Wars result in serious upheavals and losses 
on individual, family, and community levels, especially in the cases of genocides, aggressive and total wars, hasty military interventions, and localized armed conflicts. 
A more comprehensive and deeper understanding of the processes of legitimizing wars reveals their horrific nature 
and inadmissibility. As a result of the rise 
of very destructive military technologies 
and full-scale wars, there has been, since 
the second half of the 20th century, 
a rethinking of just war theory. While 
the current magisterium still admits 
the possibility of a legitimate defense of war, our contemporary moment prompts all 
to envision how military activism might give way to military realism, leading to the de-escalation of armed conflict for which 
the thesis of pax optima rerum (Silius Italicus, Punica 11,595) rings true once again.

This upcoming international conference is 
an integral part of the interdisciplinary project APVV-23-0509 A Paradigmatic Shift in the Understanding of War and Armed Conflicts from Theological-Historical and Legal Perspectives (2024-2028). The conference aims to explore and discuss not only the shifts 
in the perception of the concept of just war, but also the forms of legitimizing or de-escalating past or present wars, and the ius ad bellum, ius in bello in biblical, patristic, philosophical-theological, church-historical, and legal sources, and judicial processes 
as well. The understanding 
of the authorization of wars, attempts at their justification, as well as the exceedingly problematic technological level 
of contemporary wars, calls for an ethico-legal examination of armed conflicts and also their urgent de-escalation toward a stable and just peace.