RUGĂCIUNEA BISERICII ÎN VREME DE RĂZBOI, POTRIVIT TRADIȚIEI BIZANTINE

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to offer a textual and theological analysis of certain prayers in times of war and for the army, which are part of the Byzantine tradition. The author discusses three types of evidence for such prayers: (a) prayers mentioned in the historical or panegyric writings of Christian authors and those prescribed by the military Byzantine manuals of the emperors Maurice, Leo VI and Nikephoros II Phokas during war campaigns and on the battlefield; (b) prayers in times of fear caused by “barbarian” invasions contained in the ancient Byzantine Euchologia, and (c) a series of model-prayers to be used during enemy destructive raids, composed by prominent ecclesiastical figures of the 14th century (such as Gregory Palamas, Philotheos Kokkinos, Macarius Chrysocephalos, and Symeon of Thessaloniki). The wording of the prayers had, on one hand, a deep penitential character, through which war was understood as a chastisement God allowed to rebuke the sins of Christians, but, on the other hand, framed the war of the Byzantine army as a battle for the Orthodox faith, against the unfaithful and those who do not reckon the one true God. One can find prayers where the dominant idea is the petition for peace and deliverance from the despair of war (an attitude closer to the position of the early Church towards war), but also prayers that contain a more belligerent rhetoric, in which God is asked repeatedly to crush the blasphemous foes and to grant victory to the faithful army. Finally, the paper discusses two rites for the blessing of weapons and of the national/military banner, that are found in the current Romanian Euchologion. These rites are adaptations in a particular manner of the corresponding rites included in the Trebnik of Peter Mohyla. There are however some theological contestations of the use of such rites in the liturgical a