Rethinking the Katechon: Towards a Political Theology for a Nuclear Age
Abstract
It’s about time for political theology to start dealing seriously with the threat of nuclear war. Despite its severity, so far this threat has been either ignored or addressed with inadequate politico-theological approaches: just war theories fail to account for the counterintuitive logic of nuclear strategy; radical pacifism stops short of offering a viable disarmament path; apocalypticism and messianism run the risk of justifying the catastrophe. An unconditional imperative of nuclear war prevention still needs to be effectively integrated into political theology. We argue that the concept of katechon is best suited for this task. However, there are a number of gaps between established traditions of thought about the katechon and nuclear realities that need bridging first. Katechon is believed to restrain the triumph of Evil before the apocalypse, while nuclear catastrophe resembles the Apocalypse itself; katechon is seen to be embodied in individual polities or rulers, but preventing nuclear war requires universalist politics; katechontic function is thought to involve power and coercion, but nuclear threat cannot be eliminated by violent means. We demonstrate that the necessary reinterpretation of the katechon is possible, based on a close reading of Rene Girard’s Battling to the End. The immanent critique of this work allows conceptualizing the katechon as the entire “coercion-legitimacy” antinomy rather than the violent side of it. Consequently, antinomic “double representation” conceived as a non-hierarchical co-existence of temporal (coercion) and spiritual (legitimacy) powers becomes the institutional embodiment of the katechon. If initially implemented at the national level, this politico-theological architecture of “double representation” then might pave the way for the political unity of the world, which is indispensable for avoiding a global catastrophe in the long run.
References
Adamsky, Dmitry (2019). Russian Nuclear Orthodoxy. Religion, Politics and Strategy. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
Agamben, Giorgio (1998). Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Trans. by Daniel Heller-Roazen. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Agamben, Giorgio (2005). The Time That Remains: A Commentary on the Letter to the Romans. Trans. by Patricia Dailey. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Alexander, Paul J. (1985). The Byzantine Apocalyptic Tradition. Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Anders, Günther (2011). La Obsolescencia Del Hombre (Volumen I): Sobre el alma en la época de la segunda revolución industrial. Traducción de Josep Monter Pérez. Valencia: Pre-Textos. (In Spanish).
Arbatov, Alexei (2021). “The Ten Aporias of Our Time. The Theory and Practice of Nuclear Deterrence”. Polis. Political Studies, No. 4: 88-111.
Ashley, Richard (1989). “Living on Border Lines: Man, Poststructuralism, and War”. In International/Intertextual Relations: Postmodern Readings of World Politics. Ed. by James Der Derian and Michael J. Shapiro. New York: Lexington Books, pp. 259-321.
Augustine of Hippo (1998). The City of God against the Pagans. Trans. by Robert W. Dyson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Basil of Caesarea (1962). “Preface on the Judgment of God”. In Ascetical Works. Trans. by sister M. Monica Wagner. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, pp. 37-55.
Bourdieu, Pierre (2014). On the State: Lectures at the College de France, 1989-1992. Trans. by David Fernbach. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Budraitskis, Ilya (2021). “Chto ‘uderzhivayet’ katekhon? Konechnost’ gosudarstva v konservativnoy i sotsialisticheskoy mysli” [What is ‘Restrained’ by the katechon? The Finitude of the State in Conservative and Socialist Thought]. Philosophy. Journal of the Higher School of Economics, 5(2): 13-33.
Bulgakov, Sergei (1993). “Apokaliptika i sotsializm” [Apocalypticism and Socialism]. In Izbrannye stat'i [Selected Papers]. Moscow: Nauka, pp. 368-434. (In Russian).
Cacciari, Massimo (2018). The Withholding Power. An Essay on Political Theology. Bloomsbury: Bloomsbury Academic.
Campbell, David (1998). Writing Security: United States Foreign Policy and the Politics of Identity. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Cavanaugh, William T., Scott, Peter Manley, eds. (2019). The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Political Theology. Second Edition. Chichester: The John Wiley and Sons Ltd.
Cook, Martin L. (2004). “Christian Apocalypticism and Weapons of Mass Destruction”. In Ethics and Weapons of Mass Destruction: Religious and Secular Perspectives. Ed. by Sohail H. Hashmi and Steven P. Lee. New York & Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 200-210.
Craig, Campbell (2003). Glimmer of a New Leviathan: Total War in the Realism of Niebuhr, Morgenthau, and Waltz. New York: Colombia University Press.
Craig, Campbell (2019). “Solving the Nuclear Dilemma: Is a World State Necessary?”. Journal of International Political Theory, 15(3): 349-366.
Creveld, Martin van (1991). The Transformation of War. New York: The Free Press.
Davidson, Donald L. (2018) Nuclear Weapons and the American Churches: Ethical Positions on Modern Warfare. Abingdon & New York: Routledge.
Debrix, Francois (2015) “Katechontic Sovereignty: Security Politics and the Overcoming of Time”. International Political Sociology, 9(2): 143–157.
Deudney, Daniel H. (2007). Bounding Power: Republican Security Theory from the Polis to the Global Village. Princeton & Oxford: Princeton University Press.
Deudney, Daniel H. (2019). “Going Critical: Toward a Modified Nuclear One Worldism”. Journal of International Political Theory, 15(3): 367-385.
Dillon, Michael (2011). “Specters of Biopolitics: Finitude, Eschaton, and Katechon”. South Atlantic Quarterly, 110(3): 780–92.
Dillon, Michael (2015). Biopolitics of Security: A political analytic of finitude. Abington & New York: Routledge.
