Authors

Discussion

In most European countries and the United States, pacifism became a central issue during the two world wars. Over time, the dominance of pacifism as a collective stance shifted toward the principle of individual choice, allowing believers to act according to personal conscience. Within the global Pentecostal movement, attitudes toward military participation ranged from categorical refusal to full acceptance of compulsory service. This transformation was influenced both by evolving views of religious leaders and by state responses to church declarations.

In the Soviet Union, Pentecostals had already adopted a loyalist position on the military question by the 1920s. The Soviet state required Pentecostals to acknowledge the necessity of fulfilling civic obligations, including armed service. As a result, Soviet Pentecostals developed a flexible stance toward pacifism, emphasizing individual responsibility for one’s decisions while simultaneously affirming compliance with low state. However, in unregistered communities, refusals to take the military oath or to bear arms were frequent. By the late Soviet period, military service was widely perceived by Pentecostal believers both as a test of religious commitment and evidence of law-abiding behavior and social integration within Soviet society.