77; St. Theophan the Recluse extract in Chariton ofValamo, The Art ofPrayer, 220. 30chariton of Valamo, The Art of Prayer, 218. From another perspective that would be difficult to harmonize with an absolute pacifist moral position, St. Peter ofDamaskos, A Treasury of Divine Knowledge (Philokalia, 2:258), suggested that the wars in the Old Testament prefigured the spiritual warfare of Christians against unseen demons. In the case of the former, as the Jews struggled against flesh and blood, "to conquer other nations was to do the work of God." 31 Extract in Chariton of Valamo, The Art ofPrayer, 201. 32st. Hesychios the Priest, On Watchfulness and Holiness, 99. ET: Philokalia, 1:179. 33st. Peter of Damaskos, A Treasury ofDivine Knowledge (Philokalia, 2:223). 34st. Symeon the New Theologian, Catecheses, III.9 (ET: 68, 69). 35st. John Klimakos, The Divine Ladder, l.22 (ET: 9). Later in the same work he recommended that the monks use "great discernment in order to know when to take our stand against sin ... and when to withdraw from the fray ... lest we should die." Ibid, 26.183 (ET: 191). 36st. Maximos the Confessor, Centuries of Various Texts, I.41 (Philokalia, 2:173). 37Ibid, II.74 (Philokalia, 2:203). 38st. Maximos the Confessor, The Mystagogy of the Church, XII. ET: Maximus Confessor, Selected Writings, transl. George C. Berthold (New York: Paulist Press, 1985), 199. 39st. John Klimakos, The Divine Ladder, 27.l (ET: 198) and 26.63 (ET: 196). 40st. Macarius of Optino, Russian Letters ofDirection 1834-1860, 84. 41Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, transl. Martin Oswald (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Educational Publishing, 1962), I.7, 1098a (ET: 17). 42Both trichotomist (body/soul/spirit) and dichotomist (body/soul) concepts of human nature were popular among the Church Fathers. In the latter the qualities of mind, the animating prin-

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ciple, and the capability of divine likeness are subsumed under "soul" (psyche). 43st. Gregory Palamas, The Triads, II.ii.6 (ET: 49). 44st. John Klimakos, The Divine Ladder, 27.6 (ET: 198). 45Ibid, 27.2, 5 (ET: 198) 46st. John Cassian, On the Eight Vices (ET: Philokalia, 1:91). 47st. John Klimakos, The Divine Ladder, 30.22 (ET: 227). 48Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy, transl. John W. Harvey (New York: Oxford University Press, 1950), esp. chs. 4 and 5. For an application of Otto's perspective on the holy as numen to the Orthodox mystical tradition, see Webster, "Orthodox Mystical Tradition and the Comparative Study of Religion: An Experimental Synthesis," 626-36. 49st. Peter ofDamaskos, A Treasury ofDivine Knowledge (Phi/okalia, 2: 107). 50st. Hesychios the Priest, On Watchfulness and Holiness, 111 (Philokalia, 1:181). 5lst. Mark the Ascetic, On Those Who Think that They Are Made Righteous by Works: Two Hundred and Twenty-Six Texts, 30. ET: Philokalia, 1: 128. 52Prayer Book (3rd ed.: Jordanville, NY: Holy Trinity Monastery, 1979), 314. 53Epictetus, Enchiridion, XXXIII. ET: Epictetus, Enchiridion, transl. George Long (South Bend, IN: Regnery-Gateway, Inc., 1956), 191-94. 54Ibid, XXXIV (ET: 194). 55st. Maximos the Confessor, Centuries on Love, I.36 (Phi/okalia, II, 56). 56Ibid, IV.58 (Philokalia, 2:107). 57st. Thalassios the Libyan, Centuries on Love, Self-Control and Life in Accordance with the Intellect, 1.40, 43 (Philokalia, 2:309). 58st. John Klimakos, The Divine Ladder, 29.2, 3 (ET: 221). 59cf. St. Peter of Damaskos, A Treasury ofDivine Knowledge (Phi/okalia, 2:231), for an opposing view: "[T]he detached person ... through inward grief ... may mortify the passions and, when the time is ripe, attain peace and gentleness in his thoughts." 60st. Gregory Palamas, The Triads, II.ii.19 (ET: 54).

