Mission of the military chaplain on the battlefield and the Orthodox ethics during the World War I (on the example of Orenburg and Siberian Cossack troops

Abstract

Military clergy was one of the core translators of military norms and regulations in the Russian army during the early XX century. The goal of this article is to examine the concepts of Orthodox culture within the ethics of war of the military chaplains. Leaning on the memoirs of A. Turundaevsky and archival documents of the Orenburg and Siberian Cossack troops, the article reconstructs the mission of the military chaplain on the battlefield, analyzes the structure of concepts of Orthodox ethics therein. The study of the structure of the elements of Orthodox ethics in the mission of the military chaplain reveals the key ethical principles that are fundamental to military conflicts, when one of the parties grounds its military regulations on the Orthodox culture. It is determined that in the conditions of new requirements established for military clergy during the World War I (1914–1918), there were instances that the norms of the Orthodox ethics contradicted the mission of the chaplain on the battlefield. The acquired results reveal that the underlying principle of the mission of military chaplain, as the representative of the “militant church”, on the battlefield was “love for one's neighbor”. The understanding of Russia as the center of Orthodox culture and the perception of soldiers as “warriors of the church” prompted the clergy to implement the concept of “meekness” in their actions, as well as the concepts of “recumbence”, “Divine Providence”, etc. for comprehension of their actions.