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Address of His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew
This speech is also available in French, German, Spanish and Arabic (pdf, 12.5 MB).
ADDRESS OF HIS ALL-HOLINESS ECUMENICAL PATRIARCH BARTHOLOMEW
At the World Council of Churches
Photos: Nikos Kosmidis /WCC and Albin Hillert /WCC
24 April 2017
Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, General Secretary of the World Council of Churches,
Your Eminences, Your Excellencies,
Honourable representatives of International Institutions,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Your Eminences, Your Excellencies,
Honourable representatives of International Institutions,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
“Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!”
(Ps 133:1). It is precisely with these same special feelings expressed
by the Psalmist that we visit once again the headquarters of the World
Council of Churches. Each one of our visits here, since our election to
the Ecumenical throne twenty-five years ago, but also earlier, has been
special, and we cherish these memories. For us personally, as for our
Church as a whole, the World Council of Churches is not foreign, but a
familiar place. Indeed, almost a century ago, the Ecumenical
Patriarchate called “all the Churches of Christ everywhere” for
its establishment, and became one of its founding members in 1948. Since
then, our Church has been actively participating in the Council and in
its Commission on Faith and Order. Since 1955, the Ecumenical
Patriarchate has maintained a Permanent Delegation as a sign of
continuous co-operation with the World Council of Churches and the
Ecumenical Movement. The permanent representatives of the Ecumenical
Patriarchate have been Bishop Iakovos of Melita (Malta) (later
Archbishop of North and South America) and Metropolitan Emilianos
Timiadis of blessed memory, as well as Grand Protopresbyter of the
Ecumenical Throne Georges Tsetsis, Archimandrite Benediktos Ioannou,
Archon Mr. George Lemopoulos, former WCC deputy general secretary, and,
at present, Archbishop Job of Telmessos.
On a more personal level, since our childhood we have learned,
especially from our predecessor, Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras of
blessed memory, the importance of meeting with other Christians. As he
often used to say: “Come, let us look one another in the eyes, and let us then see what we have to say to one another.”
He is the one who has opened our eyes to our broader ecumenical family.
Inspired by him, we chose to pursue post-graduate studies at the
Ecumenical Institute of Bossey, which celebrated its 70th
anniversary last year, and where we have gained exceptional experience,
which has been very useful in our ministry. In 1975, we served as
vice-moderator of the Commission on Faith and Order, when it was
preparing the very well-known convergence document on “Baptism,
Eucharist and Ministries,” which remains a point of reference today. A
few months before our election to the Ecumenical throne in 1991, we
became a member of the Central and the Executive Committees of the WCC
at the 7th General Assembly, which took place in Canberra with the theme “Come, Holy Spirit, renew the whole creation.”
1. As your Central Committee was meeting last June in Trondheim, the
Orthodox Church was gathered on the great island of Crete for her Holy
and Great Council. The preparations for the Council took over half of a
century with the participation of all the local Orthodox Churches,
without any exception, and which, with God’s blessing, we convened
according to the unanimous decision of all the Primates of the local
Orthodox Churches taken at the Synaxis of January 2016 here, in
Chambésy. The convocation of the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox
Church was necessary for several reasons.
Firstly, because for us, as Orthodox, synodality constitutes an
expression and demonstration of the mystery of the Church itself. “Coming together in one place”
comprises a characteristic of the Church’s nature. Only insurmountable
historical circumstances can justify the inactivity of the synodal
institution on any level, including the global level. The Orthodox
Church frequently encountered such circumstances in recent years and
thus delayed the convocation of a Pan-Orthodox Council for a long time.
In this sense, the realization of the Holy and Great Council was a
success in itself.
Secondly, its convocation was also mandated by the need to
settle internal matters of the Orthodox Church. These matters arose
primarily as a result of the system of canonical structure within our
Church, which comprises many local autocephalous Churches, each of which
freely regulates its own affairs through its own decisions. This
sometimes renders difficult the witness of the Church “with one mouth and one heart”
to the contemporary world, creating confusion and conflict that blurs
the image of its unity. The system of autocephaly has its roots in the
early Church, in the form of the five ancient patriarchates – namely, of
Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem – known as the
Pentarchy, whose harmony comprised the supreme manifestation of Church
unity that was expressed in the Councils. While this structure is, in
our eyes, canonically and ecclesiologically correct, the danger of its
conversion into a kind of “federation of Churches,” – as it is
often seen from the outside – remains. In such a case, each of the
Churches promotes its own interests and ambitions – which are not always
of a strictly ecclesiastical nature – and this renders necessary the
application of synodality. The atrophy of the synodal institution on a
Pan-Orthodox level contributes to the development of a sentiment of
self-sufficiency within the individual Churches and in turn leads them
toward introspective and self-absorbed tendencies. For this reason, if
the synodal system is generally mandatory in the life of the Church, the
system of Autocephaly renders it still more obligatory for the
protection and expression of its unity.
