601. War and Peace, Part Three: The Orthodox Priority of Creating Peace, The Russia Problem

Christ is risen! Truly He is risen! 

Written in 2003: 

This is the conclusion to the original article, published by His Eminence Metropolitan Philip.

The Priority of Peace in Orthodox Worship

We Orthodox say that what we believe is found in how we worship.

Look at the words of our worship services:

“In peace, let us pray to the Lord … For the peace from above and for the salvation of our souls … For the peace of the whole world, the good estate of the holy churches of God, and the union of all men … For healthful seasons, abundance of the fruits of the earth and peaceful times, let us pray to the Lord.”

“For the Orthodox servants of God … that they may have mercy, life, peace, health, salvation …”

“All things good and profitable for our souls and peace for the world …”

“That we may complete the remaining time of our life in peace and repentance…”

“For all civil authorities, and our armed forces; grant them, O Lord, peaceful times, that we in their tranquility may lead a calm and peaceful life in all reverence and godliness.”

“For the peace and stability of the whole world …”

“Give peace to thy world, to thy churches, to the priests, to the civil authorities, to the armed forces and to all thy people…”

It seems clear that in the Orthodox understanding, peace is the foundation of all else that is good. The peace of God in our hearts leads us to be at peace with others, to peace in the world. Peace in the world provides the stability which makes civilized society possible, allowing people to seek God in peace.

At every Divine Liturgy we pray for the armed forces. But in the Orthodox understanding, the function of the military is not to make war, but to establish and preserve peace. This interconnection is expressed fully in this petition from the Divine Liturgy of Saint Basil: “Be mindful, O Lord, of all civil authorities and of our armed forces; grant them a secure and lasting peace; speak good things in their hearts concerning thy Church and all thy people, that we in their tranquility [the peace they provide] may lead a calm and peaceful life in all reverence and godliness.”

Saint John Chrysostom on the Priority of Peace

Saint John Chrysostom summed up the Orthodox approach, surely applying it not only to personal relationships but also to world affairs, since he was Archbishop of the imperial city. The Emperor and Empress were listening to him *, and it was their job to apply Orthodox teaching to the Empire. Acvtually, I’m wondering if Orthodoxy even made the distinction between “inner” and “external” peace that we do.

• except maybe Empress Eudoxia! Do you know that story?

Chrysostom said: “God is not a God of war and fighting. Make war and fighting to cease, both that which is against Him, and that which is against your neighbor. Be at peace with all men, consider with what character God saves you. ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” Matthew 5:9 … The more your brother wars against you, by so much the greater will be your reward. For hear the prophet who says, ‘With the haters of peace I was peaceful.’ Psalm 120:7  This virtue which is beyond understanding makes us near to God. Nothing so much delights God as [for us] to remember no evil. This sets you free from sins, this looses the charge against you. But if we are fighting and clashing, we come to be far from God: for conflicts produce hatred, and from hatred springs remembrance [not of God but] of evil.” John Chrysostom, Homily XIV on Philippians

Those, I believe, are the fundamental Orthodox principles regarding peace, whether in our hearts or in the world.

 

Written in 2019 for this Blog:

Warning: I am going to get into politics – but not current events in this year 2019. (That would be pretty dicey.) This will be ancient history to many of you. But not to me. I remember most of it.

How some Non-Orthodox have prioritized Peace.

It involved people who, I suspect, knew nothing about the Orthodox Fathers, though most of them were Christians of various sorts. (This was before Western Europe went secular.) This suggests to me that what Christ and the Fathers taught about peace reflects what God has built into the nature of human beings. Orthodoxy teaches that people are by nature good. A person doesn’t have to be Orthodox or even Christian or even religious to perceive that peace tends to promote peace, and violence increases violence.

Now for the politics.

