The Day of Prayer for Creation is observed on 1 September, at the beginning of the Ecclesiastical Year, as the Church calls for environmental protection and greater responsibility for God’s creation.
Ecumenical Patriarch Demetrios I launched the initiative in 1989, calling on the Christian world to pray for creation and its protection. Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I continued the initiative, known for his longstanding commitment to environmental protection.
In his message for this year’s observance, His All-Holiness reaffirmed the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s commitment to promoting responsibility towards creation:
“We will continue, through word and deed, to promote the ecological vision of the Holy Church of Christ and the ecological dynamism of the Eucharistic, ascetic and doxological relationship with creation.”
A crisis of human freedom
Patriarch Bartholomew I said environmental problems cannot be separated from the way humanity understands freedom and its relationship with God.
“The multidimensional contemporary ecological crisis is a crisis of human freedom, of our religion and philosophy, of our ethos and our culture. 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.”
“More broadly, humanity needs to reach agreement upon a body of common fundamental values which, in a world marked by conflict and polarisation, will serve as a compass for the journey towards the future. We regard the principle of solidarity as the central axis of this body of values,” His All-Holiness emphasised.
The Orthodox Church marks the Day of Prayer for Creation through liturgical and cultural events in September. The Roman Catholic Church later joined the initiative, with activities organised under the name Season of Creation.
Photo: Ecumenical Patriarchate / Nikos Papachristou