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6lst. Peter ofDamaskos, A Treasury ofDivine Knowledge (Philokalia, 2:147). 62st. Theognostos, On The Practice of the Virtues, Contemplation and the Priesthood, 42. ET: Philoka/ia, 2:368. 63Ibid, 29, 30 (Philokalia, 2:365). 64st. Maximos the Confessor, Centuries of Various Texts, I.17 (Philokalia, 2:169). 65st. Maximos the Confessor, Commentary on the Our Father, 4. ET in Selected Writings, 115. The translator renders apatheia here as "detachment" instead of "dispassion." 66st. Diadochos of Photiki, On Spiritual Knowledge and Discrimination: Texts, 98. ET: Philokalia, 1:294.

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67st. JohnKlimakos, The Divine Ladder, 26.82 (ET: 173). 68For one attempt to portray a Byzantine Church Father and spiritual writer as a pacifist, see Charles C. McCarthy, "Maximus the Confessor," in Joseph T. Culliton (ed.), Non-violenceCentral to Christian Spirituality: Perspectives from Scripture to the Present ("Toronto Studies in Theology," vol. 8; New York: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1982), 63-85. 69st. Symeon the New Theologian, Catecheses, II.13 (ET: 57). 70Extract in Chariton ofValamo, The Art ofPrayer, 207. 7lst. Peter ofDamaskos, A Treasury of Divine Knowledge, XXI (Philokalia, 2:260). 72st. John Klimakos, The Divine Ladder, 8.29 (ET: 86). Cf. ibid, 24.4 (ET: 146). 73Extract in Chariton of Valamo, The Art ofPrayer, 207 74Extracts in ibid, 211, 212. 75st. John Cassian, On the Eight Vices (Philokalia, 1:86). In ibid, 85, he counseled avoidance of anger directed against "animals and even inanimate objects" as well as humans! 76st. Symeon Metaphrastis, Paraphrase of the Homilies of St. Makarios of Egypt, III.50. ET: Philokalia, 3:306. 77st. John Cassian, On the Eight Vices (Philokalia, 1:85). 78st. Peter ofDamaskos, A Treasury ofDivine Knowledge (Philokalia, 2:234). 79st. John Klimakos, The Divine Ladder, 8.23 (ET: 84). Cf. "meekness" in ibid, 24.2, 3

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(ET: 145). 80st. Symeon the New Theologian, Catecheses, II.8 (ET: 53). 8lst. Maximos the Confessor, Centuries on Love, IV.22, 30 (Philokalia, 2: 102, 103:£). 82Extract in Chariton of Valamo, The Art ofPrayer, 213. 83st. Mark the Ascetic, On Those Who Think that They Are Made Righteous by Works: Two Hundred and Twenty-Six Texts, 132 (Philokalia, 1:136). 84st. Symeon the New Theologian, Catecheses, XXXI.8 (ET: 333).

CHAPTER 10 lrvo Andrle, The Bridge on the Drina, transl. Lovett F. Edwards (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977), 24. 2Ibid., 25.

3see ch. 2 (52) above. 4see ch. 7 (166) and ch. 8 (178) above. 5see the lexical definitions in Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, transl. William F. Arndt and F. Wilbur Gingrich (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957), 429. The discussion of kenoticism in the present chapter is derived from Alexander Webster, "The Exemplary Keno tic Holiness of Prince Myshkin in Dostoevsky's The Idiot," St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly, 28:3 (1984): 197-99. 6see ch. 8 (178) above. 7Fedotov, Collected Works, vol. 3-The Russian Religious Mind (I): Kievan Christianity, The 10th to the 13th Centuries, 94, 105. 8Nadejda Gorodetzky, The Humiliated Christ in Modern Russian Thought (London: S.P.C.K., 1938), ix. 9Ibid, 177.

llQuoted in ibid, 178.

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12Quoted in ibid, 142. 13Ibid, 151. 141bid, 154. 15Georges Florovsky, Collected Works, vol. 5-Ways of Russian Theology (Part One), 158, 157. 16Gorodetzky, The Humiliated Christ in Modern Russian Thought, 177. 17"From the Memoirs oflvan Yefimov," in Fedotov, Collected Works, vol. 2-A Treasury of Russian Orthodox Spirituality, 215. 18Ibid, 21lf. 19Quoted in Nadejda Gorodetzky, Saint Tikhon ofZadonsky, Inspirer of Dostoevsky (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1976), p. 136. 20st. Tildlon of Zadonsk, Letter [1} to J.V. (December 4, 1764), in Fedotov, Collected Works, vol. 2-A Treasury of Russian Orthodox Spirituality, 225. 21Ibid, 226. 22Ibid, 241. 23Gorodetzky, Saint Tikhon ofladonsky, Inspirer ofDostoevsky, 138. 24st. Tildlon of Zadonsk, Letter [8} to Timofey Vasilievich (September 1773), in Fedotov, Collected Works, vol. 1-A Treasury ofRussian Orthodox Spirituality, 235. 251bid' 236. 26Ibid, 235f. 27Quoted in Konstantin Mochulsky, Dostoevsky: His Life and Work, transl. Michael Z. Minihan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967), 562. Italics in original. 28Quoted in ibid.

