Author ORCID Identifier
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4634-1137
Abstract
The assessment by the Russian Orthodox Church of the war of the Russian Federation against Ukraine as a holy war prompts to determine whether this position of this Church is determined by its theological recommendations on social life, recorded in the Basics of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church. The analysis of this current official document of the Russian Orthodox Church revealed that in the central part of its provisions, where the grounds for evaluating this or that war are given, there are references to the social doctrine of the Catholic Church. This fact led to the need for a comparative analysis of the instructions on war in both the Basics of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church and in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church. Such a comparative analysis revealed that in the Compendium of the Catholic Church's social doctrine, the conditions for the legal use of force to protect against aggressors are considered, whereas in the Basics of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church these conditions are considered the conditions for recognizing a war as just, even when it is waged by attackers on foreign territory. In the Catholic document, the morality of soldiers is measured by objective signs of their activity, while in the Russian Orthodox document, the morality of soldiers and the justice of their use of force is measured by their subjective inner desires. It is also determined that in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church, international organizations (such as the UN) are recognized as co-responsible for decisions to support peace and military operations, but in the Basics of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church, the appropriate activity within the existing organizational system of international coexistence is questioned. Therefore, it was concluded that, despite some similarity in the provisions on war in the two analyzed documents, their distinctive nuances allow and encourage different evaluations of wars, up to opposite evaluations, which is what happens among the leadership and followers of the Catholic Church and the Russian Orthodox Church in the case of the current war of the Russian Federation against Ukraine.
Recommended Citation
Nedavnya, Olga
(2024)
"The Issue of War in the Basic Social Concepts of the Russian Orthodox Church and in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church: A Comparative Analysis,"
Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe: Vol. 44
:
Iss.
4
, Article 3.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.55221/2693-2229.2519
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/ree/vol44/iss4/3