World War I, that horrible pointless war, was to be “the war to end all wars”. Afterwards the League of Nations was formed to try to prevent another war – but the United States Congress refused to join, and that pretty much killed the project. The Allied Powers proceeded to punish Germany, requiring them to pay for all the damage they had done. This caused the German economy to collapse. (Read up on it for yourself. It was awful.) Many Germans in desperation turned to a strong man – and once Hitler took control it was too late for peace. World War II, which was far more horrible, followed.

Therefore, after World War II the great Allied victors decided to try something else. This time, when Germany and most of Europe were in shambles, the United States government decided to try to “create peace” and keep another major war from happening. (As an American, I am so proud of this!) The European Recovery Program (popularly called the Marshall Plan, after General George Marshall who had proposed it) was an American initiative to aid Europe, overwhelmingly passed by Congress in 1948. The United States gave $13.3 billion (about $100 billion in current US dollars) in economic assistance to help rebuild Western Europe – including our recent enemy, Germany. This plan to create peace worked. Western Europe emerged with democracies, no dictators. Germany became the peaceful economic powerhouse of Western Europe and remains one of our chief allies. And if this should ever cease to be, the result would be…

Also the Europeans themselves decided to find a way to build and keep the peace, to work together and support each other instead of making war with each other, as European countries had been doing for longer than anyone could remember. They formed the European Economic Community, later renamed the European Union (the EU). It also worked. In over 70 years there have been no wars among EU members. The EU was not perfectly designed and certainly needs some reforming. But the attempts today to dismantle the EU simply show that, after a couple of generations, people no longer remember history. And the result would be…?

Also, after World War II, the great powers of the world formed the United Nations, dedicated to preventing another world war by laying the foundations of peace through humanitarian aid and cooperation. The UN has been dysfunctional in some ways and needs reforming, but it has provided an enormous amount of humanitarian aid in a multitude of ways in a multitude of countries. It has been widely condemned or ignored by some in the United States. However, the fact remains that before the UN there had been two world wars in 20 years. In the nearly 75 years since its foundation, has there been another world war?

Then, when the Soviet Union became a threat, the Western nations formed NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization), using our armed forces for their proper role – preventing war, preserving the peace. That also has worked. The Russian threat has re-emerged. And if NATO should fall apart, the result would be…?

In the preceding paragraphs I know I have oversimplified enormously. Many other factors have been involved. But still… these were all attempts by non-Orthodox to create peace in the classic Orthodox way, and they seem to have worked.

Can Orthodox Leaders today prioritize Peace in the World?

In recent centuries there have been few opportunities for Orthodox countries or their leaders to do much of anything but survive, let alone try to create peace. The only modern exception is Russia, now a powerful Orthodox country again. Russia has many reasons to be suspicious of the West: Napoleon’s invasion (you’ve heard the “1812 Overture”?), Hitler’s invasion and more. Communism was a disastrous Western atheistic ideology imposed on Orthodox Russia. Their post-Communist experiment with Western “unbridled capitalism” was another disaster, except to the “oligarchs”.However, I remember when the United States and the Soviet Union were making treaties to limit missiles with the purpose of trying to reduce the threat of war. The first of these was signed in 1987 by Mikhail Gorbachev (baptized Orthodox, a Communist reformer who late in life admitted that he had always been a Christian) and Ronald Reagan (an evangelical Christian of a somewhat casual, optimistic sort) whose peacemaking efforts are now largely forgotten. Both countries then began to systematically reduce our nuclear stockpiles in hopes of preventing war and achieving peace.

Whatever happened to all this? Now we’re all building up our nuclear weaponry again. It was during Holy Week 2018 that our very Orthodox Vladimir Putin  announced Russia’s new hypersonic nuclear missile, with “invincible” power to destroy enemy civilizations.

It’s hard to know what to expect from the United States these days, but why could not Mr Putin, as an Orthodox Christian with great power, be taking the lead in trying to create peace? laying the foundations for peace in the world?

OK  I’m done with politics. In the preceding I was for the most part just describing. And wondering. And wishing. And asking. And maybe daring to hope just a little?