A third reason that necessitated the convocation of the Holy and
Great Council includes the new challenges that have appeared in more
recent years, which demanded the articulation of a common direction and
position among the individual Orthodox Churches. For example, the
phenomenon of emigration from Orthodox regions to Western countries, has
led to the establishment of the so called Orthodox “Diaspora”
that requires special pastoral care. This resulted in the well-known,
and not strictly canonical situation whereby more than one Bishop exists
in one and the same city or region, proving a scandal to many people
inside and outside the Orthodox Church. This issue could not have been
resolved without a Pan-Orthodox conciliar decision.
Finally, Orthodox participation in the efforts toward the reconciliation of unity among Christians through the so-called “Ecumenical Movement,”
which until now occurred on the basis of decisions reached either by
individual Autocephalous Churches or else at Pan-Orthodox conferences,
needed to be ratified in a conciliar way, which was the authentic manner
to formulate a uniform position of the Orthodox Church.
We Orthodox strongly believe that the aim and the raison d’être of
the Ecumenical Movement and of the World Council of Churches is to
fulfil the Lord’s final prayer, that “all may be one” (Jn.
17:21), which is inscribed on the beautiful tapestry ornamenting the
wall of this hall. For this reason, the Holy and Great Council stressed
that “Orthodox participation in the movement to restore unity with
other Christians in the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church is in
no way foreign to the nature and history of the Orthodox Church, but
rather represents a consistent expression of the apostolic faith and
tradition in new historical circumstances” (Relations, 4). The Holy and Great Council has also recognized that “one of the principal bodies in the history of the Ecumenical Movement is the World Council of Churches” (Relations, 16). Among the different activities of the WCC, the Holy and Great Council affirmed that “the Orthodox Church wishes to support the work of the Commission on ‘Faith and Order’ and follows its theological contribution with particular interest to this day. It views favorably the Commission’s
theological documents, which were developed with the significant
participation of Orthodox theologians and represent a praiseworthy step
in the Ecumenical Movement for the rapprochement of Christians”
(Relations, 21). We consider this conciliar evaluation of the
contribution of the WCC to the quest for Christian unity as very
positive and that it should inspire the continuation of the work of the
WCC as it is approaching 70 years of existence.
Furthermore, the Orthodox Church has reiterated through the synodal voice of her Holy and Great Council that she “has always attached great importance to dialogue, and especially to that with non-Orthodox Christians” (Encyclical, 20), and for this reason, she “considers
all efforts to break the unity of the Church, undertaken by individuals
or groups under the pretext of maintaining or allegedly defending true
Orthodoxy, as being worthy of condemnation” (Relations, 22).
2. The spirit of dialogue being cultivated by the Orthodox Church is
not restricted only to the Ecumenical Movement, but is needed within
contemporary society and science. As the Holy and Great Council
highlighted in its Encyclical, “through the contemporary development of science and technology, our life is changing radically. …
The dangers are the manipulation of human freedom, the use of man as a
simple means, the gradual loss of precious traditions, and threats to,
or even the destruction of, the natural environment” (Encyclical, 11).
The Ecumenical Patriarchate has been a pioneer in engaging in
dialogue with modern science with regards to environmental problems. In
1989, our predecessor Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios sent the first
encyclical on this issue, establishing the first day of September as a
day of prayer for the protection of the natural environment. We are glad
that the WCC has followed our path, not only by implementing this
annual day of prayer, but also in taking seriously the commitment of the
Churches in resolving the environmental crisis. We Orthodox were
reminded by our Holy and Great Council that “the roots of the ecological crisis are spiritual and ethical, inhering within the heart of each man” (Encyclical, 14).
On several occasions, we have stressed that a sin against creation is
a sin against God. As for any sin, we must likewise repent for the sin
committed against creation. The Holy and Great Council has underlined
that “the approach to the ecological problem on the basis of the
principles of the Christian tradition demands not only repentance for
the sin of the exploitation of the natural resources of the planet,
namely, a radical change in mentality and behavior, but also asceticism
as an antidote to consumerism, the deification of needs and the
acquisitive attitude” (Encyclical, 14). True repentance implies a
conversion, which means a radical change in our attitude. The
environmental crisis calls for concrete actions from each one of us.
