The 2025 Templeton Prize to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew

Today, April 10th, 2025, the John Templeton Foundation, in collaboration with the Templeton World Charity Foundation and the Templeton Religion Trust, announced that the Templeton Prize Laureate for 2025 is His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. 

His All-Holiness, the longest serving Primate of the Apostolic See of Constantinople, is being explicitly recognized for, in the words of the Templeton Prize announcement, “his pioneering efforts to bridge scientific and spiritual understandings of humanity’s relationship with the natural world, bringing together people of different faiths to heed a call for stewardship of creation” (full text of the Templeton Communique: https://www.templetonprize.org/laureate/ecumenical-patriarch-bartholomew). His All-Holiness is well known for groundbreaking engagements in environmental, interreligious, and peace-building efforts around the world. These include his Religion, Science and Environment Symposia held from the Amazon River to the Arctic Sea, his numerous Ecumenical and Interfaith initiatives within all the Abrahamic Traditions and beyond, and his forthright and courageous stand for the sovereignty, integrity and peace of Ukraine.

On the occasion of the announcement of this most prestigious award, His All-Holiness gave the following statement:

“We gratefully and humbly accept this unique recognition, which reflects the philanthropic vision of Sir John Templeton, the exceptional founder of a worldwide enterprise of investment in the human spirit and in the ability for the human person to perceive and harness the capacities of the Spirit. This honour is not only to our humble person, but to the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the Apostolic See of Saint Andrew the First-Called Disciple. For seventeen centuries, this Church of Saints and Martyrs, Confessors and Theologians, has led the spiritual mission of teaching and preaching the transformational Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ throughout the oikumene. We accept this singular dignity in the name of this history of service to God and the human family.”

The Templeton Prize was first awarded to Mother Teresa in 1973, and since that time, has honoured both spiritual leaders such as Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, as well as visionaries such as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, King Abdullah of Jordan, the renown ecologist Jane Goodall, and leading scientists and peacemakers across the globe. The Ecumenical Patriarch will receive the award in New York City in September 2025.

This Prize marks the second significant recognition and honour conferred upon His All-Holiness in a short span of time. On 17 March 2025, the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences of the Institut de France elected the Ecumenical Patriarch as a “foreign associate member” to the seat previously held by the late Pope Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger).