Eastern Orthodox Christianity

Eastern Orthodoxy represents one of the three principal branches of Christianity and the second largest Christian denomination. With its historical connections with the Eastern Roman/Byzantine Empire, the traditional and contemporary areas of its greatest spread and influence are in Eastern Europe, Russia, the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Near East. It represents a decentralized church organization of autocephalous (administratively independent) doctrinally and liturgically united ecclesial bodies. Among these ecclesial bodies the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople has the honor of titular primacy, while several of them function in effect as national churches. The continuity of Eastern Orthodoxy with the apostolic church through the process of apostolic succession is strongly emphasized, with faith and worship being delineated and regulated by its adherence to and recognition of only the decisions and canons of the first seven ecumenical councils (325–787 CE) . Introduction The provenance, historical trajectories, and modern transformations of Eastern Orthodox cultures vis-à-vis the ethics of war display both significant analogies and dissimilarities to the respective Western Christian developments but have received much less in-depth and comprehensive treatment. However, in the last three decades some intense debates have evolved among Eastern Orthodox theologians, Byzantinists, and historians of the modern period centered on the Eastern Orthodox Churches’ and cultures’ traditional and current stances on the legitimization and conduct of just, justifiable, and “holy” warfare, as well as on pacifism and nonresistance to violence. These debates have ranged from the scriptural and patristic substructures of these stances to their more recent reformulations and political instrumentalizations in modern ideologized, “nationalized,” and reformist trends in Eastern Orthodox thought and societies.