The pacifist option : the moral argument against war in Eastern Orthodox moral theology

In this path-breaking study, Fr. Alexander Webster convincingly demonstrates that a distinctive pacifist trajectory, characterized by the moral virtues of non-violence, nonresistance, voluntary kenotic suffering, and universal forgiveness, has endured through two millennia of Eastern Orthodox history in unbroken continuity with the ancient Church. Webster consults a vast array of primary texts including Holy Scripture, patristic writing through the Byzantine era that terminated in AD 1453, Orthodox canon law from the Seven Ecumenical Councils and other Byzantine Greek legal sources among others. Of interest to historians and to students of theology and religion. CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES FOREWORD PREFACE Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION: A WORLD STILL SPLIT APART PART ONE: CONTEXTS & CONCEPTS Chapter 2: SOURCES AND THEOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS Chapter 3: TYPOLOGIES FOR ORTHODOX SOCIAL ETHICS Chapter 4: PACIFISM IN WESTERN ETHICS PART TWO: THE ORTHODOX PACIFIST TRAJECTORY Chapter 5: THE SCRIPTURAL WITNESS Chapter 6: PATRISTIC WRITINGS ON WAR AND PEACE Chapter 7: THE CANONICAL ''DUAL STANDARD'' Chapter 8: EXCEPTIONAL SAINTS Chapter 9: DEVOTIONAL LITERATURE: MYSTICO-ASCETIC SPIRITUALITY Chapter 10: MODERN RUSSIAN KENOTICISM Chapter 11: CONCLUSION: THE PACIFIST OPTION NOTES BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX OF NAMES