Christianity and Pacifism: History and Modernity

Abstract

The importance of addressing the topic of Christian pacifism is dictated primarily by the question of the unconditional pacifism of the early Christian Church and the ambiguity of the positions of modern Christian denominations in raising issues of war and peace, violence and nonviolence. The absence of scientific research in modern religious studies and philosophy, in which the problems of religious pacifism are considered in a holistic form by methods of cross-cultural and comparative philosophical analysis, makes us turn to the formulation of problems of war and peace, violence and nonviolence in the teachings of Christian denominations. The authors consider the evolution of pacifist ideas in the history of Christianity in order to identify the formulation of issues of war and peace, attitudes to military service in the early Christian Church, as well as to understand how Christianity came to develop the concept of just war. The authors conclude that since the strengthening of the position of Christianity as the state religion, there has been a significant departure from the original pacifism towards the development of concepts of just war. Throughout the centuries-old history of Christianity, pacifism has never been a doctrinal line in either the Western Christian or Eastern Orthodox tradition and has remained a marginal line of development of this religion. One of the main problems on the path of Christian pacifist movements to unconditional pacifism was and remains the question of how to adhere to evangelical pacifism without entering into confrontation with the secular authorities and the official church.