Dudenkova, Irina (2019). “Kontseptsiia katekhona v sovremennoi sekuliarnoi politicheskoi eskhatologii” [The Concept of the Katechon in Contemporary Secular Political Eschatology]. In Puti Rosiii. Granitsy politiki. Sbornik statei XXV Mezhdunarodnogo simpoziuma [The Ways of Russia. The Limits of Politics. Proceedings of the 25th International Symposium]. Ed. by Marina Pugacheva. Moscow: Izd. dom “Delo” RANEPA, pp. 34-44. (In Russian).
Dugin, Aleksandr (2003). “Katekhon i revoliutsiia” [The Katechon and the Revolution]. Kommunisticheskaia partiia Rossiiskoi Federatsii [The Communist Party of the Russian Federation]. https://kprf.ru/personal/dugin/ideas/19528.html. (In Russian).
Dupuy, Jean-Pierre (2013). The Mark of the Sacred. Trans. by Malcolm B. DeBevoise. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Dupuy, Jean-Pierre (2015). A Short Treatise on the Metaphysics of Tsunamis. Trans. by Malcolm B. DeBevoise. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press.
Dupuy, Jean-Pierre (2017). “Secularization”. In The Palgrave Handbook of Mimetic Theory and Religion. Ed. by James Alison and Wolfgang Palaver. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 271-277.
Duvall, Raymond, Havercroft, Jonathan (2008). “Taking sovereignty out of this world: space weapons and empire of the future”. Review of International Studies, 34(4): 755-775.
Early, Bryan R., Asal, Victor (2018). “Nuclear weapons, existential threats, and the stability–instability paradox”. The Nonproliferation Review, 25(3-4): 223-247.
Ephrem the Syrian (1995). “Tolkovanie na 2-e poslanie k Fessalonikiitsam” [Commentary on 2 Thessalonians]. In Tvoreniia: v 8 t. Tom sed'moi [Works: in 8 vols. Volume 7]. Moscow: Izdatel'stvo “Otchii Dom”, pp. 241-253. (In Russian).
Esposito, Roberto (2015). Two: The Machine of Political Theology and the Place of Thought. New York: Fordham University Press.
Francis, Pope (2015). “Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’ Of the Holy Father Francis on Care for Our Common Home”. The Holy See. https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html
Froom, LeRoy E. (1950). The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers: The Historical Development of Prophetic Interpretation. Vol. 1: Early Church Exposition, Subsequent Deflections, and Medieval Revival. Washington, DC: Review and Herald.
Girard, René (2010). Battling to the End: Conversations with Benoît Chantre. Trans. by. Mary Baker. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press.
Gorday, Peter, ed. (2000). Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. New Testament IX: Colossians, 1-2 Thessalonians, 1-2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
Guilhot, Nicholas (2010). “American Katechon: When Political Theology Became International Relations Theory”. Constellations: An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory, 17(2): 224–253.
Harris, Brittany A. (2020) “Christian thought and the moral permissibility of nuclear weapons”. Comparative Strategy, 39(1): 1-17.
Hashmi, Sohail H., Lee Steven P., eds. (2004) Ethics and Weapons of Mass Destruction: Religious and Secular Perspectives. New York & Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hauerwas, Stanley (2001). “Should War Be Eliminated? A Thought Experiment”. In The Hauerwas Reader. Ed. by John Berkman and Michael Cartwright. Durham & London: Duke University Press, pp. 392-425.
Hippolytus of Rome (2022). “Text of the Commentary on Daniel”. In Hippolytus of Rome’s Commentary on Daniel. Trans. and ed. by Thomas C. Schmidt. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, pp. 25-194.
Hobson, John M. (2000). The State and International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hollerich, Michael (2020). “Total War and Limited Government: The German Catholic Debate at the Dawn of the Nuclear Age””. In Theology and World Politics: Metaphysics, Genealogies, Political Theologies. Ed. by Vassilios Paipais. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 237-263.
Hovey, Craig, Phillips, Elizabeth, eds. (2015). The Cambridge Companion to Christian Political Theology. New York: Cambridge University Press.
IMEMO (2022). Nuclear Factor in the Ukrainian Conflict (IMEMO Analytical Report). Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences. https://www.imemo.ru/en/news/events/text/analiticheskiy-doklad-imemo-ran-yaderniy-faktor-v-ukrainskom-konflikte
Ioann (Snychev), metropolitan (2017). Samoderzhavie dukha: Ocherki russkogo samosoznaniia [The Autocracy of the Spirit: Notes on Russian Identity]. Moscow: Institut russkoi tsivilizatsii. (In Russian).
Irenaeus (1995). “Against Heresies: Book V”. In Ante-Nicene Fathers. Volume 1: The Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus. Ed. by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, pp. 526-567.
Istrin, Vasilii (1897). Otkrovenie Mefodiia Patarskogo i apokrificheskie videniia Daniila v vizantiiskoi i slaviano-russkoi literaturakh: Issledovaniia i teksty [The Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius and Apocryphal Visions of Daniel in the Byzantine, and Slavic and Russian Literatures: Studies and Texts]. Moscow: Universitetskaia tipografiia. (In Russian).
Jerome of Stridon (N.D.) “A Letter to Algasia”. Epistolæ: Medieval Women's Letters. https://epistolae.ctl.columbia.edu/letter/1291.html
Jervis, Robert (1989). The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution: Statecraft and the Prospect of Armageddon. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Joder, John Howard (1988). “Armaments and Eschatology”. Studies in Christian Ethics, 1(1): 43–61.
John Chrysostom (1995). “Homilies on 2 Thessalonians”. In Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church. First Series, Volume 13. Ed. by Philip Schaff. Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, pp. 377-398.
