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Hi everyone-

I found the following on what appears to be someone's class notes with some points on what it calls the "Byzantine just war tradition":

Beyond the very interesting idea that "Byzantine Just War Theory" derived from St. Augustine, under what reasoning did Constantinople justify its wars? And what of the last part that those who shed blood cannot be assured of salvation?

I have read an issue of St. Vladimir's Seminary's journal on Orthodox Just War [the idea that there is such a thing is very debatable] and am waiting for Fr. Scherman's [I think I spelled the name wrong but I can't find the issue right now] book on Orthoox pacifism to arrive, but the thing about salvation is news to me.

Thanks for any input you may have,

LV

Although I posted the link in another discussion, I think it is relevant here.

Bishop John Michael Botean's speech at Notre Dame here http://www.nd.edu/~mbaxter/cpf/sopII4/sop10.htm has a lengthy discussion on how there is no eastern theory of just war. Here is a very small excerpt:

"You see, I come from an ancient Catholic tradition that does not know the just-war theory. My tradition, while hardly pacifist, has simply not used these just-war criteria in order to justify mass slaughter. Though the people who have come up in my tradition have, to be sure, engaged in mass slaughter and do so to this day, there remains an understanding within our tradition that to succumb to killing represents a failure at the crucial point in the life of the Christian."