"Homicide in war is not reckoned by our Fathers as homicide... Perhaps, however, it is well to counsel that those whose hands are not clean only abstain from communion for three years."
— St. Basil the Great, Canon 13
What this is. The Catholic side of the war question, sourced from its own primary texts, set against the Orthodox canonical material — built to support the argument that the two traditions do not treat killing in war the same way. It deliberately includes the evidence that cuts against that argument, because the strongest version of the case has to survive it.
I. What Just War Theory Actually Says
Augustine — the foundation
Augustine supplies the raw material, quoted by everyone after him. Two lines carry most of the weight:
- On just cause: "A just war is wont to be described as one that avenges wrongs, when a nation or state has to be punished, for refusing to make amends for the wrongs inflicted by its subjects, or to restore what it has seized unjustly."
- On right intention: "True religion looks upon as peaceful those wars that are waged not for motives of aggrandizement, or cruelty, but with the object of securing peace, of punishing evil-doers, and of uplifting the good."
Note the shape already. War is being placed inside the category of peace and uplift, not outside it.
Aquinas — the framework hardens
Summa Theologiae II-II q.40 a.1 turns Augustine's remarks into a test with three conditions:
- Right authority — "the authority of the sovereign by whose command the war is to be waged."
- Just cause — "a just cause is required, namely that those who are attacked, should be attacked because they deserve it on account of some fault."
- Right intention — "it is necessary that the belligerents should have a rightful intention, so that they intend the advancement of good, or the avoidance of evil."
The decisive move is elsewhere, in q.64 a.3, where Aquinas addresses killing directly: "the care of the common good is entrusted to persons of rank having public authority: wherefore they alone, and not private individuals, can lawfully put evildoers to death." His image is a physician amputating a decayed limb for the health of the body. Killing under public authority is not an exception carved out of a prohibition — it is an act of the virtue of justice, ordered to the common good.
He also holds (q.40 a.1 ad 1) that to use the sword by the authority of the sovereign "is not to 'take the sword,' but to use it as commissioned by another, wherefore it does not deserve punishment."
The Catechism — where it lands today
CCC 2309 lists four conditions (lasting, grave and certain damage; all other means impractical; serious prospects of success; no graver evils produced) and then closes:
"These are the traditional elements enumerated in what is called the 'just war' doctrine. The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good."
And CCC 2310, which is the sentence to actually argue with:
"Those who are sworn to serve their country in the armed forces are servants of the security and freedom of nations. If they carry out their duty honorably, they truly contribute to the common good of the nation and the maintenance of peace."
"Truly contribute to the common good." That is a positive moral evaluation of the act, not a reluctant tolerance of it. Nothing in the Catechism's treatment of war prescribes any penitential consequence for the soldier who has killed within the conditions. The moral account closes.
II. The Orthodox Canonical Material
St. Basil, Canon 13
Basil's canonical letters (Letter 188 and following) were received by name in Canon 2 of the Council in Trullo (692), and Trullo's canons were in turn received by the Second Council of Nicaea. This is how Basil's canons acquired standing in Eastern canon law — they are not the private opinion of one bishop.
Canon 13 in full (NPNF translation):
"Homicide in war is not reckoned by our Fathers as homicide; I presume from their wish to make concession to men fighting on behalf of chastity and true religion. Perhaps, however, it is well to counsel that those whose hands are not clean only abstain from communion for three years."
Read this carefully — it is doing two things at once, and most popular apologetics quote only the second half.
- First half: the Fathers do not class killing in war as murder. Basil is confirming that the soldier is not a murderer.
- Second half: nevertheless, a three-year abstention from communion is counselled.
The two halves are only compatible on one reading: the act is genuinely not murder, and something nevertheless remains that requires cleansing. That is precisely the structure Ilyin later formalizes.
Honest caveats on this canon:
- The language is counsel ("perhaps... it is well to counsel"), not command. Basil is unusually tentative here compared with his surrounding canons.
- "Those whose hands are not clean" is ambiguous in scope — it may not mean every soldier who killed lawfully.
- The canon's actual historical enforcement is disputed and was, by most accounts, irregular.
Do not overstate it. But note what even the weakest reading concedes: the category of "penance after lawful killing" exists in Eastern canon law and has no counterpart in the Catholic framework. You do not need the canon to have been rigorously enforced for that structural point to hold.
St. Athanasius, Letter 48 (to Amun)
This one cuts against the argument and must be faced:
"For it is not right to kill, yet in war it is lawful and praiseworthy to destroy the enemy."
"Praiseworthy" is a positive evaluation, and Athanasius's canonical letters were received alongside Basil's at Trullo. An informed Catholic interlocutor will produce this text. Two things can honestly be said in reply:
- Context. Athanasius is not writing a treatise on war. He is making an analogy in a letter about bodily purity, arguing that the same act can be lawful or unlawful depending on circumstance (his parallel case is marital relations versus adultery). War is the illustration, not the subject.
- It does not remove the tension; it locates it. The Orthodox canonical corpus contains both Athanasius's "praiseworthy" and Basil's three years. Scholasticism resolved that kind of tension into a single systematic verdict. The East preserved both statements unresolved. That preservation is itself the point — see section IV.
III. The Real Difference
The difference is not whether killing in war is ever permitted. Both traditions say sometimes yes, both restrict it to public authority, both reject killing the innocent.
The difference is what remains afterward.
Put plainly: just war theory is a framework for justification; the Eastern canonical tradition is a framework for justification plus purification. The West asks "was this act permissible?" and, on a yes, stops. The East asks the same question, answers it the same way, and then keeps going.
This is why the two traditions can agree on every practical judgment about a given war and still differ about the soldier.
IV. Where the Difference Comes From
The disagreement is downstream of something larger, which is why it is worth arguing about at all.
