Betsy Perabo's book discusses the challenges which the Russo-Japanese War presented to Christian morality and the national feelings of Russian Orthodox subjects of both empires involved in the conflict. Can a Christian Church justify a war? Is there a holy war? Are Christians allowed to kill non-Christians? To answer such questions, the author draws upon the western just war tradition and James Turner Johnson's definition of holy war. Yet, she does not employ these concepts mechanically but takes into consideration the absence of a systematically elaborated just war theory in Eastern Orthodox Christianity (4). In this way, Perabo's analysis successfully reveals the historical development of “elements of the just and holy war traditions as they appear in Russia” (6).

Conscious about the shortage of knowledge about Eastern Orthodox Christianity outside Russia and eastern Europe, the author familiarizes the reader with the features of this branch of Christianity that distinguish it from the Catholic and Protestant denominations. She also informs her audience about church-state relations in Russia and the history of the Russian Orthodox Mission in Japan. According to Perabo, Russian Orthodoxy has developed its own justification of war on the grounds of the Old Testament and the Eusebian influence on Orthodox political theology (66–67). In this regard, she pays special attention to the Russian notion of the Christ-loving military which stems from the veneration of warrior-saints and which is present in Orthodox liturgical texts, prayers, and theological treatises.

Based on texts from the Russian church press, diaries, and memoirs as well as from English-language Japanese newspapers, Perabo's book offers a remarkable overview of attitudes to the war and the enemy that has evolved during the Russo-Japanese conflict. Perabo presents a variety of perceptions of the war in Russian society. In this regard, she pays special attention to the church press describing the native Christ-loving warriors as ready to sacrifice their lives for faith, tsar, and fatherland and opposing the Japanese “heathens” depicted as “primordial enemies of the cross of Christ” who have “already spilled Christian blood” (88–90).

The oppositional pole of views is presented by the famous writer, Lev Tolstoi, whose understanding of Christianity as a pacifist religion inspired him to raise his voice against the war (92). No less intriguing is the contrast between the wartime rhetoric of the Orthodox churchmen in Russia and the views of Bishop Nikolai (Kasatkin), their Japan-based compatriot. In this case, Perabo's analysis is focused on Nikolai's dilemma: how to reconcile his Christian ethics and responsibility to the Japanese flock with the love for his homeland of Russia as well as with the loyalty he owed to the Japanese Emperor (94–95). Seeking a solution, he came up with a philosophy that reveals an alternative Russian political theology. It is well synthesized in Nikolai's metaphor of the two-story house used to describe his awkward wartime situation: on its lower floor the Russian and the Japanese are separated by politics as determined by their earthly kingdoms, while on the upper one—they are united in their Christian faith and love as if it was the heavenly kingdom (149). This image resonates with the statement of Jesus Christ about the many mansions in His Father's House (John 14:2) and resembles Augustine's two cities concepts (173). No less important for Nikolai's political theology is his assessment of the loyalty of every Christian to his/her homeland “as a fundamental and apparently unshakable theological principle” (172). According to him, however, faith was stronger than the loyalty of Orthodox Christians to different earthy kingdoms. In his view, their belonging to the Orthodox Church's family has transformed them into spiritual siblings and they should relate to each other accordingly (171–73).

At the same time, Perabo repeats some misinterpretations of the honorary title “equal to the Apostles” conferred on Nikolai of Japan by the Russian Orthodox Church during his canonization in 1970. In particular, she draws an analog with Constantine the Great—the Byzantine Emperor who is also venerated as equal to the Apostles (174). The correct reference, however, should be the one to the holy brothers Cyril and Methodius, who used the native language of the Slavs to propagate Christianity among them. Despite this remark, Betsy Perabo's book deserves the attention of scholars from the fields of Russian studies, Orthodox theology, and Christian ethics not only because it sheds new light on a particular historical episode, but because it triggers a discussion on the notions of a just and holy war in Orthodox political theology.