30Antony K.hrapovitsky, Dostoevsky's Concept of Spiritual Re-Birth, transl. Ludmila Koehler (Chilliwack, Canada: Synaxis Press, 1980), 11. The Russian original of this condensed edition appeared in 1893, was revived ca. 1919, and republished in Sofia, Bulgaria, in 1921.

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3 lThe section on The Idiot in the present chapter is adapted from Webster, "The Exemplary Keno tic Holiness of Prince Myshkin," 189-216. 32Fyodor Dostoevsky, Letter to Apollon Maikov (January 12, 1868), quoted in Mochulsky, Dostoevsky: His Life and Work, 344. The Idiot, begun in Geneva in autumn, 1867, was completed in January 1868 and originally published serially. 33Mochulsky, Dostoevsky: His Life and Work, 343. 34Letters of Fyodor Michai/ovich Dostoevsky to His Family Friends, transl. Ethel Colburn Mayne (New York: Horizon Press, 1961), 143.

35Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot, transl. David Magarshack (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1955), 201. All quotations from The Idiot in the present work are taken from this translation, hereafter cited as The Idiot. 36The Idiot, 375.

37otto, The Idea of the Holy, 35. The sense of fascinans is, for Otto, "the Dionysiacelement in the numen" (or "holy") that encourages "wonderfulness" and longing for personal contact or union with the numen. 38c. S. Lewis, "Christianity and Literature," in G. B. Tennyson and Edward E. Ericson, Jr., Religion and Modern Literature: Essays in Theory and Criticism (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1975), 51: "[A]n.author should never conceive himself as bringing into existence beauty or wisdom which did not exist before, but simply and solely as trying to embody in terms of his own art some reflection of eternal Beauty and Wisdom." 39The Idiot, 38.

40Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Notebooks for The Idiot, ed. Edward Wasiolek, transl. Katherine Strelsky (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967), 129. The entry dates from November 6, 1867. 4lThe Idiot, 661.

42Jbid, 372. 43lbid., 89. 44lbid., 256. 45lbid.' 285. 46lbid., 594.

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47Ibid., 146. 48Ibid, 149. 49Ibid, 149f. 50zemov, The Russians and Their Church, 68.

51The Idiot, 595. 52Ibid, 309. 53Mochulsky, Dostoevsky: His Life and Work, 374.

54rhe Idiot, 50. 55Nicholas Berdyaev, Dostoevsky, transl. Donald Attwater (New York: New American Library, 1974), p. 43, suggested that the action is not directed toward the Prince but rather goes out from him to others. This Russian philosopher may have overstated the case, however, for Myshkin is at least a prism through whom the relative darkness of Nastasya, Rogozhin, Aglaya, et al., is somehow refracted into light. 56Murray Krieger, "Dostoevsky's 'Idiot': The Curse of Saintliness," in Rene Wellek (ed.), Dostoevsky: A Collection of Critical Essays (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1962), 41.

51rhe Idiot, 656f. 58George A. Panichas, The Burden of Vision: Dostoevsky's Spiritual Art (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1977), 71. 59For this concept, see Metropolitan Antony .Khrapovitsky, Dostoevsky's Concept of Spiritual Re-Birth, 46. 60Gorodetzky, The Humiliated Christ in Modern Russian Thought, 65. 61Dostoevsky began writing the book in April 1878 and completed the task in 1880. Though intended as the first of a two-part magnum opus, it proved to be the author's final product before his death on January 28, 1881. 62Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, transl. Constance Garnett (New York: The New American Library, Inc., 1957), 106. Hereafter this translation will be cited as Karamazov. 63 Karamazov, 12. 64Fyodor Dostoevsky, Letter to K. N. Pobedonostzev (September 13, 1879), quoted in Goro-

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detzky, Saint Tikhon ofZadonsk: Inspirer ofDostoevsky, 226. 65scholars continue to debate which of these historical personages exerted the greater formative influence on Dostoevsky. For opposing interpretations, see, for example, Gorodetzky, Saint Tikhon of Zadonsk: Inspirer of Dostoevsky, esp. 220-29, and John P. Dunlop, Staretz Amvro.sy: Model for Dostoevsky's Staretz Zossima (Belmont, MA: Nordland Publishing Company, 1972).

