On Christian Pacifism
The author analyzes the classical Christian viewpoints on the military, presenting the wide spectrum of ethical problems related to the national requirement of performing military service, participation in war, the death penalty, etc. The paper also draws attention to the historical background of the penetration of both the concepts of "just war theory" and extreme pacifism into the Russian-Ukrainian brotherhood of the Evangelical Christians-Baptists. The author notes both the Russian "sectarian" and the "Orthodox-monastic" influence on the traditional pacifism of a considerable portion of the Slavic Baptists and discusses the ambiguity of the definitions of military involvement even in the creeds of the EC0B, as well as the sharp contradiction between some official publications and the actual life of local congregations. The research contains a brief survey of the key biblical texts on the problem, which are mainly interpreted fromthe position of Christian pacifism. At the same time, the author points out the known shortcomings or moral limitations of the admissibility of pacifism, specifically in its extreme legalistic form.