Volume 24 – Philosophical and Theological Approaches on War & St Gregory Palamas

In this paper, our interest and focus will be on the first inaugural address of St. Gregory Palamas as Archbishop of Thessaloniki, which he delivered in 1350, three days after his arrival in the city, following the cessation of the Zealot revolution. This homily contains an excellent theological and political approach to peace and was delivered at a hiμstorical juncture that clearly showed the successive internal and external dangers for waning Byzantium. Above all, however, this homily is of great interest to us in order to reconstruct elements and examples for our own time and experience. These highlights show that beyond barren antagonisms and sterile ideological debates, through a genuine, critical and creative dialogue of all the trends and currents of Orthodox theology of the 20th and 21st centuries, we ought to move forward and ultimately develop a contemporary and ecumenically fuller example of updated and discerning theology within our difficult and complex times.

This text examines Francisco de Vitoria’s punitive justice principle in the jus post bellum, presented mainly in his lectures De iure belli (1539) and De Indis (1539). According to Vitoria, post-war prosecution and other punishment measures aim to deter future armed conflicts but are limited by moral principles. However, focusing his jus post bellum solely on punitive victor’s justice overlooks Vitoria’s concept of the global community of peoples (totus orbis) that he develops in De potestate civili (1527). This text argues for an interpretation of his jus post bellum based on the totus orbis, where violations of international law are addressed by its own judicial system, reintegrating wrongdoers back into the global community. After war has ended, the totus orbis aims to restore negative peace among all peoples, emphasizing compensatory justice. I firstly provide a short outlay of Vitoria’s totus orbis concept and in a second step address the specifics of his jus post bellum. I explain that the punitive justice principle after war is rather a justice deriving from the global order than a victor’s justice. It is part of the totus orbis’ compensatory justice system.

The Georgian and Ukrainian nations, as well as the Georgian and Ukrainian Orthodox Church traditions, have many things in common. These common features are often associated with Russia, as both the Ukrainian and Georgian nations have tried to break away from both the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. This aspiration was frequently reflected in matters of faith. In 2019, the bestowal of the Tomos of Autocephaly to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) by the Ecumenical Patriarch was a remarkable event in the recent history of the Orthodox Church. Some local Orthodox Churches recognized this autocephaly, while others have not yet recognized it. The Orthodox Church of Georgia (OCG) belongs to the latter group. In this article, we discuss the arguments that the OCG and her representatives use to justify their position of not recognizing the autocephaly of the OCU. At the same time, our goal is to outline the prospects for the recognition of the autocephaly of the OCU by the OCG.

This paper examines the contrasting yet complementary perspectives of Max Scheler and Joseph Maria Bochénski on the nature and ethics of war. Scheler, drawing from his phenomenological and value-ethical framework, explores war as a metaphysical force that reveals moral truths and societal decay, while Bochénski, a Thomist and war veteran, provides a systematic military ethics rooted in virtue theory and natural law. The paper contextualizes their reflections in light of contemporary conflicts, especially the war in Ukraine. By comparing Scheler’s metaphysical idealism with Bochénski’s practical virtue ethics, the study offers insights into enduring ethical questions surrounding war, moral responsibility, and the cultivation of military virtue.

How does the imagination function in the process of peace-making? My approach to this admittedly complex question will be to study two models from history: the model of the peacemaker as political theorist in the thought of St Augustine and the model of the peacemaker as prophetess-saint in the life of St Catherine of Siena.

With this paper I intend to outline, with a comparative approach, the spiritual experience of suffering in two 20th-century female authors who admirably described the impact that World War II and the Russian Revolution had on their lives respectively. On the one hand, Etty Hillesum (1914-1943), a Dutch Jewish writer who was a victim of the Holocaust, and Iulia de Beausobre (1893-1977), an author of Russian origin who was a refugee in England. Different lives in similar contexts, one Dutch and the other Russian, one tied to a complex network of family and emotional relationships seasoned by personal contradictions and the looming threat of war, the other, after her release from a seven-year imprisonment in the ‘Gulag’ concentration camps of the Soviet Union, treasured the experience and summarised it in her autobiography “The Woman Who Could Not Die” (1938) in the pamphlet “Creative Suffering” (1940). They suffered abuse and violence very close together. Their existences were punctuated by suffering, but they were able to rework, according to their respective faiths, their suffering and draw great lessons from it, which have been bequeathed to us.

Suffering runs through all human life. Iulia de Beausobre, speaking in London in the dark days of 1940 from her experience of isolation and exile, describes how the Russian people learned to respond to suffering. She starts from the basic premise that suffering can be used creatively, in the power of Christ’s victory.

In Etty Hillesum, there is an evolution of the meaning of suffering according to the progress of her own spiritual growth; in her life she was able to gather and integrate experiences, maturing an understanding of suffering by linking it to that of others; for her, recognizing her own and others’ pain meant strengthening her trust in God. Suffering was seen as a source from which to draw the strength to overcome obstacles.

For Etty, suffering is a “potential for humanisation”; for Iulia, suffering is “participation”. In this talk, we will examine the respective views of the authors, trying to draw parallels and points of contact.

This study examines the principal canonical and ecclesiological objections raised by the Russian Orthodox Church in response to the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s decision to grant autocephaly to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. The first line of opposition concerns the legitimacy of the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s canonical authority to confer autocephaly, particularly regarding its jurisdictional claims over the Ukrainian ecclesiastical territory. By analyzing foundational canonical sources—most notably Canons 9, 17, and 28 of the Fourth Ecumenical Council—this article demonstrates the historical and canonical basis for Constantinople’s prerogatives within the Orthodox Church, including its recognized role as the arbiter in matters of appeal and ecclesiastical order. Special emphasis is placed on the 1686 patriarchal ‘Act’, which temporarily permitted the Patriarch of Moscow to ordain the Metropolitan of Kiev, a concession granted ad economia and never intended as a transfer of jurisdiction. The second accusation pertains to the recognition of ordinations performed during the schism. Through an analysis of canonical tradition and conciliar precedents, the study illustrates the Church’s consistent application of ecclesiastical economia in similar cases throughout history. The ordinations of clergy during schismatic periods, including those of Filaret and Makarios, are shown to possess canonical validity and apostolic succession. The article concludes that the decision of the Ecumenical Patriarchate aligns with established canonical procedures and historical practice. The Ukrainian Church’s autocephaly thus represents a legitimate and necessary response to contemporary ecclesial and geopolitical realities, aimed at restoring canonical order and preserving the unity of the Orthodox Church.

After a review of some of the key problems in modern ethical theory as relates to war and violent state conflicts, I will focus on St Gregory Palamas’ views on War and Peace and what we can learn from Palamas’ hesychastic approach regarding the social and political phenomenon of violence and war. My discussion will close with a brief examination of the problems related to the perspective termed ‘political hesychasm’ (which is used in the debates related to the recent war in Ukraine) and how this political and cultural perspective bears no relevance to the true hesychastic approach (and Palamite hesychasm in particular).