66Karamazov, 289. 67Mochulsky, Dostoevsky: His Life and Work, 635.

68Karamazov, 77. 69lbid., 271.

70lbid, 273-76. 7llbid, 294. 72lbid, 295.

74Gorodetzky, The Humiliated Christ in Modern Russian Thought, 69.

15Karamazov, 27.

76lbid, 334. 77lbid, 699, 700. 78lbid, 700.

CHAPTER 11 1William J. Bennett (ed.), The Book of Virtues: A Treasury of Great Moral Stories (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993). Bennett's ten virtues include two of the classic cardinal virtues (courage and self-discipline-or "temperance" in medieval parlance) and two of the Scholastic theological virtues (faith and compassion-or "charity" or "love"). 2Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography and Other Writings, ed. Peter Shaw (New York: Bantam Books, 1992), 75-77.

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3For a similar view concerning the dichotomy between the physical non-violence expected of Christians according to the life and teachings of Jesus Christ in the New Testament and the "violent perspective" that appears frequently in the New Testament-particularly God's own violence and the fascination with the extreme violence expected at the eschaton-see Michel Desjardins, Peace, Violence and the New Testament (Sheffield, U.K.: Sheffield Academic Press, Ltd., 1997), 18, 19, 62, 72. 4Nonresistance is, therefore, a narrower, more restrictive moral choice. For another way of distinguishing "biblical" nonresistance from other contemporary forms of pacifist non-violence, see Herman A. Hoyt, "Nonresistance,;' in Robert G. Clouse (ed.), War: Four Christian Views (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1981), 44-49. However, Hoyt allows, unexpectedly, for participation by nonresistant pacifists in national militaries in noncombatant capacities. 5John Dear, The God of Peace: Toward a Theology of Nonviolence (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Press, 1994), 50, 51. 6see, for example, Yannaras, The Freedom of Morality, 216, and Vigen Guroian, "The Problem of An Orthodox Social Ethic: Diaspora Reflections," Journal of Ecumenical Studies 20:4 (Fall 1984): 718, 722. 7oavid Hollenbach, S.J., Nuclear Ethics: A Christian Moral Argument (New York: Paulist Press, 1983), 19. 8Ibid, 23.

lONational Conference of Catholic Bishops, The Challenge of Peace: God's Promise and Our Response 0 Pastoral Letter on War and Peace), 24 (par. 74).

lllbid, 37 (pars. 120, 121). 12Ibid, 24 (par. 75). l3John Finnis, Fundamentals of Ethics (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1983), 109. The biblical source of this "intermediate" moral/ethical principle is Romans 3:8. 14oesjardins, Peace, Violence and the New Testament, 111. He is convinced that the New Testament promotes both peace and violence-peaceful behavior by men and women and violence at times by God alone-and that peace and violence should accordingly be viewed as biblically complementary, like the vase and the two facial profiles in the classic trompe l'oeil. 15watter E. Wiest, "A Christian Ethic of Resistance in a War-Making Society," in Ronald H. Stone and Dana W. Wilbanks (eds.), The Peacemaking Struggle: Militarism and Resistance (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, Inc., 1985), 231-44.

16conscientious Objection, (Army Regulation 600-43) (Washington, D.C.: Headquarters,

322

Department of the Anny, 1August1983), Section II, Glossary I. 17Michael Walzer, Obligations: Essays on Disobedience, War, and Citizenship (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970), 127. 18stanley S. Harakas, "The Morality of War," 91. 19 A. John Simmons, Moral Principles and Political Obligatwns (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979), 134. 20fuid., 174. 2lwalzer, Obligations, 121.

22Ibid, 136f. 23Lassere, War and the Gospel, 216. 24Hoyt, "Nonresistance, 11 48.

25Ibid, 49. 26cf ch. 11 n16 above.

