A group visiting Istanbul in early November paid a call on the Church of St. George, the see of the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople. Turkey remembers Bartholomew I, the current patriarch, as the 'Green' Patriarch, because of his passionate concern for the environment.
No ideologue on the issue, Bartholomew speaks directly to the responsibility of Christians to exercise better stewardship of creation, which the Creator has entrusted to all humans. Four years ago, Bartholomew was direct about our role and the future of our world if we don't "act as priests of creation in order to reverse the descending spiral of ecological degradation."
Pope Benedict is in agreement. He is fine tuning and broadening his predecessor's ecological concerns. Last Friday John A. Allen offered a look at the meeting of Benedict XVI and Bartholomew I and their united roles in "The 'greening' of institutional Christianity."
Stewardship of the environment is a Christian, moral obligation, and the highest leaders of the Roman Catholic and the Greek Orthodox Churches urge us to join them.
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Photo copyright held by the Ecumenical Patriarchate
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