Επιμέλεια παρουσίασης: π. Παναγιώτης Καποδίστριας | Νυχθημερόν
Με οικουμενικό λόγο και βαθιά οικολογική συνείδηση, ο Οικουμενικός Πατριάρχης Βαρθολομαίος, ευρισκόμενος στη Νέα Υόρκη, απηύθυνε βαρυσήμαντη ομιλία στη Σύνοδο Concordia 2025, μία διεθνή συνάντηση για την παγκόσμια συνεργασία και την κοινωνική πρόοδο. Με αφορμή τη βράβευσή του από το Templeton Foundation, ο Πατριάρχης ανέδειξε για ακόμη μία φορά την οικολογική και ηθική διάσταση της Ορθοδοξίας στον σύγχρονο κόσμο.
Αναφερόμενος στον ίδιο τον όρο «οἰκουμένη», εξήγησε ότι δηλώνει τον κοινό οίκο της ανθρωπότητας – τον πλανήτη Γη – και σημείωσε ότι η περιβαλλοντική κρίση δεν γνωρίζει σύνορα: από τους πάγους της Αρκτικής μέχρι τις θάλασσες της Καραϊβικής, και από τις πυρκαγιές στην Καλιφόρνια έως τη Χίο, η καταστροφή είναι κοινή και επείγουσα.
Με θεολογική βάσανο, υπενθύμισε ότι στην Αγία Γραφή ο άνθρωπος είναι «ψυχή ζώσα», φτιαγμένος από το χώμα της Γης και εμψυχωμένος με τη θεία πνοή. Αυτή η εικόνα δεν επιτρέπει διαχωρισμό μεταξύ φροντίδας για το περιβάλλον και φροντίδας για τον άνθρωπο. Όπως είπε, «δεν μπορείς να τιμάς τη γη, αλλά να αδιαφορείς για τον άνθρωπο που ζει σ’ αυτήν – ούτε και το αντίθετο».
Στην πιο αιχμηρή του αναφορά, ο Πατριάρχης καταδίκασε την καταστρεπτική σύμπλευση της Ρωσικής Εκκλησίας με τον πόλεμο κατά της Ουκρανίας, τονίζοντας ότι «η επίκληση μιας ψευδοθεολογικής ιδεολογίας όπως το Rússkiy Mir δεν είναι πίστη – είναι εθνοφυλετισμός της χειρότερης μορφής». Υπενθύμισε ότι το Οικουμενικό Πατριαρχείο αναγνώρισε την αυτοκεφαλία της Ορθόδοξης Εκκλησίας της Ουκρανίας το 2019, ως πράξη πνευματικής και ηθικής ελευθερίας.
Με ελπιδοφόρο τόνο, εξήρε τον ρόλο της θρησκείας ως δύναμη επανένωσης και θεουργίας. Όπως τόνισε, οι πνευματικές παραδόσεις καλούνται σήμερα να αντιταχθούν στον μηδενισμό όχι μέσω θεωριών, αλλά με έργα: «Η αληθινή ενότητα δεν έρχεται όταν οι θεολογίες συμφωνούν, αλλά όταν οι κοινότητες μοιράζονται το ψωμί με τον πεινασμένο, φροντίζουν τον άρρωστο, υπερασπίζονται τον αδικημένο».
Ο Πατριάρχης επαίνεσε τη μεθοδολογία του Concordia – «Συγκέντρωση, Σύνδεση, Δημιουργία» – ως έκφραση των καλύτερων ανθρώπινων δυνατοτήτων. Τόνισε ότι η δημιουργικότητα, όταν πηγάζει από τη συνείδηση της κοινής μας ευθύνης, μπορεί να μεταμορφώσει τον κόσμο. «Η δημιουργία δεν είναι χωρίς σκοπό», είπε, «αλλά καλείται να φέρει σε συμφωνία – σε concordia – όλα τα στοιχεία της ζωής στον πλανήτη μας».