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343

INDEX OF NAMES Antonie Plamadeala, Metropolitan, 79 Antoninus Pius, Emperor, 145 Antony IV of Constantinople, Patriarch, 73 Antony Khrapovitsky, Metropolitan, 69-70, 89, 224 Aphraat the Syrian, 87 Aristenos, Alexis, 49 Aristotle, 206, 208 Armenia, 218 Arnobius of Sicca, 154-55, 156 Arseniev, Nicholas, 40 Asa, King, 128 Athanasios, Saint, 33, 88 Athenagoras of Athens, Saint, 147-48, 156 Athens, 66, 76 Athos, Mount, 34 Augustine of Hippo, Saint, 44, 57, 87, 88, 99-101 Augustus, Caesar, 65, 93 Aukerman, Dale, 114-15, 253 Aurelius, Emperor Marcus, 144, 147

Aaron, 149 Abbo ofFleury, 189 Abijah, King, 128 Abraham, 28, 219 Achilles, Saint, 159 Acton, Lord John, 73 Adam, 34 Africanus, 157 Albania, 2 Alexander Nevsky, Saint, 88 Alexandria, 186 Alexei of Leningrad, Metropolitan, 86 Allen, Joseph L., 107 Ambrose ofMilan, Saint, 87 American Academy ofReligion, 15 American Baptist Executive Ministers, 105 American Friends Service Committee, 113 Ammon, 128 Amvrosy of Optina Pustyn, 236 Andric, Ivo, 217-18 Andreiu Saguna, Bishop, 78 Andrew, Apostle, 88 Andrew Stratelates, Saint, 88 Anscombe, Elizabeth, 101 Anskar, Saint, 190

Balsamon, Theodore, 49, 169-72 Bainton, Roland, 93, 137 Barrois, Fr. Georges, 45

345

Clement of Rome, Saint, 87 Codreanu, Corneliu Zelea, 78 Colossae, 180 Commodus, Emperor, 147 Constantelos, Fr. Demetrios, 38 Constantine, Emperor, Saint, 48, 63, 71, 143-44, 148, 156, 175-76, 198 Constantinople, 74, 77-78, 84-85, 168,224 Cooper, Gary, 91 Corinth, 97 Council of Angers (AD 453), 173 Council of Carthage (AD 419), 167 Council of Jerusalem (AD ca. 50), 76 Council of Sirmium (AD 378), 160 Council ofTours (AD 461), 173 Craigie, Peter C., 124 Cyprian of Carthage, Saint, 87 Cyril of Scythopolis, 176 Cyrus the Benevolent, Saint, 186 Czechoslavakia, 2, 113

Barth, Karl, 26, 31, 105 Basil Porphyrogennatos, Emperor, 191 Basil the Blessed, Saint, 227 Basil the Great, Saint, 40, 52, 67-68, 74, 87-88, 171, 199 Beasley-Murray, G. R., 11, 140 Bennett, John C., 105 Bennett, William, 243 Benz, Ernst, 41-42 Bernardin, Joseph (Cardinal), 100 Berrigan, Daniel, 116 Berrigan, Philip, 116 Boris-Michael ofBulgaria, Khan, 88 Boris ofKyiv, Saint, 51, 191-94, 220,233,247 Brown, Robert McAfee Bucharest, 72 Bukharev, Alexis M., Archimandrite,

220 Bulgakov, Fr. Sergius, 31, 36, 42, 59, 73,250 Bulgaria, 2, 3 8

Daniel, Prophet, 10 Day, Dorothy, 108 Damasus, Pope Saint, 159-60, 166 Dasius, Saint, 186 Dear, John, 248 Delehaye, Hippolyte, 51, 189, 191 Demetrios, Saint, 52, 88, 186 Dennis, George T., 86 Desjardins, Michel, 258 Diadochos of Photiki, Saint, 211 Diocletian, Emperor, 155, 159, 185-86 Dion, Proconsul, 187

Cadoux, Cecil John, 135-36, 153 Cahill, Lisa Sowle, 108 Cain, 10, 133 Carthage, 167 Castro, Fidel, 118 Catholic Worker Movement, 108 Caucasus Mountains, 2 Ceausescu, Nicolae, 2 Cervantes, Miguel, 225 Chatfield, Charles, 92 Chelidonius, Saint, 160 Chemus, Ira, 15 Childress, James F., 103-4 Chittester, Sr. Joan, O.S.B., 197 Christian Peace Movement, 6 Chrysopolis, Battle of (AD 324), 175 Churchill, Winston, 23 2 Cicero, 157 Clausewitz, Carl von, 9, 83-84 Clement of Alexandria, 87

