While the Russian Orthodox Church already supported the invasion of Ukraine, it now also opposes pacifism. The defence of that is heresy, according to them.
Pacifism is a heretic tradition and goes directly against the teachings of the Russian Orthodox Church. This is contained in documents sent in by the Church in preparation for a church court case against a priest who condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Russian medium RBC had access to this documentation.
In this case, the church court is considering statements by priest John Burdin, who is banned from presiding over services. Last year, Burdin had to appear before a civil court for allegedly discriminating against the Russian army. In that case, the priest was fined.
According to the Church’s documents, Burdin’s statements “clearly denigrate the activities of the highest church authorities” of the Russian Orthodox Church, “undermine the trust of believers”, and cause “harm to church unity.”
Read the rest here.
4 comments:
St. Basil supported the excommunication of soldiers but only *AFTER* their service. I think the RO are correct here.
I'm not aware of any pronouncement by a council, or even a pan-Orthodox synod, that has labeled pacifism as heresy. FTR, I am not a pacifist and served in the US military. But I do not believe the Church as a whole has addressed this subject definitively. And there has been a diversity of opinion on the matter over time. As such, I think the ROC is overreaching here. Which given their adopting the role of ministry of religious propaganda for the Putin dictatorship, is not exactly surprising.
I think it's because in this instance, the RO priest in question refused to provide the sacrament to soldiers in the military on the grounds they were in the military. I don't know the details. The way it is presented doesn't seem to suggest they are making a particular stance on pacifism yay or nay but rather making a ruling against a priest who arbitrarily refused the Eucharist to Russian soldiers. If there was more detail, or I was Orthodox, I'd probably have a say one way or another. But the way it is presented seems that the priest was very wrong to refuse in this instance.
It is possible that the Patriarch's definition of "pacifism" differs from how we would usually use the term. If, indeed, the charge is refusing Communion to soldiers, simply because they were soldiers, that is certainly a break with long-standing tradition. But it might be more complicated than that, perhaps they were known to have taken part in actions that could be construed as war-crimes?
If the Patriarch does, however, actually mean pacificism as we would use the term, he is seriously off base, since one can make a serious case for choosing not to use violence based on the Lord's own words and example. Countless martyrs died rather than resist violence with violence.
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