Κλείνοντας, ευλόγησε τις προσπάθειες των συμμετεχόντων και προσευχήθηκε η συνάντηση αυτή να αποτελέσει έμπνευση και δράση για έναν κόσμο που διψά για δικαιοσύνη, ειρήνη και συμφιλίωση – ανάμεσα στους ανθρώπους και με τη Δημιουργία.
* * *
Dear Friends,
We are delighted to participate in the 2025 Concordia Annual Summit, as we have in the past in Athens, and we thank the organizers for this invitation to address you. Our presence in New York during these days is the result of the recognition afforded to the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the Church of Constantinople and our humble person by the Templeton Foundation. And while it is gratifying that the environmental labors of our Patriarchy are acknowledged by such an esteemed Prize as Templeton, we cannot, and we will not, relent in our pursuit of environmental justice and responsibility throughout the entire global community, for this is what it means, in part, to be ecumenical in the first place.
The term, οἰκουμένη, literally means the place where one abides at home. And for Planet Earth, there is virtually no place on our marvelous sphere that is not home to some sentient being or another, even if it is not habitable for human beings.
We have seen how even in the deepest recesses of the Oceans, there are living creatures, whose discovery continues to amaze the world. And from one polar ice cap to the other, we see how the balance of our physical ecosystems remain in delicate interplay, as temperatures on Earth rise, and shift that balance in ways that are painfully destructive to life on every level. We note with sorrow and deep concern how fires continue to afflict our common habitation. Whether in Los Angeles or the Island of Chios in Greece, around the globe the destruction that drought has wrought through exposure to fire is incontestable. Add to this the warming of our seas, and we see dangerous conditions increasing every year affecting hurricanes, typhoons, and tropical cyclones across our oceans.
We come from a spiritual tradition that embraces the basic goodness of the material universe – for, as it says in Genesis, at the end of the Six Days of creation, God looked upon His handiwork and saw that it was “very good.”[1]
Our Church pursues a holistic and interdependent view of spirit and matter, recognizing the incarnational quality of every aspect of the created world.
Matter, a word derived from the word “mother” through the Latin Language, is animated by spirit, an image forcefully presented in the Book of Genesis where it says that:
And God formed the human being from dust of the Earth, and breathed into their nostrils the breath of life; and the human being became a living soul. [2]
This sacred narrative demonstrates for all time that our relationship with our planet is intricate and that every human being, family, and society is inextricably linked through the physicality of shared world.
Such a realization of our interdependence with our “Mother Earth” should inform every major decision that affects Her health and prosperity. Moreover, we cannot divorce our concern and care for the environments in which we live, from the human beings with whom we share these environments.
Thus, we speak of the oikumene, the world as a house, as a home for all people. As the Ecumenical Patriarchate, it is our duty to speak and act on behalf of every house and home on the planet, whether inhabited by our adherents or not.
This is precisely where religion and spiritual values can serve the common cause of humanity today, in a way that was not promoted in centuries past.
All of us who have studied history have seen how religion can be co-opted by secular power to establish fault lines between civilizations. Wars of religion are very seldom fought for religious purposes. But religion becomes a screen behind which dark forces of greed, prejudice, and aggression work their misery in the world.
We see this unfortunate state of affairs among our own co-religionists in Russia, as the Church of Russia continues to provide cover for the Russian State’s war against Ukraine, a sovereign nation, and one inhabited by the spiritual sisters and brothers of the Moscow Patriarchate. The screen behind which such immorality hides is called the doctrine of Rússkiy Mir, an anachronistic imperial yearning, which is actually an ethno-phyletism of the worst kind. In the course of this unjust and unnecessary war, there is not only the incalculable human loss, but the degradation to the land and environment, even to point of endangering nuclear facilities left behind by the old Soviet Union.
The exact opposite of any true ethical stance which would, at a minimum, recognize the affinity of their societies and their interdependence, this war sadly demonstrates the worst of human beings and the communities they lead.
That is why the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s commitment to the environment is indivisibly linked with our commitment to the freedom and self-determination of the Ukrainian People. And why we granted independence and self-rule to their Orthodox Church in 2019.