Dombrowski, Daniel A., 104 Donaldson, Thomas, 104 Dostoevsky, Fyodor, 20, 55, 78, 95, 119, 195, 215, 221-42, 246-52 Douglass, James W., 17, 116-19, 253 Dragas, Fr. George, 5 Edict of Milan, 48 Edmund, Saint, 189-90

346

Elazar, Daniel, 75 Elias, 28 Ellul, Jacques, 10 Emeterius, Saint, 160 Enz, Jacob J., 125 Epictetus, 93, 208-10 Ethics and Public Policy Center, 2 Eusebios of Caesarea, 71, 84, 143,

Germanos of Old Patras, Bishop, 85 Geuvara, Che, 118 Giultsis, Vassilios, 5 Gleb ofKyiv, Saint, 51, 191-94, 220, 233,247

Giultsis, Vassilios, 5 Gog ofMagog, 128, 139 Gogol, Nikolai, 221 Goodin, Robert E., 104 Gorbachev, A., 165-66 Gorodetzky, Nadejda, 55, 220-21,

175

Evagrios the Solitary, 202-3 Evgenios II of Constantinople, Patriarch, 85 Ezekiel, Prophet, 128, 130, 139, 244

234

Greece, 174, 218 Gregorios V of Constantinople, Patriarch, 85 Gregory Grabbe, Bishop, 70 Gregory of Nyssa, Saint, 34, 170-71 Gregory Palamas, Saint, 37, 47, 201, 206, 210 Gregory the Great, Saint, 47 Ground Zero Center, 116 Guroian, Vigen, 32, 253 Gustafson, James, 9

Fedotov, George P., 68, 191-92, 195, 220

Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), 6 Filaret of Moscow, Metropolitan, 220

Finland, 5-6 Finnis, John, 257 First & Second Council of Constantinople (AD 861), 168 First Ecumenical Council (Nicea, AD 325), 88 Florovsky, Fr. Georges, 7, 30, 36,

Hannibal, 155 Harakas, Fr. Stanley S., 4, 9, 12-13, 31-32, 36, 44, 62, 70, 73-74, 79, 89, 107, 179-80, 262 Hefele, Charles Joseph, 166 Hauerwas, Stanley, 3, 105 Hegel, Friedrich, 61 Hehir, Fr. J. Bryan, 106 Heraclios, Emperor, 84 Heraclitos, 28 Herod Antipas, 13 6 Hesychios the Priest of Sinai, Saint, 204,207 Hippolytus of Rome, Saint, 153-54 Hiroshima, 16 Hollenbach, David, 17, 257 Holofernes, 126 Hoyt, Herman A., 263 Hume, David, 29 Hungary, 2

46-47, 54, 60, 180, 221

Ford, J. Massyngbaerde, 136 Forest, Jim, 6 Fourth Ecumenical Council (Chalcedon, AD 451), 167, 172, 176

France, 88 Francis of Assisi, Saint, 51 Franklin, Benjamin, 243 "Friendly Persuasion," 91 Gallie, W.B., 94 Gallup, George, Jr., 14 Gandhi, Mohandas K., 113, 119 Gennadios, Fr. Limouris, 5 George Khodre, Metropolitian, 80 George, Saint, 185

347

Jomini, Baron de, 84 Jones, John Paul, 264 Joshua, Prophet, 127, 198 Jovan II of Serbia, Patriarch, 85 Judith, 126 Julian the Apostate, Emperor, 188 Julius the Veteran, Saint, 186 Jung, Carl, 119 Justinian I, Emperor Saint, 20, 71, 84, 86, 169, 173-74 Justinian of Romania, Patriarch, 72 Justin Martyr, Saint, 28, 145-147

Hunt, E. Stephen, 14 Hunthausen, Raymond (Archbishop), 116 Hutcheson, Richard G., Jr., 177 Ignatii Brianchaninov, Saint, 212 Inguar, General, 189-90 Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton University, 262 "Insurrection of Saint Sava," 85 International Fellowship of Reconciliation, 6 Irenaios ofLyons, Saint, 33, 87 Isaac of Nineveh, Saint, 51 Isaiah, Prophet, 31, 136-37, 146 Isaiah the Solitary of Egypt, Saint, 201 Isidore of Alexandria, Saint, 185 Isidore of Pelusium, Saint, 87 Ivanovna, S. A., 225

