|
|
|
Question 14.
Dear Father
Christopher,
Christ is risen!
Some priests who
took an active part in the wars of 1918 and 1940 kept on
performing the Divine Liturgy and other holy services despite the fact
they
had killed enemy soldiers. How could this be acceptable?
Answer to Question
14.
Dear Constantine,
Christ is risen!
One thing I lack is knowledge of the Church during the World wars. I can
only assume that Priests took an active part in the secret underground
movements and not officially as soldiers carrying guns. When one hears or
reads about wars one never understands fully the atrocities of war. It is
not only the destruction of lands and people, but the destruction of
civilized society, faith, and the very spirit of man. Christ gave his life
for us and we are called to give our life for others if the need arises.
If our country and faith are as risk, then we must defend ourselves and
our society from destruction. The Church cannot just stand back and watch
her people being destroyed, she must be at the forefront praying, blessing
and giving encouragement to the young soldiers who go to battle to protect
and defend both faith and nation. She is also there in the background
helping secret underground movements in whatever is necessary for the good
of her people. Now in these situations, I can understand how a Priest
might himself take up arms, for he too is human and wants to defence his
family and flock. Should we expect him to allow the enemy to just walk in
and kill everyone close to him? Should we expect him to gather his flock
around him and lead them as sheep to the slaughter or to keep silent – “as
a lamb without blemish before the shearer is dumb, so he opens not his
mouth”? Not everyone is called to Martyrdom, and especially when the war
is not aimed at eliminating our faith, but on conquering lands. Now if a
Priest does take up arms and kill someone, his own conscious should not
allow him to continue serving the Liturgy. Nevertheless, a Priest is
always a Priest until his Synod defrocks him. His own sins no way affect
the Grace of the Priesthood; the Holy Spirit will still do His work
through him (for the benefit of the people) no matter what sins a Priest
has committed. If he kills in secret then he should resign from the
Priesthood voluntarily for his own salvation. If it comes to the ears of
his Bishop, then the Bishop must decide how to chastise him. He can let
him remain in the Priesthood but without the permission to perform
priestly duties or he can have him defrocked before the Holy Synod. Taking
into consideration the fact that the holy Fathers did not consider killing
in war as murder and that someone fighting in a war for his faith and
country is a hero and worthy of praise, then in my opinion the first
action would be correct because not to offer the Divine Liturgy would be
punishment enough without the humiliation of being defrocked. If the
Bishop decides to turn a blind eye, then he must account for his actions
before God.
See below what St. Basil has to say on the subject keeping in mind that
although it is numbered amongst his canons, it is not a compulsory canon,
but rather, only makes a suggestion.
With love in Christ
Fr. Christopher
CANON XIII OF ST BASIL THE GREAT
Our Fathers did not
consider murders committed in the course of wars to be classifiable as
murders at all, on the score, it seems to me, of allowing a pardon to men
fighting in defence of sobriety and piety. Perhaps, though, it might be
advisable to refuse them communion for three years, on the ground that
they are not clean-handed.
Interpretation of Canon:
By “Our Fathers” here Basil the Great means Athanasius the
Great and his followers. For Athanasius says in his Epistle to Amun that
for one to slay enemies in war is lawful and praiseworthy. But St. Basil
explains also the reason why the more ancient Fathers permitted them to be
pardoned, which is that those men who slay men in the course of war are
fighting for the faith and for the maintenance of sobriety. For, if once
the barbarians and infidels should succeed in gaining the upper hand,
neither piety will be left, since they disregard it and seek to establish
their own wicked faith and bad belief, nor sobriety and maintenance of
honour, seeing that their victory would be followed by many instances of
violation and ravishment of young women and of young men. The Saint goes
on to add, however, on his own part, not a definitive Canon, but an
advisory and indecisive suggestion that although these men who slay others
in war were not considered murderers by the more ancient Fathers, yet,
since their hands are not unstained by blood, it might perhaps be well for
them to abstain from communion for three years solely as regards the
Mysteries, but not to be expelled, that is to say, from the Church, like
other penitents.
Footnote to Canon:
But why did the old Fathers not canonize men who kill others in
war, while St. Basil deprived them of communion for three years? God
Himself solves this bewildering question in the second Book of Numbers
(31: 19, 24), wherein He
commands that Jews returning from the war with the Midianites shall stand
outside of the camp for seven days, wash their garments, be purified, and
then be permitted to enter the camp. “And abide ye outside of the camp for
seven days. Whosoever hath killed anyone, and whosoever hath touched
anyone slain, purify both yourselves and your captives; and wash your
garments on the seventh day, and ye shall be clean, and afterwards ye may
come into the camp”
(Num. 31: 19, 24). And the
reason is, according to the interpretation offered by Philo the Jew, that
although the killing of enemies in war was lawful, yet anyone that killed
a human being whether justly and rightfully, or for revenge, or that slays
any person as a matter of violence and coercion, appears in spite of this
to be responsible for the commission of a sin and crime, because he has
killed a human being who is of the same race and of the same nature as his
own. For this reason and on this account those who had slain Midianites in
war, though they did so rightfully and justly, though they slew them as
enemies, too, and though it was for the sake of revenge, too, as required
by the passage saying: “for, said God to Moses, “Take revenge for the
children of Israel on the Midianites”
(Num. 31:2), yet as having
slain kindred human beings of the same nature, and having consequently
fallen under the stigma of sin and foul murder, they had to be purified of
it by the seven days’ purification outside of the camp. This same reason
is advanced also by Procopius and Adelus in their interpretations of these
passages, and not any reason that, as some have said, the seven days
purification was after they slew the wives of the Midianites and not
before. For that seven days’ purification was carried out later, after
they had put the wives of the Midianites to death, and not before, as is
plainly stated in the same chapter. Hence, following this example, St.
Basil the Great advises that it would be well for men who have killed
others in war to abstain from communion for three years, because they
polluted themselves with the blood of their fellow men, but also perhaps
because they became adepts at injuring and destroying God’s creation
(see also the Footnote to Ap. c. LXVI).
But the Saint offered the Canon as one embodying advice and indecision,
and out of respect and regard for the more ancient Fathers who left such
persons uncanonized (i.e., unpunished), and on account perhaps of his
philosophical modesty of mind and reverence. But that this Canon of the
Saint was accepted by the Church as a declarative Canon, and a definition,
and a law, and not as a simple piece of indecisive advice, is a fact which
is attested by the events which ensued in the reign of Nicephorus Phocas
and which are recorded by both the expositors Zonaras and Balsamon, and by
Dositheus
(page 588 of his Dodecabiblus).
For that Emperor had sought in his time to have Christian soldiers
numbered with the martyrs, and to be honoured and glorified as martyrs,
when they were killed in war with barbarians. But the Patriarch and Synod
of Bishops in that period were opposed to this idea, and failing to
convince the Emperor, they finally proposed this Canon of the Saint as a
Canon of the Church, asking, “Are we going to number with the Martyrs men
who have killed others in war and whom Basil the Great excluded from the
Mysteries for three years as not having clean hands?” Moreover, even Basil
himself, in his c. LV, cited this Canon there as being advisory,
recommendatory, definitive, and devisive, according to Balsamon, after
forbidding robbers to partake of communion if they had killed laymen who
were actually attacking them. If it be objected that Zonaras asserts that
this recommendation of the Saint’s, or rather the Canon, appears to be too
heavy and onerous, owing to the fact that Christian soldiers engaged in
continual and consecutive wars have never thus far been able to desist for
three years straight and thus get a chance to commune, we too agree with
this, that as long as soldiers are at war they cannot commune, but may do
so only after three years cessation from war.
|
|
|