- Scholastic method aims at resolution. A question is posed, objections are marshalled, a determination is given. Moral theology becomes a system in which every act receives a verdict. An act that is permitted is, by that fact, not a matter for repentance.
- Canonical method aims at healing. Canons are prescriptions applied by a bishop or confessor to a particular person, adjustable by oikonomia. A canon that assigns penance is not declaring the act a sin — it is treating a wound. Basil's own canons routinely lengthen or shorten penances by circumstance.
So the Catholic framework has no natural place to put "not a sin, and still needs cleansing," because its categories are built to sort acts into permitted and forbidden. The Eastern framework has such a place, because its categories are built to treat persons rather than classify acts.
This is also the honest answer to "aren't 'just' and 'justifiable' just word games?" — no, because the two traditions produce different practices. One sends the soldier to confession for what he did; the other does not.
V. Where Ilyin Fits
Ilyin is not a canonical source and must never be cited as though he were. He is the philosophical articulation of what Basil's canon already assumes.
His contribution is the vocabulary the canon lacks (see on_resistance_to_evil_ch20_false_solutions):
- Justice is not moral perfection. Justice is proportionate, "each according to his deeds"; perfection is love, which exceeds proportion. So an act can be fully just and still not perfect.
- Unrighteousness is not sin. Unrighteousness becomes sin only when a better option was genuinely available and the person failed to take it. Where circumstances exclude every clean option, the least unrighteous choice is "the sinless commission of unrighteousness."
- "Not righteous, but right." The formula that names exactly the gap Basil's canon leaves open.
Ilyin also explicitly rejects the Western closure — though his named target is Luther, not Aquinas. He attacks Luther's claim that the executioner's hand is literally "the hand of God" doing a work "perfect, excellent, and faithful," on the grounds that it erases the line between earthly necessity and divine perfection. In the same chapter he attacks Jesuit casuists from the opposite direction. The structure of the argument transfers to just war theory cleanly, but Ilyin did not make that application himself — if you extend it to Aquinas, say so as your own extension.
VI. Counter-Evidence and Weak Points
Build the argument knowing these are coming.
| Objection | Weight | Response |
|---|---|---|
| Athanasius calls war killing "praiseworthy" | Serious | Analogical context; and it shows the East preserved an unresolved tension rather than a uniform reticence |
| Basil's canon is a counsel, tentative, irregularly enforced | Serious | Structural point survives: the category exists in the East and not in the West |
| Fr. Alexander Webster argues Orthodoxy has a "justifiable war" tradition treating war as virtuous or a "lesser good" | Serious | This is an internal Orthodox dispute (Webster vs. Fr. Stanley Harakas, who holds the tradition "never called it 'just' or a moral good"). Acknowledge it; do not pretend Orthodoxy speaks with one voice |
| Modern Catholic teaching is far more restrictive than Aquinas | Fair | True. The contrast is sharpest against the scholastic form, not against contemporary Catholic ethicists. Argue against Aquinas and CCC 2310, not a caricature |
| "Just" and "justifiable" are hair-splitting | Fair | Answer with practice, not vocabulary: one tradition prescribes penance, the other does not |
| Ilyin is one lay Russian philosopher writing in exile in 1925 | Fatal if ignored | Never say "Orthodoxy teaches" and cite Ilyin. Anchor on Basil 13 and Trullo Canon 2; use Ilyin as articulation only |
VII. The Thesis, Stated Carefully
Defensible: Roman Catholic moral theology, in its scholastic form and as codified in the Catechism, treats killing in a just war as an act of justice that closes the moral account — the soldier who fights honorably "truly contributes to the common good." Eastern canonical practice, in Basil's Canon 13 received at Trullo, denies that such killing is murder and still counsels a period of penance. The difference is not permission but remainder.
Not defensible: that Orthodoxy is pacifist; that Orthodoxy has no tradition of legitimate warfare; that Orthodoxy speaks with one voice on this (Webster and Harakas do not agree); that Ilyin represents Orthodox teaching.
Related
- on_resistance_to_evil_ch20_false_solutions — Ilyin's justice/perfection and sin/unrighteousness distinctions; the philosophical core of this argument.
- on_resistance_to_evil_ch19_sword_and_justice — whether killing can be morally perfect (no).
- on_resistance_to_evil_ch21_spiritual_compromise — "not righteous, but right."
- on_resistance_to_evil_ch22_cleansing_of_the_soul — cleansing before, during, and after; St. Sergius and Dimitri Donskoi.
- on_resistance_to_evil_creed — the 67-tenet distillation of the whole book.
- orthodox_vs_catholicism_debate_prep — general Catholic/Orthodox apologetics preparation.
Sources
- Aquinas, Summa Theologiae II-II q.40 a.1; q.64 a.2, a.3, a.7 — https://www.newadvent.org/summa/3040.htm, https://www.newadvent.org/summa/3064.htm
- Catechism of the Catholic Church 2307–2317 — https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P81.HTM
- St. Basil the Great, Letter 188 (First Canonical Epistle), Canons 8, 11, 13 — https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3202188.htm
- St. Athanasius, Letter 48 (to Amun) — https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2806048.htm
- Council in Trullo, Canon 2 — https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3814.htm
- Fr. Alexander Webster, "Justifiable War as a 'Lesser Good' in Eastern Orthodox Moral Tradition," St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 47:1 (2003), 3–59 — cited secondhand, not yet verified against the article itself
- Fr. Stanley Harakas — position cited secondhand via https://incommunion.org/2014/10/07/war-and-virtue/, not yet verified against his own writing
Compiled 2026-09-05. Primary texts (Aquinas, CCC, Basil, Athanasius, Trullo) fetched and quoted directly. The Webster/Harakas debate is recorded from secondary summary and is flagged as unverified.