Kant, Immanuel, 94-96 Karmiris,. Fr. Ioannes, 80 Kaufman, Gordon D ., 15 Khomiakov, Alexei, 42-43 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 233 Klassen, W., 127 Krieger, Murray, 232 Kyivan Rus', 20, 52, 191-95, 220, 247

Jane Frances de Chantal, Saint, 51 Janissaries, 217 Janzen, Waldemar, 124 Jastrow, Robert, 25 Jeremiah, Prophet, 129-30, 246 Jerusalem, 135, 140 Joachim of Constantinople, Patriarch, 77 John XXIII, Pope, 100 John Cassian, Saint, 202, 207, 213 John Chrysostom, Saint, 40, 52, 68, 87, 199 John Klimakos, Saint, 47, 53, 20111, 213 John ofDamaskos, Saint, 47, 202 John, Saint, 46, 133-34, 159, 219, 230 Johnson, James Turner, 17, 103 John the Baptizer, Saint, 87, 136, 149, 151 John the Benevolent, Saint, 186 John Vladimir of Serbia, Saint, 190-91

Laarman, Edward J., 104 Lackey, Douglas P., 101, 104-5 Lactantius, 87, 149, 155-59 Laiou, Angeliki, 86-87 Larrick, Jim, 6 Lassere, Jean, 263 Lefever, Ernest W., 14 Legio XII Fulminata, 143 Lenin, Vladimir Ilych, 94 Leo IV, Emperor, 7 4 Lewis, C. S., 226 Licinius, Emperor, 175, 185 Lind, Millard C., 124-25, 129 Little, David, 83 Long, Edward LeRoy, Jr., 83, 108, 112, 114 Lossky, Vladimir, 54 Luke, Saint, 65, 136 Lyaeus, 186 Macarius ofOptino, Saint, 54, 204-5

348

Macintyre, Alasdair, 8-9, 13 MacRae, Fr. George, S.J., 220 Makarios of Egypt, Saint, 203, 213 Marcion, 48 Marinus, Saint, 187 Mark the Ascetic, Saint, 204, 208, 214,233 Martin ofTours, Saint, 162, 187-90, 245 Marty, William R., 113 Matthew, Saint, 137 Maximilian, Emperor, 186-88, 245 Maximilian, Saint, 187, 245 Maximos the Confessor, Saint, 33, 35, 38-39, 47, 53, 201, 205, 209, 211,214,250 McMorrow, Sr. Marilyn, R.S.C.J., 93 McNamara, Robert S., 104 Mercellus, Saint, 186 Meyendorff, Fr. John, 31-32 Micah, Prophet, 131, 137 Michael the Archangel, Saint, 88, 141 Michael the Brave of Romania, 85 Milvian Bridge, 156 Minucius Felix, 87 Moab, 128 Mochulsky, Konstantin, 223-25 Mongol Golden Horde, 88, 218 Moses, 149, 198,263 Muhlenberg, John Peter Gabriel, 173 Muscovy, 218

Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed (AD 325-381), 42 Nicholas Cabasilas, Saint, 39, 47 Niebuhr, Reinhold, 3-4, 62, 73, 102, 138 Nikephoros II Phokas, Emperor, 86 Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain, Saint, 49, 185 Nikolai of Kiev, Metropolitan, 86 Nikon of Moscow, Patriarch, 85 Nissiotis, Nikos, 68 Norway, 88 Novak, Michael, 17 Obolensky, Dimitri, 194 Obrenovich, Milosh, 85 O'Brien, William V., 17 Oikonomides, Nicholas, 86 Origen, 38, 87, 175 Orthodox Peace Fellowship (OPF), 6 Otto, Rudolf, 34, 207 Panichas, George A., 233 Paulinus ofNola, Saint, 162-64 Paul of Samosata, 169 Paul, Saint, 36, 63-67, 72-76, 87, 98, 133-39, 142, 178, 180,204, 219-20, 227, 234, 246-47 Peloponnesos, Greece, 85 Peter I, Tsar, 71, 220 Peter, Saint, 72, 80, 87, 135, 149, 151 Peter ofDamaskos, Saint, 202-4, 207, 210, 213 Philotheos of Sinai, Saint, 203 Photios, Saint, 74-75, 88 Pilate, Pontius, 13 5 Pimen of Moscow, Patriarch, 107 Poland, 2, 113 Procopios, Saint, 185 Prudentius, 160-62

