On 26 February 2025, on the third anniversary of the sanguinary invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation, a memorial service was held at Saint Alypios’ church in Antalya, at the request of the General Consul of Ukraine in Antalya Mr. Oleksandr Voronin. The service was presided by His Eminence Metropolitan Job of Pisidia, assisted by the local clergy, who prayed for the repose of the soldiers who gave their lives on the front as well as all the victims, children and civilians, who have been killed innocently.
In his address at the beginning of the memorial service, Metropolitan Job quoted the document of the Ecumenical Patriarchate “For the Life of the World: Toward a Social Ethos of the Orthodox Church”:
“The Orthodox Church has not historically insisted upon a strictly pacifist response to war, violence, and oppression; neither has the Church prohibited the faithful from serving in the military or police. Her military saints, often martyrs of the Church, are a case in point. And yet the Orthodox Church has also never developed any kind of “Just War Theory” that seeks in advance, and under a set of abstract principles, to justify and morally endorse a state’s use of violence when a set of general criteria are met. Indeed, it could never refer to war as “holy” or “just.” Instead, the Church has merely recognized the inescapably tragic reality that sin sometimes requires a heart-breaking choice between allowing violence to continue or employing force to bring that violence to an end, even though it never ceases to pray for peace, and even though it knows that the use of coercive force is always a morally imperfect response to any situation. That said, no one—even if conscripted under arms—is morally required to participate in actions that he or she knows to be contrary to justice and to the precepts of the Gospel. Christian conscience must always reign supreme over the imperatives of national interest. Above all, a Christian must remain ever mindful that things that would be considered acts of terrorism when perpetrated by individuals or organized factions—the random murder of innocent civilians, for instance, for the sake of advancing a political cause—do not become morally acceptable when they are perpetrated instead by recognized states, or when they are achieved with the use of advanced military technology. Indeed, it is arguable that one of the defining features of modern warfare is the effective conflation of the strategies of battle and the intentional terrorization of civilian populations.”