Jones, Larry (1988) “Apocalyptic Eschatology in the Nuclear Arms Race”. Transformation, 5(1): 25–27.
Jung, L. Shannon (1983). “Critic’s Corner: Nuclear Eschatology”. Theology Today, 40(2): 184-194.
Kahn, Paul W. (2011). Political Theology: Four New Chapters on the Concept of Severeignty. New York: Columbia University Press.
Kalaitzidis, Pantelis (2012). Orthodoxy and Political Theology. Geneva: World Council of Churches Publications.
Kaldor, Mary (2012). New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era, 3rd ed. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Kaufman, Gordon (1983). “Nuclear Eschatology and the Study of Religion”. Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 51(1): 3-14.
Kaufman, Gordon (1985). Theology for a Nuclear Age. Manchester: Manchester University Press; Philadelphia: The Westminster Press.
Kierulff, Stephen (1992). “Armageddon Theology and the Risk of Global War: The Limits of Religious Tolerance in the Nuclear Age”. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 32(4): 92–107.
Kirwan, Michael (2008). Political Theology: A New Introduction. London: Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd.
Kirwan, Michael (2017). “Mimetic Theory and the Katēchon”. In The Palgrave Handbook of Mimetic Theory and Religion. Ed. by James Alison and Wolfgang Palaver. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 363-369.
Kirwan, Michael (2021). “Between Politics and Apocalypse: Discerning the missio Dei in the Contemporary Global Crisis”. In Theology and the Political. Ed. by Alexei Bodrov and Stephen M. Garrett. Leiden & Boston: Brill, pp. 15-29.
Koktysh, Kirill (2021). Diskurs ratsionalizma, svobody i demokratii [The Discourse of Rationalism, Liberty, and Democracy]. Moscow: MGIMO-Universitet. (In Russian).
Kondurov, Viacheslav (2021). “Politicheskaia teologiia mezhdunarodnogo prava: grani i granitsy metoda” [Political Theology of International Law: Methodological Facets and Borders]. Russian Sociological Review, 20(1): 50-71. (In Russian).
Konstantin (Zaitsev), archimandrite (1948). Pamiati poslednego Tsaria [In the Memory of the Last Tsar]. Shanghai. (In Russian).
Kubalkova, Vendulka (2000). “Towards an International Political Theology”. Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 29(3): 675-704.
Leontiev, Konstantin (1995). “Nad mogiloi Pazukhina” [At Pazukhin’s Grave]. In Antikhrist (Iz istorii otechestvennoi dukhovnosti): Antologiia [The Antichrist (from the History of Russian Spirituality): An Antology]. Ed. by A.S. Grishin, K.G. Yusupov. Moscow: Vysshaia shkola, pp. 92-106.
Lieber, Keir A, Press, Daryl G. (2020). The Myth of the Nuclear Revolution: Power Politics in the Atomic Age. Ithaca & London: Cornell University Press.
Lomonaco, Amedeo (2022). “Una famiglia russa e una ucraina portano insieme la croce al Colosseo”. Vatican News: https://www.vaticannews.va/it/chiesa/news/2022-04/via-crucis-colosseo-famiglia-russa-ucraina-campus-biomedico.html. (In Italian).
Lonsdale, David J. (2012). “Nuclear Strategy and Catholicism: A Reappraisal”. Journal of Military Ethics, 11(3): 186-207.
Lukyanov, Fyodor (2022). “Tri obraza nadezhdy” [Three Images of Hope]. Rossiia v global'noi politike. https://globalaffairs.ru/articles/tri-obraza-nadezhdy/. (In Russian).
Luoma-aho, Mika (2012). God and International Relations: Christian Theology and World Politics. New Yor & London: Continuum International Publishing.
Mearsheimer John J. (2001). The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. New York & London: W.W.Norton & Company.
Moltmann, Jurgen (1988). “God and the Nuclear Catastrophe”. Pacifica, 1(2): 157–170.
Moltmann, Jurgen (1996). The Coming of God: Christian Eschatology. Trans. by Margaret Kohl. London: SCM Press Ltd.
Munster, Rens van, Sylvest, Casper (2016). Nuclear Realism: Global Political Thought during the Thermonuclear Revolution. New York: Routledge.
Nekhaenko, Fedor (2022). “Carl Schmitt, Erik Peterson, and Giorgio Agamben: the war for Christian political theology”. Russian Sociological Review, 21(4): 9-33.
Newman, Saul (2019). Political Theology: A Critical Introduction. Cambridge: Polity Press.
O’Donovan, Oliver (2003). The Just War Revisited. New York & Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Prozorov, Sergei (2012). “The Katechon in the Age of Biopolitical Nihilism”. Continental Philosophy Review, 45(4): 483-503.
Prozorov, Sergei (2017). “Like a thief in the night: Agamben, Hobbes and the messianic transvaluation of security”. Security Dialogue, 48(6): 473–487.
Quirico, Domenico (2022). “Guerra Russia-Ucraina, le scandalose parole del Papa”. La Stampa: https://www.lastampa.it/editoriali/lettere-e-idee/2022/06/15/news/guerra_russiaucraina_le_scandalose_parole_del_papa-5412523/. (In Italian).
Ratzinger, Josef (Pope Benedict XVI) (2006). “Prepolitical Moral Foundations of a Free Republic”. In Political Theologies: Public Religions In A Post-Secular World. Ed. by Hent De Vries and Lawrence E. Sullivan. New York: Fordham University Press, pp. 261-268.
Rengger, Nicholas (2013). “On theology and international relations: World politics beyond the empty sky”. International Relations, 27(2): 141–157.
