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The
Most Reverend Metropolitan John of Pergamon was born in 1930. He studied
at the Theological Schools of the Universities of Thessaloniki and Athens,
and became a Doctor of Theology in 1965. He has taught Theology at a number
of universities abroad, including fourteen years at the University of
Glasgow. He has represented the Ecumenical Patriarchate on many international
church bodies and at international academic conferences, and is the author
of many scholarly studies in various languages. He was elected Metropolitan
in 1986.
The
ecological crisis is the most serious contemporary problem facing us.
To some extent the Christian tradition bears responsibility for causing
it; certainly the ecological crisis has important spiritual dimensions
which need to be examined. The Orthodox theological tradition in particular
has important things to say on this subject.
From a historical perspective
biblical thought has a positive view of the natural world and of our human
bodies. Thus creation initially was seen as good and the material world
as worthy of survival. But in the first century Gnosticism distinguished
between the material world, which is bad, and the true and real world,
which is spiritual. This approach was adopted by Christian theologians
such as Origen in the East and the Catechetical School of Alexandria in
the Third Century, who stressed the spiritual significance of everything
material. That is, everything material is a degradation of the original
creation of God and meant simply to be a symbol of higher things. Origen
influenced very much the Eastern and especially the monastic tradition.
In the West similar influences appeared. Great theologians such
as St. Augustine made an impact on Western theology and on the Western
Church. Augustine himself was influenced by Neoplatonism. His conviction
was that what matters is the spirit and soul of the human being and that
even in the Kingdom of God what will survive is the soul and not the body.
He believed in the resurrection of the body but regard God's Kingdom as
consisting of bodies but of souls. When we move to the Middle Ages we
find a more rationalistic approach to the world and to the human being
in particular. In Scholastic theology the capacity of the human being
to think is regarded as the imago Dei-- the image of God-- in human beings.
Descartes, who was himself an Augustine monk, defined this rationalistic
approach with his famous saying "cogito ergo sum" --I think,
therefore I am. What matters in order to exist is to be capable of thinking.
The material world is to be used by us in order to develop our spiritual
and mental capabilities. Although the Enlightenment was accompanied by
the development of a respect and love for nature, this did not involve
regarding nature as having an intrinsic value in itself.
Protestantism, and especially the Puritans, made use of the first
Genesis creation story to justify human domination of the natural world.
The Calvinists did the same, and this has contributed to the contemporary
view that human beings have the right to exploit natural resources. Protestantism
has generally fostered individual enterprise and rights, utilitarianism
and the pursuit of happiness (hedonism). This pursuit of happiness was
even enshrined in the American constitution and became every individual's
entitlement. Thence nature becomes simply the raw material which we use
to achieve this individual happiness. It is not difficult to see the domination
of this ideal in our culture today, which is centered on offering the
individual happiness, either spiritual or material.
From this it becomes clear that there are spiritual dimensions
to the ecological problem which confronts us. Not only has Christian theology
contributed to the emergence of the problem but it has given spiritual
validation to its root cause.
The belief in human superiority received a blow from Darwinism
when he proved that not only humans but also animals, although to a lesser
degree, are capable of thinking. So if the human is the image of God he
must be so due to other capabilities than his ability to think, and it
is these capabilities which we must learn to value.
Another spiritual dimension which needs to be reassessed is the
individual approach, the idea that each of us can be conceived of as individuals
without relation to others or to the world. This idea that we can be isolated
from our natural environment and conceived of as autonomous individuals
must be eliminated, because it helped justify the treatment of nature
which resulted in the ecological disaster. The human being is not an individual
but a person, and there is a big difference. An individual is a single
entity which can be conceived of in itself without reference to other
entities. A person is a unique entity which cannot be conceived of without
relation to other entities, not only other humans but to nature as a whole.
We do not have a body, we are bodies. We should relate to nature
not as individuals standing separately but as partakers of nature. It
is only by destroying this false individualism and replacing it with personhood,
i.e. a sense of being in communion with nature, that we can hope to overcome
our ecological problems.
Finally, we cannot disassociate our search for pleasure and happiness
from the ecological disaster. We must learn not to view the world as a
means to our individual happiness. The world is not there to satisfy our
desires and offer us pleasure; it is there for a higher purpose.
How can Orthodoxy and Orthodox theology help to relate creatively
these spiritual dimensions to the environmental crisis?
Orthodox theology, in essence, is the way the Greek Fathers understood,
interpreted and presented the biblical faith which all Christians share,
but it is also shaped by the experience and reality of the church. For
Orthodoxy, Christian faith is not intellectual but is to be lived. This
experience of Christian faith can only be found by one as a member of
the Church; it is an ecclesial and communal experience and not an individualistic
one.
