Military priest's ethos in the patriotic war of 1812: mission on the battlefield

Under the conditions of an anthropological turn in the contemporary scientific idea there can be seen an escalating interest to a “man of 1812”, his behaviour on the battlefield among all-encompassing violence. One of the main figures translating the military norms and orders for soldiers was a military priest. Based on the sources of private origin there is reconstructed the mission of a military priest on the battlefield. Besides, the present study analyzes the specifics of understanding the concepts of war and motherhood by the clergy, how the priests understood the set tasks and their own mission, which took place in the context of the Orthodox culture and not through the lens of political rhetoric. Such an understanding of war formed an original content of church minister’s mission in the field. The mission of military priests was both preserving the confessional identity and participation in the “holy war” as it was called for by state-approved slogans. The author concludes by stating that the ethos of a military priest was not monolithic, which was determined by the peculiarities of understanding the concept of war by the clergy.