Tertullian (1995). “On the Resurrection of the Flesh”. In Ante-Nicene Fathers. Volume 3: Latin Christianity: Its Founder, Tertullian. Ed. By Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, pp. 545-595.
Rock, Stephen R. (2018). “From Just War to Nuclear Pacifism: The Evolution of U.S. Christian Thinking about War in the Nuclear Age, 1946–1989”. Social Sciences, 7(6): Article no. 82.
Cyril of Jerusalem (1995). “The Catechetical Lectures”. In Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers. Second Series. Volume 7: Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen. Ed. By Philip Schaff. Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, pp. 1-183.
Schmemann, Alexander (2018). “Vselenskii Patriarkh i Pravoslavnaia Tserkov'” [The Ecumenical Patriarch and the Orthodox Church]. In Tserkov' i tserkovnoe ustroistvo [The Church and Its Structure]. Moscow: GRANAT, pp. 22-83. (In Russian).
Schmitt, Carl (2006). The Nomos of the Earth in the International Law of the Jus Publicum Europaeum. Trans. by G.L. Ulmen. New York: Telos Press Publishing.
Sears, Nathan A. (2020). “Anarchy, Technology, and the Self-Destruction Hypothesis: Human Survival and the Fermi Paradox”. World Futures, 76(8): 579-610.
Shepelev, Maximilian (2022). Politicheskaia teologiia [Political Theology]. Moscow: Urait. (In Russian).
Shklar, Judith N. (1961). “Review of: The Future of Mankind. By KARL JASPERS. Translated by E. B. Ashton. Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1961”. Political Science Quarterly, 76(3): 437-439.
Somerville, John (1980). “Philosophy of Peace Today: Preventive Eschatology”. Peace Research, 12(2): 61-66.
Stoeckl, Kristina, Gabriel, Ingeborg, and Papanikolaou, Aristotle, eds. (2017). Political Theologies in Orthodox Christianity: Common Challenges and Divergent Positions. London & New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark.
Theodoret of Cyrus (2013). “Tolkovanie na 2-e poslanie k Fessalonikiitsam” [Commentary on 2 Thessalonians]. In Tolkovanie na chetyrnadtsat' Poslanii sviatogo apostola Pavla [Commentary on 14 Pauline Epistles]. Moscow: Sibirskaia blagozvonnitsa, pp. 522-534. (In Russian).
Theophan the Recluse (2005). Tolkovaniia Poslanii apostola Pavla (k Solunianam, k Filimonu, k Evreiam) [Commentary on the Pauline Epistles to the Thessalonians, to Philemon, to the Hebrews]. Moscow: Pravilo Very. (In Russian).
Thomas, Scott M. (2010). “Living Critically and ‘Living Faithfully’ in a Global Age: Justice, Emancipation and the Political Theology of International Relations”. Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 39(2): 505–524.
Trenin, Dmitri (2022). “Na puti k poslednei cherte” [Towards the Edge]. Kommersant. https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/5608400. (In Russian).
Uchaev, Yevgeny (2023). “Ot eskhatologii o. Aleksandra Shmemana k avtotranstsendentsii khristianstva” [From Alexander Schmemann’s Eschatology to the Auto-Transcendence of Christianity]. In Edinstvo dobra, istiny i krasoty v russkoi filosofsko-bogoslovskoi traditsii [The Unity of Goodness, Truth and Beauty in the Russian Religious and Philosophical Tradition]. Ed. by Nikita Syundyukov. St. Petersburg: The Russian Christian Academy for the Humanities Publ. (In Russian). (In Press).
Uchaev, Yevgeny, Kharkevich, Maxim (2023). “Nemyslimost' total'noi katastrofy: postapokalipticheskaia priroda modernogo politicheskogo realizma” [Unthinkable Doomsday: Postapocalyptic Nature of Modern Political Realism]. Politeia – Journal of Political Theory, Political Philosophy and Sociology of Politics, No. 1(108): 40-63. (In Russian).
Uchaev, Yevgeny, Kvartalnov, Artem (2022). “Temporal'nyi podkhod k probleme ustoichivosti iadernoi anarkhii” [Is Nuclear Anarchy Sustainable? A Temporal Approach]. MGIMO Review of International Relations, 15(6): 112-134. (In Russian).
Uchaev, Yevgeny (2023). “The Concept of Katechon in the Thought of Carl Schmitt: Towards a Different Universalism?”. Russian Sociological Review, 22(4): 26-45.
Vatter, Miguel (2021). Divine Democracy: Political Theology after Carl Schmitt. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
“Via Crucis con il Papa oscurata dai media cattolici ucraini. Ma Francesco tira dritto” (2022). Quotidiano Nazionale: https://www.quotidiano.net/cronaca/via-crucis-2022-papa-francesco-1.7573087. (In Italian).
Virno, Paolo (2008). Multitude: Between Innovation and Negation. Los Angeles: Semiotexte.
Voegelin, Eric (1987). The New Science of Politics: An Introduction. Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press.
Waltz, Kenneth (1990). “Nuclear Myths and Political Realities”. American Political Science Review, 84(3): 730–745.
Ward, Bruce K. (2017). “Apocalypse: Hope Against All Hope”. In The Palgrave Handbook of Mimetic Theory and Religion. Ed. by James Alison and Wolfgang Palaver. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 403-410.
Weber, Max (2004). “Politics as a Vocation”. In The Vocation Lectures. Ed. by David Owen and Tracy B. Strong. Trans. by Rodney Livingstone. Indianapolis & Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, pp. 32-94.
Wohlforth, William C., Little, Richard et al. (2007). “Testing Balance-of-Power Theory in World History”. European Journal of International Relations, 13(2): 155–185.
