Patriarch condemns crimes against nature

Christian Century, Dec 3, 1997

The urgency of the environmental crisis converged with religion's concern for the eternal recently when scientists, theologians, business and political leaders gathered in Santa Barbara, California, with Orthodoxy's Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomeos to pursue moral and practical solutions to global warming and the effects of rampant pollution.

"We are on the verge of the sixth large extinction event in the history of the planet, and for the first time, human actions are the cause: One-quarter of the planet's bird species have already been lost; one-quarter of our plant species will soon disappear. Our waterways are poisoned; the ecosystems on which we depend are falling apart," Oregon State University marine biologist Jane Lubchenko said at a symposium on religion and the environment. "It's appropriate to be thinking about the eternal, but we also need to create a sense of urgency and action--a sense of doing what is moral, doing what is right."

In response, the audience heard one of the strongest speeches Bartholomeos made during his monthlong visit to the U.S. (The patriarch returned to Istanbul, Turkey, on November 17.) He warned against humanity's becoming "materialistic tyrants" and called for "legal recourse" in matters of "ecological crime." Bartholomeos, senior leader of Orthodoxy, presented classic Orthodox moral teachings in contemporary terms--teachings he said could contribute to a feasible action agenda for solving the environmental crisis--but he also called on world political leaders who will gather in Kyoto, Japan, in December for a summit on the environment to halt the spread of global warming.

"To commit a crime against the natural world is a sin," Bartholomeos said. "For humans to cause species to become extinct, to degrade the integrity of the Earth by causing changes in its climate, stripping its natural forests or destroying its wetlands or contaminating Earth's waters, land, air and life with poisonous substances: these are sins.

"We call upon the world's leaders to take action to halt the destructive changes to the global climate that are being caused by human activity," he added. "We must be spokespeople for an ecological ethic that reminds the world that it is not ours to use for our own convenience. It is God's gift of love to us, and we must return that love by protecting it and all that is in it."

Bartholomeos's statement on global warming was enthusiastically received by U.S. Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt, who represented the Clinton administration at the symposium and will attend the Kyoto summit. "The Orthodox Church can send a powerful message about the imperative to respond to the environmental crisis to millions of Orthodox Christians and millions of others around the globe. He is not only the ecumenical patriarch, he is our patriarch," Babbitt said after a prayer service at St. Barbara Greek Orthodox Church, which hosted the symposium and at which Bartholomeos preached movingly about the original St. Barbara, who was revered for her powers to heal the blind.

"The whole world is a sacrament," Bartholomeos declared, evoking a key tenet of Orthodox theology, which recognizes the divinity inherent in all creation. "The entire cosmos is a burning bush of God's uncreated energies. And humankind stands as a priest before the altar of creation, as microcosm and mediator if only we have the eyes of faith to see it. But realistically, we also know that this vision has been blurred. For we have presumed to control the order of things and have destroyed the hierarchy of creation. We have lost the dimension of beauty and have come to a spiritual impasse."

The world's ecological and spiritual malaise could benefit, Patriarch Bartholomeos went on to say, from the principles and practices of Orthodoxy, especially its ascetic tradition of fasting and self-control--and its focus on repentance and redemption--to offset a culture of mindless consumption.

But repentance at this symposium involved far more than sins against the environment. Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, opened the conference with the admission that the 25-year-old Earth Day generation "made a profound error" by misunderstanding and essentially ignoring the important role religious institutions can play in solving environmental problems. "We should have known that we cannot save future generations, or yet-unnamed and unknown species, without the full engagement of the institutions through which we save ourselves," Pope said. "Yet for almost 30 years, we stubbornly, proudly rejected the churches. We became as narrow-minded as any fundamentalists of any religion. Indeed, if intellectual blindness is a sin, I stand here to confess that sin."

Pope expressed belief that the environmental movement itself is ripe for a conversion experience. "Environmentalists are undergoing a transformation in their attitude toward faith and toward the churches," he said. "Indeed, your holiness, like the prodigal we may yet return home."