Narveson, Jan, 101 Nagasaki, 16 National Conference of Catholic Bishops, 16-17, 102, 257 Neanian, 185 Nereus, Saint, 159 Nero, Emperor, 140, 200 Nestor, 186 Nestor the Chronicler, Saint, 192 Netherlands, The, 6

Qoheleth, 10 Quirinius of Syria, Governor, 65

349

Staniloae, Fr. Dumitru, 54 Svj atapolk, 194 Swedes, 88 Swedish Peace Conference (AD 1909), 94 Swift, Louis, 148 Symeon the New Theologian, Saint, 47,53,201,204,212,214,233 Synesios of Cyrene, 87 Synod of Constantinople (AD 1872), 77

Qumran, 63 Rabner, Karl, 70 Ramsey, Paul, 17 Rembert, Saint, 190 Romania, 17 Romanian Legion of Saint Michael the Archangel, 78, 85 Ruether, Rosemary, 133 Runciman, Steven, 7 5 Russett, Bruce, 100 Russo-Turkish War (AD 17681774), 223 Russia, 88

Tabor, Mount, 35 Taft, Fr. Robert, 199 Takovo, Serbia, 85 Tareev, M. M., 220-21, 247 Tertullian of Carthage, 48, 87, 148-152 Teutonic Knights, 88 Thalassios the Libyan, Saint, 201, 209 Theodore Stratelates, Saint, 185 Theodore, Tsar, 227 Theodore Tyron, Saint, 185 Theodoros the Great Ascetic, Saint, 202 Theodosios I, Emperor Saint, 71, 84, 144 Theodosios II, Emperor, 144 Theognostos, Saint, 210 Theophan the Recluse, Saint, 53, 202-4, 212, 214 Theophylactos of Ochrid, Saint, 3 8, 88 Theotecnos ofCaesarea, Bishop, 187 Theotokos (Virgin Mary), 183 Thessaloniki, 52, 78, 186 Thomas Aquinas, Saint, 99-100 Tikhon ofZadonsk, Saint, 20, 55, 221-23, 230, 236-37, 246-48 Tolstoy, Lev, 94-95 Tower of Babel, 10, 80 Transylvania, 78 Troeltsch, Ernst, 62

Sabbas, Saint, 86, 176 Samuel, Prophet, 129 Schell, Jonathan, 14 Schism of AD 1054, 20 Schmemann, Fr. Alexander, 40, 52, 71, 252 Schroeder, H. J., 173 Scruton, Roger, 93 "Second" Isaiah, Prophet, 126, 132-33, 247 Second Vatican Council, 116 Seir, Mount, 128 Seneca, 200 Serbia, 2, 88 "Sergeant York," 91 Sergius ofMoscow, Metropolitan, 79, 86 Sergius ofRadonezh, Saint, 88 Seven Ecumenical Councils, 30 Seventh Ecumenical Council (Nicea, AD 787), 168 Severus, Sulpicius, 187-88 Sharp, Gene, 113 Shinn, Roger L., 11 Sibiu, Transylvania, 79 Simmons, A. John, 262 Sirmium, 52 Socrates, 28, 209 Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr, 1, 4, 55, 89 Soviet Union, 17, 55, 113-14

350

United Church of Christ, 177 United States Institute of Peace, 83 Valamo Monastery, 5-6 Victricius of Rauen, Bishop, 162 Vienna, Austria, 85 Vietnam, 1, 116 Virgil, 93 Vladislav of Bulgaria, King, 191 von Rad, Gerhard, 10, 96 Walzer, Michael, 262 Washington, George, 88, 173, 205 Weigel, George, 2-3, 17, 98-100, 108, 113 Whitehead, Alfred North, 54 Whitman, M. Jay, 101 Wiest, Walter E., 259 Wink, Walter, 113 Winters, Fr. Francis X., S.J., 17, 106 World War I, 92, 218 World WarII, 165, 173 Yannaras, Christos, 31, 42, 52, 57, 253 Yefimov, Ivan, 221-22 Yeltsin, Boris, 2 Yoder, John Howard, 3, 107, 109-10, 115 Zabolotsky, Nicolai A., 66 Zahn, Gordon C., 17, 108-9, 116, 254 Zankov, Stefan, 81 Zechariah, Prophet, 131 Zedekiah, King, 131 Zen Buddhism, 119 Zeno of Citium, 201, 209 Zemov, Nicolas, 194, 230 Zonaras, John, 49, 166-67, 170

351