Yarkeev, Aleksey (2022). “K voprosu o vozmozhnosti politicheskoi teologii: Karl Shmitt polemiziruet s Erikom Petersonom” [Toward the Question of the Possibility of Political Theology: C. Schmitt Argues with E. Peterson]. Russian Sociological Review, 21(2): 189-213. (In Russian).
Zygmont, Alexey (2019). “Predislovie k russkomu izdaniiu” [Foreword to the Russian Edition]. In Girard, René. Zavershit' Klauzevitsa. Besedy s Benua Shantrom [Battling to the End: Conversations with Benoît Chantre]. Moscow: Izd-vo BBI, pp. vii-xv.
Agamben, Giorgio (1998). Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Trans. by Daniel Heller-Roazen. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Agamben, Giorgio (2005). The Time That Remains: A Commentary on the Letter to the Romans. Trans. by Patricia Dailey. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Alexander, Paul J. (1985). The Byzantine Apocalyptic Tradition. Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Anders, Günther (2011). La Obsolescencia Del Hombre (Volumen I): Sobre el alma en la época de la segunda revolución industrial. Traducción de Josep Monter Pérez. Valencia: Pre-Textos. (In Spanish).
Arbatov, Alexei (2021). “The Ten Aporias of Our Time. The Theory and Practice of Nuclear Deterrence”. Polis. Political Studies, No. 4: 88-111.
Ashley, Richard (1989). “Living on Border Lines: Man, Poststructuralism, and War”. In International/Intertextual Relations: Postmodern Readings of World Politics. Ed. by James Der Derian and Michael J. Shapiro. New York: Lexington Books, pp. 259-321.
Augustine of Hippo (1998). The City of God against the Pagans. Trans. by Robert W. Dyson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Basil of Caesarea (1962). “Preface on the Judgment of God”. In Ascetical Works. Trans. by sister M. Monica Wagner. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, pp. 37-55.
Bourdieu, Pierre (2014). On the State: Lectures at the College de France, 1989-1992. Trans. by David Fernbach. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Budraitskis, Ilya (2021). “Chto ‘uderzhivayet’ katekhon? Konechnost’ gosudarstva v konservativnoy i sotsialisticheskoy mysli” [What is ‘Restrained’ by the katechon? The Finitude of the State in Conservative and Socialist Thought]. Philosophy. Journal of the Higher School of Economics, 5(2): 13-33.
Bulgakov, Sergei (1993). “Apokaliptika i sotsializm” [Apocalypticism and Socialism]. In Izbrannye stat'i [Selected Papers]. Moscow: Nauka, pp. 368-434. (In Russian).
Cacciari, Massimo (2018). The Withholding Power. An Essay on Political Theology. Bloomsbury: Bloomsbury Academic.
Campbell, David (1998). Writing Security: United States Foreign Policy and the Politics of Identity. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Cavanaugh, William T., Scott, Peter Manley, eds. (2019). The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Political Theology. Second Edition. Chichester: The John Wiley and Sons Ltd.
Cook, Martin L. (2004). “Christian Apocalypticism and Weapons of Mass Destruction”. In Ethics and Weapons of Mass Destruction: Religious and Secular Perspectives. Ed. by Sohail H. Hashmi and Steven P. Lee. New York & Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 200-210.
Craig, Campbell (2003). Glimmer of a New Leviathan: Total War in the Realism of Niebuhr, Morgenthau, and Waltz. New York: Colombia University Press.
Craig, Campbell (2019). “Solving the Nuclear Dilemma: Is a World State Necessary?”. Journal of International Political Theory, 15(3): 349-366.
Creveld, Martin van (1991). The Transformation of War. New York: The Free Press.
Davidson, Donald L. (2018) Nuclear Weapons and the American Churches: Ethical Positions on Modern Warfare. Abingdon & New York: Routledge.
Debrix, Francois (2015) “Katechontic Sovereignty: Security Politics and the Overcoming of Time”. International Political Sociology, 9(2): 143–157.
Deudney, Daniel H. (2007). Bounding Power: Republican Security Theory from the Polis to the Global Village. Princeton & Oxford: Princeton University Press.
Deudney, Daniel H. (2019). “Going Critical: Toward a Modified Nuclear One Worldism”. Journal of International Political Theory, 15(3): 367-385.
Dillon, Michael (2011). “Specters of Biopolitics: Finitude, Eschaton, and Katechon”. South Atlantic Quarterly, 110(3): 780–92.
Dillon, Michael (2015). Biopolitics of Security: A political analytic of finitude. Abington & New York: Routledge.
Dudenkova, Irina (2019). “Kontseptsiia katekhona v sovremennoi sekuliarnoi politicheskoi eskhatologii” [The Concept of the Katechon in Contemporary Secular Political Eschatology]. In Puti Rosiii. Granitsy politiki. Sbornik statei XXV Mezhdunarodnogo simpoziuma [The Ways of Russia. The Limits of Politics. Proceedings of the 25th International Symposium]. Ed. by Marina Pugacheva. Moscow: Izd. dom “Delo” RANEPA, pp. 34-44. (In Russian).
Dugin, Aleksandr (2003). “Katekhon i revoliutsiia” [The Katechon and the Revolution]. Kommunisticheskaia partiia Rossiiskoi Federatsii [The Communist Party of the Russian Federation]. https://kprf.ru/personal/dugin/ideas/19528.html. (In Russian).
Dupuy, Jean-Pierre (2013). The Mark of the Sacred. Trans. by Malcolm B. DeBevoise. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Dupuy, Jean-Pierre (2015). A Short Treatise on the Metaphysics of Tsunamis. Trans. by Malcolm B. DeBevoise. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press.