What should we, as Orthodox Christians, think about a possible war with Iran or North Korea or whoever? Should we make use of the Just War Theory? How would we apply Orthodox principles to the situation? * Forgive me, but I do wish Orthodox hierarchs (and clergy and laypeople) today would get as excited about the traditional Orthodox principles regarding war and peace *, as they do about the traditional Orthodox principles regarding abortion and homosexuality.

• In this regard I just came across an excellent statement on the subject from the Russian Orthodox Church about how to make peace.  https://mospat.ru/en/documents/social-concepts/viii/
• Note added in 2026: The above site has been taken down. I wonder why. I’ll have more to say about Russia in a minute. 

Brothers and sisters, do not just go along with the flow of modern politics. “Inform your conscience”, as it is sometimes called. Learn about the issues, seeking the facts, the truth – don’t just absorb the propaganda. Think in the Orthodox way, so that you, as an Orthodox Christian, can justify what you think before God.

Summary

1  The chief work of Orthodox Christians is not negative but positive.  War or fighting of any sort is almost always the result of not having done the things (often for many years) that would have made for peace.

2  If we should go to war again, whether we “win” or not, from the Orthodox point of view we will have lost. War sometimes may be the lesser of evils, but it is always, in a multitude of ways, a failure.

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Written in 2026: The Problem of Orthodox Russia 

Some stats: Russia is about 65% Orthodox, of whom about 7% attend church regularly. Ukraine is about 75% Orthodox, of whom about 30% attend church regularly.

Since 2019 when I concluded this paper:

1) Russia has invaded Ukraine, treating soldiers and civilians alike inhumanely, for over four years targeting schools and apartment buildings, churches and cultural treasures.

2) His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia has endorsed this war – even declaring that those who lose their lives in fighting against Ukraine will have all their sins forgiven!

This is entirely opposed to classical patristic Orthodox principles or even  the Western Just War theory.

The fact is: Ever since the Sixteenth Century Russia has behaved like Western colonial nations who by military power established their empires.

Russia to the west conquered Finland, Sweden, the Baltic countries, Poland  To the east all of Siberia and Alaska. To the south… Here. I’ll show you a map. Russia was originally that small red area in the west.

Russian armies were followed by traders and businessmen, then by some holy missionaries, and that was how many natives of Alaska became and remain Orthodox.

Compare this to classical Orthodox practice as we described it last week. The powerful Byzantine empire did not attempt to expand its borders. Remember how it sent missionaries, such as Saints Cyril and Methodius, into pagan lands. Was Russia made a Byzantine colony? was it made Orthodox by military conquest?

Russian Patriarchs traditionally (with only a couple of martyred exceptions) were subservient to the Tsars. Then in 1721 Tsar Peter the Great, who loved all things Western, abolished the Patriarchate so he wouldn’t have to deal with it, and replaced it with a Committee which was essentially an arm of the state. Thanks to the Communists (!), the Russian Church again regained the Patriarchate. Most of the former colonies became Soviet Socialist Republics – and so the Russian colonial system continued under a different name. After the fall of Communism, many of the former colonies/“republics” gained their independence.

So today:

1) Vladimir Putin is functioning like a Tsar.

2) Patriarch Kirill, playing the traditional role, is subservient to “Tsar” Vladimir.

3) Russia is again attempting to expand colonially, beginning with Ukraine. We can understand why their former colonies are arming.

The preceding is an oversimplification – but not by much.

What an beautiful example of peace and brotherhood Orthodox Russia could have been to the world. What a tragedy, to see an Orthodox country trying to destroy an Orthodox country, Orthodox Christians killing innocent Orthodox civilians – year after year, to what end? except to hinder the witness of the Orthodox Church in the world.

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If you want to delve deeper into Orthodox teachings about War and Peace, there’s a lot online. Search for it, taking care to seek genuine Orthodox sources. There are some semi-Orthodox “freaks” online, who make up whatever they like and call it Orthodox.

Here are two competent sources:

Week after Next: The Story of the Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council: Part One