SOAS Research Online

Abstract

The historical development and modern transformations of the attitudes of Eastern Orthodox cultures and ecclesiastical elites to the problems and ethics of war display both significant analogies and dissimilarities to the respective Western Christian stances They have received much less in-depth and comprehensive treatment than their Western Christian counterparts and their study is still being affected by the fact that a good of deal of the relevant late antique, medieval, and early modern material (Greek, Old Church Slavonic, Georgian, etc.) has been neither edited and published nor translated into modern Western European languages. This state of evidence and research in the field of Eastern Orthodox ideology and theology of warfare makes the further historical and theological investigation of these extant sources an important and high-priority objective. One of the principal problems arising from the primary source criticism and analysis concerns the notions of a Christian just war theory and Christian military martyrdom in the Vita to St. Constantine–Cyril the Philosopher (826/7–869), the celebrated missionary to the Slavs. The legitimization of Christian just war theory and the potential martyr status of the Christian warrior ascribed to St. Constantine–Cyril can perhaps be best understood within the religio-political framework of his mission to the court of the Abbasid caliph al-Mutawakkil. The substantial impact and enduring after-life of these statements of St. Constantine–Cyril (venerated, along with his brother, St Methodius, in the Orthodox Church as saints carrying the title “equal to the apostles” and declared by Pope John Paul II co-patron-saints of Europe) in the Orthodox Slavonic world (and hence in European Christendom) deserve a close and balanced assessment.