Dupuy, Jean-Pierre (2017). “Secularization”. In The Palgrave Handbook of Mimetic Theory and Religion. Ed. by James Alison and Wolfgang Palaver. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 271-277.
Duvall, Raymond, Havercroft, Jonathan (2008). “Taking sovereignty out of this world: space weapons and empire of the future”. Review of International Studies, 34(4): 755-775.
Early, Bryan R., Asal, Victor (2018). “Nuclear weapons, existential threats, and the stability–instability paradox”. The Nonproliferation Review, 25(3-4): 223-247.
Ephrem the Syrian (1995). “Tolkovanie na 2-e poslanie k Fessalonikiitsam” [Commentary on 2 Thessalonians]. In Tvoreniia: v 8 t. Tom sed'moi [Works: in 8 vols. Volume 7]. Moscow: Izdatel'stvo “Otchii Dom”, pp. 241-253. (In Russian).
Esposito, Roberto (2015). Two: The Machine of Political Theology and the Place of Thought. New York: Fordham University Press.
Francis, Pope (2015). “Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’ Of the Holy Father Francis on Care for Our Common Home”. The Holy See. https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html
Froom, LeRoy E. (1950). The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers: The Historical Development of Prophetic Interpretation. Vol. 1: Early Church Exposition, Subsequent Deflections, and Medieval Revival. Washington, DC: Review and Herald.
Girard, René (2010). Battling to the End: Conversations with Benoît Chantre. Trans. by. Mary Baker. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press.
Gorday, Peter, ed. (2000). Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. New Testament IX: Colossians, 1-2 Thessalonians, 1-2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
Guilhot, Nicholas (2010). “American Katechon: When Political Theology Became International Relations Theory”. Constellations: An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory, 17(2): 224–253.
Harris, Brittany A. (2020) “Christian thought and the moral permissibility of nuclear weapons”. Comparative Strategy, 39(1): 1-17.
Hashmi, Sohail H., Lee Steven P., eds. (2004) Ethics and Weapons of Mass Destruction: Religious and Secular Perspectives. New York & Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hauerwas, Stanley (2001). “Should War Be Eliminated? A Thought Experiment”. In The Hauerwas Reader. Ed. by John Berkman and Michael Cartwright. Durham & London: Duke University Press, pp. 392-425.
Hippolytus of Rome (2022). “Text of the Commentary on Daniel”. In Hippolytus of Rome’s Commentary on Daniel. Trans. and ed. by Thomas C. Schmidt. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, pp. 25-194.
Hobson, John M. (2000). The State and International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hollerich, Michael (2020). “Total War and Limited Government: The German Catholic Debate at the Dawn of the Nuclear Age””. In Theology and World Politics: Metaphysics, Genealogies, Political Theologies. Ed. by Vassilios Paipais. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 237-263.
Hovey, Craig, Phillips, Elizabeth, eds. (2015). The Cambridge Companion to Christian Political Theology. New York: Cambridge University Press.
IMEMO (2022). Nuclear Factor in the Ukrainian Conflict (IMEMO Analytical Report). Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences. https://www.imemo.ru/en/news/events/text/analiticheskiy-doklad-imemo-ran-yaderniy-faktor-v-ukrainskom-konflikte
Ioann (Snychev), metropolitan (2017). Samoderzhavie dukha: Ocherki russkogo samosoznaniia [The Autocracy of the Spirit: Notes on Russian Identity]. Moscow: Institut russkoi tsivilizatsii. (In Russian).
Irenaeus (1995). “Against Heresies: Book V”. In Ante-Nicene Fathers. Volume 1: The Apostolic Fathers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus. Ed. by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, pp. 526-567.
Istrin, Vasilii (1897). Otkrovenie Mefodiia Patarskogo i apokrificheskie videniia Daniila v vizantiiskoi i slaviano-russkoi literaturakh: Issledovaniia i teksty [The Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius and Apocryphal Visions of Daniel in the Byzantine, and Slavic and Russian Literatures: Studies and Texts]. Moscow: Universitetskaia tipografiia. (In Russian).
Jerome of Stridon (N.D.) “A Letter to Algasia”. Epistolæ: Medieval Women's Letters. https://epistolae.ctl.columbia.edu/letter/1291.html
Jervis, Robert (1989). The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution: Statecraft and the Prospect of Armageddon. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Joder, John Howard (1988). “Armaments and Eschatology”. Studies in Christian Ethics, 1(1): 43–61.
John Chrysostom (1995). “Homilies on 2 Thessalonians”. In Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church. First Series, Volume 13. Ed. by Philip Schaff. Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, pp. 377-398.
Jones, Larry (1988) “Apocalyptic Eschatology in the Nuclear Arms Race”. Transformation, 5(1): 25–27.
Jung, L. Shannon (1983). “Critic’s Corner: Nuclear Eschatology”. Theology Today, 40(2): 184-194.
Kahn, Paul W. (2011). Political Theology: Four New Chapters on the Concept of Severeignty. New York: Columbia University Press.
Kalaitzidis, Pantelis (2012). Orthodoxy and Political Theology. Geneva: World Council of Churches Publications.
Kaldor, Mary (2012). New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era, 3rd ed. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Kaufman, Gordon (1983). “Nuclear Eschatology and the Study of Religion”. Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 51(1): 3-14.
Kaufman, Gordon (1985). Theology for a Nuclear Age. Manchester: Manchester University Press; Philadelphia: The Westminster Press.
Kierulff, Stephen (1992). “Armageddon Theology and the Risk of Global War: The Limits of Religious Tolerance in the Nuclear Age”. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 32(4): 92–107.
