09/15/2026
Ecumenical Patriarch Emphasizes ‘the Religious and Ethical Dimensions of the Ecological Threat’
His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew on September 1, 2026 celebrated the beginning of the Indiction, the ecclesiastical New Year, as well as the Day of Prayer for the Protection of the Natural Environment, as Ecumenical Patriarch Demetrios of blessed memory designated it in 1989. On the same day, he issued a Patriarchal Message for the Beginning of the Ecclesiastical Year and the Solemn Day of Prayers for Natural Environment, reiterating his pioneering commitment to the preservation of the natural environment as a core Christian duty, and articulating “new paths and prospects for addressing” this immense challenge.
In that message, His All-Holiness emphasized that the environmental crisis affects all areas of human endeavor: “The multidimensional contemporary ecological crisis is a crisis of human freedom, of our religion and philosophy, of our ethos and our culture.” He explained that “what comes first is the ‘harmful alteration’ of our freedom — our severance and alienation from the Source of Life; what follows is conduct destructive of the natural environment.”
In response to this crisis, the Ecumenical Patriarch said that there was an “imperative need for a ‘Copernican Turn’ in our understanding of the idea of progress and in humanity’s attitude towards nature, as well as in the actions of those engaged in political, economic, and social life, of the Churches and religions, of science and technology, and of those responsible for the education of the younger generation.”
In pursuit of this transformation in the general understanding of the environment and its relationship to human activity, he pledged to “continue, in word and deed, to promote the ecological vision of the Holy Great Church of Christ and the eco-friendly dynamism of the eucharistic, ascetic, and doxological relationship with creation, always underscoring that careful theological work is needed for the elucidation of the authentic ecological message of our Orthodox faith and tradition, for the benefit of creation, which is ‘very good.’”
Read more: https://archons-of-the-ecumenical-patriarchate.visitlink.me/JgfLUA
