War – Just or Justifiable? A Christian Orthodox Perspective
War – Just or Justifiable? A Christian Orthodox Perspective

Summary/Abstract: Being sent to the world Christianity had to determine its moral assessment of different worldly realities, war and peace among them. While the Western tradition rather early developed a just war doctrine, the East took a different path. War has constantly been perceived as evil though in some circumstances necessary and hence justifiable (but strictly speaking neither “just” nor “good”). Both the Greek Fathers and later Eastern authors and Church figures, like Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, would develop their understanding of warfare as “irrational” and an obstacle on every Christian’s path to theosis. The Russian Orthodox Bishops’ The Basis of the Social Concept is a rare example of a more elaborated theory of the justification of warfare.

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