Kirwan, Michael (2008). Political Theology: A New Introduction. London: Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd.
Kirwan, Michael (2017). “Mimetic Theory and the Katēchon”. In The Palgrave Handbook of Mimetic Theory and Religion. Ed. by James Alison and Wolfgang Palaver. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 363-369.
Kirwan, Michael (2021). “Between Politics and Apocalypse: Discerning the missio Dei in the Contemporary Global Crisis”. In Theology and the Political. Ed. by Alexei Bodrov and Stephen M. Garrett. Leiden & Boston: Brill, pp. 15-29.
Koktysh, Kirill (2021). Diskurs ratsionalizma, svobody i demokratii [The Discourse of Rationalism, Liberty, and Democracy]. Moscow: MGIMO-Universitet. (In Russian).
Kondurov, Viacheslav (2021). “Politicheskaia teologiia mezhdunarodnogo prava: grani i granitsy metoda” [Political Theology of International Law: Methodological Facets and Borders]. Russian Sociological Review, 20(1): 50-71. (In Russian).
Konstantin (Zaitsev), archimandrite (1948). Pamiati poslednego Tsaria [In the Memory of the Last Tsar]. Shanghai. (In Russian).
Kubalkova, Vendulka (2000). “Towards an International Political Theology”. Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 29(3): 675-704.
Leontiev, Konstantin (1995). “Nad mogiloi Pazukhina” [At Pazukhin’s Grave]. In Antikhrist (Iz istorii otechestvennoi dukhovnosti): Antologiia [The Antichrist (from the History of Russian Spirituality): An Antology]. Ed. by A.S. Grishin, K.G. Yusupov. Moscow: Vysshaia shkola, pp. 92-106.
Lieber, Keir A, Press, Daryl G. (2020). The Myth of the Nuclear Revolution: Power Politics in the Atomic Age. Ithaca & London: Cornell University Press.
Lomonaco, Amedeo (2022). “Una famiglia russa e una ucraina portano insieme la croce al Colosseo”. Vatican News: https://www.vaticannews.va/it/chiesa/news/2022-04/via-crucis-colosseo-famiglia-russa-ucraina-campus-biomedico.html. (In Italian).
Lonsdale, David J. (2012). “Nuclear Strategy and Catholicism: A Reappraisal”. Journal of Military Ethics, 11(3): 186-207.
Lukyanov, Fyodor (2022). “Tri obraza nadezhdy” [Three Images of Hope]. Rossiia v global'noi politike. https://globalaffairs.ru/articles/tri-obraza-nadezhdy/. (In Russian).
Luoma-aho, Mika (2012). God and International Relations: Christian Theology and World Politics. New Yor & London: Continuum International Publishing.
Mearsheimer John J. (2001). The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. New York & London: W.W.Norton & Company.
Moltmann, Jurgen (1988). “God and the Nuclear Catastrophe”. Pacifica, 1(2): 157–170.
Moltmann, Jurgen (1996). The Coming of God: Christian Eschatology. Trans. by Margaret Kohl. London: SCM Press Ltd.
Munster, Rens van, Sylvest, Casper (2016). Nuclear Realism: Global Political Thought during the Thermonuclear Revolution. New York: Routledge.
Nekhaenko, Fedor (2022). “Carl Schmitt, Erik Peterson, and Giorgio Agamben: the war for Christian political theology”. Russian Sociological Review, 21(4): 9-33.
Newman, Saul (2019). Political Theology: A Critical Introduction. Cambridge: Polity Press.
O’Donovan, Oliver (2003). The Just War Revisited. New York & Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Prozorov, Sergei (2012). “The Katechon in the Age of Biopolitical Nihilism”. Continental Philosophy Review, 45(4): 483-503.
Prozorov, Sergei (2017). “Like a thief in the night: Agamben, Hobbes and the messianic transvaluation of security”. Security Dialogue, 48(6): 473–487.
Quirico, Domenico (2022). “Guerra Russia-Ucraina, le scandalose parole del Papa”. La Stampa: https://www.lastampa.it/editoriali/lettere-e-idee/2022/06/15/news/guerra_russiaucraina_le_scandalose_parole_del_papa-5412523/. (In Italian).
Ratzinger, Josef (Pope Benedict XVI) (2006). “Prepolitical Moral Foundations of a Free Republic”. In Political Theologies: Public Religions In A Post-Secular World. Ed. by Hent De Vries and Lawrence E. Sullivan. New York: Fordham University Press, pp. 261-268.
Rengger, Nicholas (2013). “On theology and international relations: World politics beyond the empty sky”. International Relations, 27(2): 141–157.
Tertullian (1995). “On the Resurrection of the Flesh”. In Ante-Nicene Fathers. Volume 3: Latin Christianity: Its Founder, Tertullian. Ed. By Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, pp. 545-595.
Rock, Stephen R. (2018). “From Just War to Nuclear Pacifism: The Evolution of U.S. Christian Thinking about War in the Nuclear Age, 1946–1989”. Social Sciences, 7(6): Article no. 82.
Cyril of Jerusalem (1995). “The Catechetical Lectures”. In Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers. Second Series. Volume 7: Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen. Ed. By Philip Schaff. Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, pp. 1-183.
Schmemann, Alexander (2018). “Vselenskii Patriarkh i Pravoslavnaia Tserkov'” [The Ecumenical Patriarch and the Orthodox Church]. In Tserkov' i tserkovnoe ustroistvo [The Church and Its Structure]. Moscow: GRANAT, pp. 22-83. (In Russian).