The basic theological dimensions of Orthodoxy which relate to our
ecological task are as follows:
1.
The world has a beginning in a radical sense; it was created out of nothing,
and is constantly threatened by the return to nothingness. It is not eternal,
rather it is fragile, like a precious vase of crystal, and must be approached
with reverence, fear and trembling.
2. This careful handling was entrusted by God to human beings, as distinct
from all other beings and from angels. According to Patristic theology
man was created, material and spirit, to be a microcosm of creation. Angels,
being spiritual creations only, cannot bring the material world into contact
with God. As the priests of creation we have the unique mission and great
responsibility of uniting God and the material world. Our task is not
simply to preserve creation but to purify it and elevate it to the level
of divine existence. This act of elevation, the referring of creation
to its creator; is the essence of our priesthood; thus creation is sanctified
and partakes of the blessings that participating in divine life involves.
3. The salvation of human beings which is offered by and in Christ, is
for us a cosmic event. Through human beings all creation will be saved.
Christ not only saves us from ourselves, he offers the redemption of the
whole of creation. The incarnation of the Son of God as man was nothing
but assuming human nature, not to save man in his own right, but because
it carries with it the rest of creation by implication.
4. The Eucharist characterizes Orthodox theology not so much as a mental
discipline but as an experience. Ever since Saint Irenaeus it has been
understood that the Eucharist is not simply a memorial of Christ's death
and resurrection, but is a cosmic event involving the whole of creation.
Bread and wine are not just symbolic elements linking the Church to the
Last Supper but are representative of the material world and of creation.
Equally, human beings, by participating in the Eucharist, participate
in a redeemed material world. Thus the material world has its place in
the Eucharistic experience and in the Kingdom of God. The Orthodox Christian,
by constantly experiencing the Eucharist, affirms that the material world
must survive and be redeemed from whatever prevents it from developing
into a world which will unite finally with God.
5. The ascetic experience, as affirmed by the Orthodox Church, has unfortunately
often been mistaken as a negative attitude to material creation. The ascetic
is seen as one who depreciates or rejects the material world. This is
a Neoplatonic way of thinking and is not typical of the true asceticism
of the Church. The ascetic abstains from the material world not because
he regards matter as inferior but because he respects matter very much
and does not want to exploit it for individual pleasure. Another often
forgotten dimension of the ascetic experience is that the true ascetic
participates in the suffering of the whole of creation, even to the extent
of weeping over the death of a bird or animal. This sensitivity towards
nature is not negative, rather it reflects a very positive attitude towards
nature resulting from love and respect for the material world.
Some Christian sects regard the material world as bad and therefore
conclude that the sooner the ecological crisis destroys it the better.
Others regard the material world as divine and believe that we need not
worry about its welfare, but should respect and perhaps even worship it.
I believe that as more and more people realize that for the sake of its
survival we must not regard the world as bad, this paganistic approach
will soon replace the first attitude, and there are many signs of this
happening.
There is however a
third alternative, which is to regard the material world as fragile and
precious, and to regard human beings as having the responsibility of sanctifying
and referring back to God his creation, so that it may live forever. This
places the responsibility for solving the problem firmly on humans. While
we can achieve nothing without God's help, we cannot pass the environmental
problem over to God and free ourselves from our responsibility.
While ethics and political legislation can offer a lot they are
powerless without the participation of the people. If we want to solve
the environmental crisis in a democratic way people must be persuaded
to sacrifice many things and to a great extent this can only be done through
the right ecclesiastical experience.
With specific regard to education, I would like to make the following
points:
What we normally understand as education ñ scientific and technical
knowledge, convincing people through ration and logic, etc. ñ though important,
will not get us very far. I would like to propose education through worship.
By this I mean the acquaintance of a human being from childhood with a
holistic approach to reality involving all of creation. When a child goes
to church (in spite of all the distracting noises it makes to disturb
us adults) it is educated to regard the material world as part of its
relationship with God. All senses participate in Orthodox worship, and
unless we get acquainted with our relationship with God and the material
world through our senses we can not hope to understand the significance
of material creation.
The value of ascetic education should not be underestimated. For
example, fasting is an educational process through which we learn not
to regard the world as an unlimited resource to satisfy individual pleasure.
The same is true of almsgiving, hospitality, etc. If people learn these
values they will learn to solve the ecological problem.
We must teach ourselves and our children that we are members of
a community which regards creation as Christ's body.
Finally, education should involve creativity and culture. We must
extend the Eucharistic experience to artistic activities and everyday
life.
Such an education through involvement in the life of the Church
will result not just in the preservation of creation, but in bringing
forth all the possibilities for a world in which man will be in perfect
communion with God.
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