In contemporary studies of conflicts in which the Russian army took part, there can be seen an escalating anthropological interest to a “man of war”, his moral behavior on the battlefield among total violence. In the regular Russian army in Modern period, a military priest was one of the main figures translating the military values and rules for warriors. Based on the sources of private origin, the paper reconstructs a mission of the military priest in battle and analyzes the structure of Orthodox ethics concepts in it. The study of this question allows to identify the key strategies that are the main ones for conducting military conflicts in countries of Orthodox culture. The author draws a conclusion that the main mission of the military priests was preservation of confessional identity, and not just the participance in the “holy war” and its support, as prescribed by state-approved slogans. It was found out that in the context of the new requirements for military clergy during the First World War (1914–1918), there were situations when the Orthodox ethics concepts were in conflict with the priest mission on the battlefield. It was revealed that the main principle of the military priest mission as representing of the “militant church” on the battlefield was “love for one's neighbor”. The understanding of Russia as the Orthodox culture center and the perception of soldiers as “church warriors” served as the basis for the use of the category “humility” by priests in their actions, the clergy used the concepts “hope of God”, “Providence of God” and others in understanding and reflexing their actions.
Keywords: Patriotic War of 1812, World War I (1914–1918), military clergy, military priest, priest’s ethos, priest’s mission, ethics of war, Orthodox culture, Russian Orthodox church.
DOI: 10.22250/20728662_2022_1_15
About the author
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Dmitrii M. Latyshev – Ph.D. student at the Department of Ontology and Epistemology, |