Schmitt, Carl (2006). The Nomos of the Earth in the International Law of the Jus Publicum Europaeum. Trans. by G.L. Ulmen. New York: Telos Press Publishing.
Sears, Nathan A. (2020). “Anarchy, Technology, and the Self-Destruction Hypothesis: Human Survival and the Fermi Paradox”. World Futures, 76(8): 579-610.
Shepelev, Maximilian (2022). Politicheskaia teologiia [Political Theology]. Moscow: Urait. (In Russian).
Shklar, Judith N. (1961). “Review of: The Future of Mankind. By KARL JASPERS. Translated by E. B. Ashton. Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1961”. Political Science Quarterly, 76(3): 437-439.
Somerville, John (1980). “Philosophy of Peace Today: Preventive Eschatology”. Peace Research, 12(2): 61-66.
Stoeckl, Kristina, Gabriel, Ingeborg, and Papanikolaou, Aristotle, eds. (2017). Political Theologies in Orthodox Christianity: Common Challenges and Divergent Positions. London & New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark.
Theodoret of Cyrus (2013). “Tolkovanie na 2-e poslanie k Fessalonikiitsam” [Commentary on 2 Thessalonians]. In Tolkovanie na chetyrnadtsat' Poslanii sviatogo apostola Pavla [Commentary on 14 Pauline Epistles]. Moscow: Sibirskaia blagozvonnitsa, pp. 522-534. (In Russian).
Theophan the Recluse (2005). Tolkovaniia Poslanii apostola Pavla (k Solunianam, k Filimonu, k Evreiam) [Commentary on the Pauline Epistles to the Thessalonians, to Philemon, to the Hebrews]. Moscow: Pravilo Very. (In Russian).
Thomas, Scott M. (2010). “Living Critically and ‘Living Faithfully’ in a Global Age: Justice, Emancipation and the Political Theology of International Relations”. Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 39(2): 505–524.
Trenin, Dmitri (2022). “Na puti k poslednei cherte” [Towards the Edge]. Kommersant. https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/5608400. (In Russian).
Uchaev, Yevgeny (2023). “Ot eskhatologii o. Aleksandra Shmemana k avtotranstsendentsii khristianstva” [From Alexander Schmemann’s Eschatology to the Auto-Transcendence of Christianity]. In Edinstvo dobra, istiny i krasoty v russkoi filosofsko-bogoslovskoi traditsii [The Unity of Goodness, Truth and Beauty in the Russian Religious and Philosophical Tradition]. Ed. by Nikita Syundyukov. St. Petersburg: The Russian Christian Academy for the Humanities Publ. (In Russian). (In Press).
Uchaev, Yevgeny, Kharkevich, Maxim (2023). “Nemyslimost' total'noi katastrofy: postapokalipticheskaia priroda modernogo politicheskogo realizma” [Unthinkable Doomsday: Postapocalyptic Nature of Modern Political Realism]. Politeia – Journal of Political Theory, Political Philosophy and Sociology of Politics, No. 1(108): 40-63. (In Russian).
Uchaev, Yevgeny, Kvartalnov, Artem (2022). “Temporal'nyi podkhod k probleme ustoichivosti iadernoi anarkhii” [Is Nuclear Anarchy Sustainable? A Temporal Approach]. MGIMO Review of International Relations, 15(6): 112-134. (In Russian).
Uchaev, Yevgeny (2023). “The Concept of Katechon in the Thought of Carl Schmitt: Towards a Different Universalism?”. Russian Sociological Review, 22(4): 26-45.
Vatter, Miguel (2021). Divine Democracy: Political Theology after Carl Schmitt. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
“Via Crucis con il Papa oscurata dai media cattolici ucraini. Ma Francesco tira dritto” (2022). Quotidiano Nazionale: https://www.quotidiano.net/cronaca/via-crucis-2022-papa-francesco-1.7573087. (In Italian).
Virno, Paolo (2008). Multitude: Between Innovation and Negation. Los Angeles: Semiotexte.
Voegelin, Eric (1987). The New Science of Politics: An Introduction. Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press.
Waltz, Kenneth (1990). “Nuclear Myths and Political Realities”. American Political Science Review, 84(3): 730–745.
Ward, Bruce K. (2017). “Apocalypse: Hope Against All Hope”. In The Palgrave Handbook of Mimetic Theory and Religion. Ed. by James Alison and Wolfgang Palaver. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 403-410.
Weber, Max (2004). “Politics as a Vocation”. In The Vocation Lectures. Ed. by David Owen and Tracy B. Strong. Trans. by Rodney Livingstone. Indianapolis & Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, pp. 32-94.
Wohlforth, William C., Little, Richard et al. (2007). “Testing Balance-of-Power Theory in World History”. European Journal of International Relations, 13(2): 155–185.
Yarkeev, Aleksey (2022). “K voprosu o vozmozhnosti politicheskoi teologii: Karl Shmitt polemiziruet s Erikom Petersonom” [Toward the Question of the Possibility of Political Theology: C. Schmitt Argues with E. Peterson]. Russian Sociological Review, 21(2): 189-213. (In Russian).
Zygmont, Alexey (2019). “Predislovie k russkomu izdaniiu” [Foreword to the Russian Edition]. In Girard, René. Zavershit' Klauzevitsa. Besedy s Benua Shantrom [Battling to the End: Conversations with Benoît Chantre]. Moscow: Izd-vo BBI, pp. vii-xv.
Published
2023-12-31
How to Cite
Uchaev, Y., & Nikolaev, I. (2023). Rethinking the Katechon: Towards a Political Theology for a Nuclear Age. Stasis, 11(1-2). Retrieved from https://stasisjournal.net/index.php/journal/article/view/244
Section
Articles