On several occasions, we underlined that the Church cannot be solely
interested in the salvation of the soul, but is deeply concerned with
the transformation of God’s entire creation. This is why our Churches
need to have constant vigilance, information and education in order to
understand clearly the relationship between today’s ecological crisis
and our human passions of greed, materialism, self-centeredness and
rapacity, which result in and lead to the current crisis that we face.
Therefore, what is a threat to nature is also a threat to humankind;
just as what is for the preservation of the planet is for the salvation
of the whole world. For this reason, we invite everyone to mobilize
their resources, and in particular their prayers, in the struggle for
the protection of the environment.
Among several environmental issues, water is a very important one
since water is as life-giving and sacred as the blood that runs through
our body. Water is a common good. It does not belong to any individual
or any industry, but is the inviolable and non-negotiable right of every
human being. Therefore, we cannot consider economic exploitation of
water by industries selling water to people who have money to buy it as
ethical. Besides its ethical problem, the industry of water often
pollutes the environment because of the plastic bottles it is selling.
Ecologists today are giving us a wake-up call, saying that by 2050, the
oceans will contain more plastic than fish by weight. Plastic pollution
is an environmental and social justice issue. This is why we should be
avoiding plastic by using alternatives in our everyday life.
Unfortunately, the world is running out of accessible water. This is
not only a problem in poor countries, like in Africa or in India, but is
also becoming a problem in “water rich” countries because of water
pollution. To take water into the market economy and sell it like oil
and gas is not a solution to resolve this crisis. A lack of access to
clean water and sanitation is the greatest human rights abuse of our
time. We are informed that currently almost 1 billion people on earth
have no access to clean water and 2.5 billion have no access to adequate
sanitation. Unless we appreciate the danger – perhaps even sinfulness –
of refusing to share the planet’s natural resources, we will inevitably
face serious challenges and conflicts. Sustainability is not just sound
technology and good business. Sustainability is the way to peaceful
coexistence.
For this reason, we congratulate the WCC for joining the Blue
Community, a project of the Council of Canadians. The Blue Communities
Project calls on communities to adopt a water commons framework by
recognizing water as a human right, banning the sale of bottled water in
public facilities and at municipal events and promoting publicly
financed, owned and operated water and waste water services. By joining
the Blue Community, the WCC is sensitizing not only its member Churches,
but society at large, that water justice requires the ethical
management of water as a gift from God, which must be available to all
future generations.
Plastic pollution of the water, air pollution and climate change are
parallel global emergencies. They are the consequence of forgetting
about sacredness of creation. They are the disastrous results of
industrialisation and our human avidity. The environmental crisis cannot
be solved without a genuine conversion of human actions. In this sense,
ecology is linked with economy. A society that does not care about the
well-being of all human beings is a society that maltreats God’s
creation, which is blasphemy. For this reason, the ecological challenge
of our Churches is to awake the world to the irreversible destruction of
God’s creation because of human sinful actions. The necessity of
ecological education is not only a problem for our states, but should
also be the problem of our Churches.
Unfortunately, since the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997
with the aim of fighting global warming, the same problems still exist.
Scientific knowledge, supported by statistics and climatic models, as
well as plain observations made by peasants, farmers, indigenous peoples
and coastal inhabitants has confirmed that the climate is changing
because of human activities and that such change will prove disastrous
for life on this planet, while we are still unable to take the
unavoidable steps to detain the already tangible and oncoming appalling
events.
The Ecumenical Patriarchate has also been particularly sensitive to
the issue of climate change. This is why we have supported the urgent
call in Paris of the 21st session of the United Nations
conference of the parties on climate change (COP 21) in 2015. As we have
stressed in our message to the 22nd session, which took
place last November in Marrakech, the world’s leading authorities and
politicians have fundamentally agreed on the problems of global climate
change since the Rio Earth Summit of 1992 and have held endless
consultations and high-level conversations on something that requires
practical measures and tangible action. And we know very well what these
measures and actions should be. What price are we prepared to pay for
profit? Or how many lives are we willing to sacrifice for material or
financial gain? And at what cost would we forfeit or forestall the
survival of God’s creation? It is our humble, yet bold prayer that the
world’s leading authorities and politicians will recognize and respond
to the high stakes involved in climate change. One way would be to
implement the COP21 agreement of Paris without further delay.