To honor the land without honoring the human beings who dwell in that land – and vice versa – to honor your fellow human beings without honoring the land upon which they should thrive – is a madness that afflicts our world as much today as ever in the history of the human race.
Through our Orthodox Faith and Philosophy, we bring together the twin energies of Λόγος and Σοφία – Reason and Wisdom, in order to discover the harmony and balance that is already present in creation, but has been hidden in the darkness of human wrongdoing, what is religiously called, “sin.”
Nevertheless, the power of faith to restore ethical and moral foundations throughout our world is undeniable. Thus, we champion both the Planet and Her inhabitants at all times, seeking justice for all, and redemption and liberation from the iniquities and inequities that harm both land and people.
They cannot be divorced. The Biblical image of the human being formed from the very material of the Planet is a call to integration and re-integration.
Integration is the pursuit of wholeness in every endeavor, whether of peacemaking, justice, restoration, or healing. Re-integration is the corrective necessitated by the breakdown of our humanity, which inevitably leads to the grinding-down of our environment. For those who care not for their sister or brother, will certainly not care for the home – the οἴκος – the ecology in which they “live and move and have their being.” [3] [3]
Conferences like the Concordia Summit are palpable reminders of our capacities to come together and seek common solutions to complex problems. Concordia’s three-fold model to “Convene,” to “Connect,” and to “Create” is a manifestation of the best in our human faculties to address commonly held problems of society – from local to global scales.
By convening, by coming together, you acknowledge the interdependence of the human family, for all have a voice that is well worth listening to.
By connecting, you enter, or perhaps re-enter, into relationship with one another; whereby you find common ground and learn to appreciate the differing points of view. You expand beyond the narrow sliver of your personal or even national experience, and enter into real communication and even, communion.
And finally, out of this holistic middle ground – you discover your creativity. Because creation is not purposeless, neither is it nihilistic. Creation is much more than a thought-filled design, intentionally or haphazardly appearing in the universe. It is the evolutionary force that moves us forward as a species, not for domination to the exclusion of all other species, but to bring into Concord – the very name and principle of this Summit – all aspects of life on Mother Earth.
Thus, we commend the dialogues that take place across all platforms, and encourage you to embrace the fundamental truth of our interdependency – with one another and with our Planet.
All the great spiritual traditions of human history preach and teach this interdependency in one way or another. When they are still in a spiritual infancy, religions tends to want to achieve such harmony in the world by absorbing all parties into themselves. We have seen how this has worked out throughout the centuries, and religion can no longer afford to act as screens to hide the avarice and the autocratic oppression of the few with the weapons, which are now weapons of mass destruction.
As we exhorted our inter-spiritual partners recently in our own City, at the World Council of Religions for Peace:
Each religious tradition is called to testify, from the heart of its own revelatory experience, against the nihilism of the age, offering as an antidote not a general spirituality, but the wealth of its own, unrepeatable otherness. … the true basis for common action is not the convergence on a theory, but the journeying-together in a deed. … We meet in essence not when our theologies coincide, but when our communities share bread with the hungry, care for the sick, defend the wronged. Unity is forged in the common resistance to the forces that attempt to efface the human face. In this struggle, the diversity of our spiritual weapons is not a weakness, but a wealth. [4]
Therefore in closing, we bless the efforts and the engagements that have convened you at the Annual Concordia Summit. We pray that your connections will be strong and will hold fast as you tackle many of the pressing problems and needs of this world of ours. And finally, may the creativity that issues forth from this place find resonance in all your spheres of influence, and be a blessing the world we share.
Thank you.
_____________
[1] Genesis 1:31.
[2] Genesis 2:7.
[3] Acts 17:28 and Epimenides of Crete (6th Century BCE).
[4] Keynote address on July 29, 2025, at the World Council of Religions for Peace conference in Constantinople.
________
photo: Ecumenical Patriarchate
Δεν υπάρχουν σχόλια:
Δημοσίευση σχολίου