Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople calls everyone “to mobilize forces and to pray in the fight to protect the environment “

Dear friends, today the Patriarch of Constantinople wrote of the need to sensitize all people of the urgent ecological problems facing our planet today, including the adverse consequences produced by companies, “which can be, and are proving very dangerous and catastrophic for creation and life of living beings on earth.”  We are facing the “threat or even the destruction of ‘ natural environment”.

He went on:

"It requires constant vigilance, training and education so that it is clear the relationship of the current ecological crisis with human passions of greed, greed, selfishness, rapacious greed, the result of which is the result passions is the environmental crisis we live. Therefore constitutes only way, the return to the ancient beauty of order and economy, moderation and asceticism, which can lead to the wise management of the natural environment. Especially, the greed with the satisfaction of material needs, leads with certainty to the spiritual poverty of man, which calls for the destruction of the natural environment: “The roots of the ecological crisis are spiritual and ethical, inherent in everyone’s heart man”, he said the quoted Holy and Great Synod of the Orthodox Church, by contacting the present world,” the desire of rising prosperity and unbridled consumerism lead inevitably disproportionate use and depletion of natural resources “(cfr. decision on text “the mission of the Church”).

… Aware of “our greatest responsibility” – proclaimed in pan-Orthodox way – “to pass on to future generations a livable natural environment and its use in accordance with God’s will and blessing” (Encyclical of the Holy and Great Synod) and that “not only the generations current but also future ones have the right to enjoy the natural goods, donated to us by the Creator. ” (Decision of the Holy and Great Synod “The mission of the Church”), we call everyone to mobilize forces and especially to pray in the fight to protect the environment in its broadest sense, that is as a harmonic conjunction of the natural environment and culture of mankind."

The full statement is below.

BY THE GRACE OF GOD ARCOVESCOVO OF ISTANBUL

New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch

To the Plenitude of the Church Grace, peace and mercy

By the Craftsman OF ALL CREATED THE LORD GOD

AND OUR SAVIOR JESUS ‘CHRIST

—

Brothers and beloved children in the Lord,

Following many years the catastrophic global developments in the environmental field, the Holy and Great Mother Church of Christ, keeping watch on its own initiative, has set the start of each church year as a day dedicated to creation, the environment, calling during same day the entire Orthodox world, and Christian, to make a prayer and a plea to the Creator of all things, and to give thanks for the great gift of creation and petitions for its protection and salvation from all visible and invisible attacks of men. So then, this year, during the mentioned days, by the Ecumenical Patriarchate, we remember the need to sensitize all before the ecological problems facing our planet today.

Today’s rapid technological progress and the possibilities and facilities that it offers to modern man, should not sidetrack from failing to seriously consider, before any technology company, burdens that it causes in the natural environment and society, and below also related adverse consequences, which can be, and are proving very dangerous and catastrophic for creation and life of living beings on earth.

This need, however, was also proclaimed by brothers Primates and Bishops of the Holy Orthodox Churches premises, in the past month of June, during the convocation blessed, in the great island of Crete, the Holy and Great Synod, under the chairmanship the Ecumenical Patriarch, noting in his encyclical that “through the current development of science and technology, our life is changing radically. And what causes a change in human life demands discernment on his part, since, in addition to the considerable advantages … we are also facing the negative consequences of scientific progress”, including even the threat or even the destruction of ‘ natural environment.

It requires constant vigilance, training and education so that it is clear the relationship of the current ecological crisis with human passions of greed, greed, selfishness, rapacious greed, the result of which is the result passions is the environmental crisis we live. Therefore constitutes only way, the return to the ancient beauty of order and economy, moderation and asceticism, which can lead to the wise management of the natural environment. Especially, the greed with the satisfaction of material needs, leads with certainty to the spiritual poverty of man, which calls for the destruction of the natural environment: “The roots of the ecological crisis are spiritual and ethical, inherent in everyone’s heart man”, he said the quoted Holy and Great Synod of the Orthodox Church, by contacting the present world,” the desire of rising prosperity and unbridled consumerism lead inevitably disproportionate use and depletion of natural resources “(cfr. decision on text “the mission of the Church”).

At the same time, we celebrate today, brothers and beloved children in the Lord, the memory of Blessed Simeon Stylites, this large column of our Church, whose monument, like other wonderful archaeological sites in Syria and around the world, such as the famous ancient Palmira, counted worldwide among the leading cultural heritage monuments , have suffered the barbarity and the horrors of war, showed an equal significant problem: the crisis of culture , which in recent years is global . On the other hand, Environment and Culture are united and equal value and interchangeable.The world that embraces humanity was created by a single imperative word: “It is” (cf. Gen. 1 3,6,14). The culture was created by man equipped with a rational mind, so that also the respect towards it is obvious and necessary, because of course the man is and is honored as the crowning glory of the Divine Creation.

Therefore, duly, from this sacred Center of Orthodoxy, enriched by an extraordinary tradition and preserving the values of broader parameters of the cultural heritage, we draw the attention of all those responsible, and to every man, on the need for protection, in parallel, for the natural heritage and world cultural environment, which is in danger because of climate change, the war conflicts throughout the world and because of other reasons.

The cultural treasures, and as monuments religious and spiritual, but also as a two thousand year old expression of the human mind, belong to all of humanity and not only to countries within whose borders are, they run their dangers to the environment and also the concern for environmental protection and the priceless values of the culture is judged mandatory for the good life of all humanity.

The ruin and the destruction of a cultural monuments of a country hurts the universal heritage of humanity. Also it is the duty and responsibility of every human being, especially of every civilized country, however, to strengthen the protection measures and uninterrupted conservation of its monuments. So it is essential that any rule of law and constituted legality, avoid actions that affect the integrity of its “universal monuments” and altering the intangible values that each of them represents.

Aware of “our greatest responsibility” – proclaimed in pan-Orthodox way – “to pass on to future generations a livable natural environment and its use in accordance with God’s will and blessing” (Encyclical of the Holy and Great Synod) and that “not only the generations current but also future ones have the right to enjoy the natural goods, donated to us by the Creator. ” (Decision of the Holy and Great Synod “The mission of the Church”), we call everyone to mobilize forces and especially to pray in the fight to protect the environment in its broadest sense, that is as a harmonic conjunction of the natural environment and culture of mankind and beseech our Lord Jesus Christ, with the prayers of the Most Holy Mother of God of Pammacaristos, with the voice of one crying in the wilderness John the Forerunner, with the intercession of Simeon Stylites, and of all the saints, to preserve our common natural and cultural home from every threat that sopraggiunga and destruction and to continuously provide and plenty poured His blessing upon it.

With soulful recollection and prayer of the heart, and with all the faithful, praying the Maker of Creation, of things visible and invisible, of sensible things and intelligible to offer “the temperate climate and profitable, computed rain and calm because the earth bear fruit in abundance “and to give to the whole world” a deep peace, a peace that is beyond all thought, “we invoke upon all human beings and the House of the earth’s grace and the infinite mercy of God.

September 1, 2016

The Patriarch of Constantinople