3. Unless we all perceive in our attitudes and actions, as in our
deliberations and decisions, the faces of our own children – in the
present and in future generations – then we shall continue to prolong
and procrastinate the development of any solution; we shall persist in
obstructing or restricting any implementation. In our 2016 Patriarchal
Encyclical for Christmas, we addressed the contemporary threats facing
children and declared 2017 as “the Year of the Protection of the Sacredness of Childhood.” In that Encyclical, we appealed to all people of good will “to respect the identity and sacredness of childhood,” especially “in
light of the global refugee crisis that especially affects the rights
of children; in light of the plague of child mortality, hunger and child
labor, child abuse and psychological violence, as well as the dangers
of altering children’s souls through their uncontrolled
exposure to the influence of contemporary electronic means of
communication and their subjection to consumerism.”
We would like on this point to congratulate the WCC for inaugurating a
special program this year on “Churches’ Commitments to Children,” aimed
at promoting child protection through church communities, promoting
meaningful participation of children and young people in the churches
and addressing critical issues, such as environmental problems, to
children. In this view, the Holy and Great Council reminds us that “to young people the Church offers not simply ‘help’ but ‘truth,’ the truth of the new divine-human life in Christ,” underlining that “young people thus are not simply the ‘future’ of the Church, but also the active expression of her God-loving and human-loving life in the present” (Encyclical, 9).
We strongly believe that churches cannot be indifferent to the
suffering or abuse of children that exists in the world, particularly
those who are wounded or refugees. Let us therefore develop together
ways to end violence against children and young people in our
contemporary society. Let us promote better participation and
integration of our children and youth in the worship and in the life of
our churches. Let us make our children and youth aware of the
responsibility of Christians in the environmental crisis and educate
them to adopt adequate behavior and actions facing issues such as water
and climate change.
Unfortunately, children and young people suffer emotional, sexual or
physical violence more often than we think, which affects their health,
well-being and future. This violence harms children, destroys families,
and impacts societies. The Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church
noted that “the contemporary crisis in marriage and the family is a
consequence of the crisis of freedom as responsibility, its decline into
a self-centered self-realization, its identification with individual
self-gratification, self-sufficiency and autonomy, and the loss of the
sacramental character of the union between man and woman, resulting from
forgetfulness of the sacrificial ethos of love” (Encyclical, 7).
In this spirit, and in the face of the contemporary multifaceted
crisis, the Ecumenical Patriarchate co-hosted with the Church of England
a Forum on Modern Slavery, entitled Sins Before Our Eyes, which
took place this past February at our see. We were delighted to welcome
representatives of the WCC who came to participate in the Forum. It was
inspired by the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church, which
courageously declared the central place of solidarity and philanthropic
action in the life and witness of Orthodoxy, also addressing people “affected by human trafficking and modern forms of slavery”
(The Mission of the Orthodox Church in the Contemporary World, F,1). As
we then noted, it is not possible for our Churches to close their eyes
to evil, to be indifferent to the cry of the needy, oppressed and
exploited. True faith should always be a source of permanent struggle
against the powers of inhumanity.
We, as Churches, should unite our efforts to eradicate modern slavery
in all its forms, across the world and for all time. About two years
ago, we signed the Declaration of Religious Leaders against Modern
Slavery (2 December 2014), condemning slavery as “a crime against
humanity.” We, as Churches, should be committed “to do all in our power,
within our faith communities and beyond, to work together for the
freedom of all those who are enslaved and trafficked so that their
future may be restored.” On the way to achieve this categorical
imperative, our adversary is not simply modern slavery, but also the
spirit that nourishes it, the deification of profit, consumerism,
discrimination, racism, sexism, and egocentrism.
Against this spirit, we must all work together for the promotion of a
culture of solidarity, respect for others, and dialogue. Together with
the sensitization of consciences, we must participate in concrete
initiatives and actions. We need a stronger mobilization on the level of
action.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
As the World Council of Churches continues its Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace, inviting its member churches “to
work together in a common quest, renewing the true vocation of the
church through collaborative engagement with the most important issues
of justice and peace, healing a world filled with conflict, injustice
and pain,” we, on behalf of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, reiterate
our full support and commitment, being convinced that only through this
true fraternal ecumenical cooperation can we heal and transform our
Common Home from its spiritual, ethical and ecological problems. For it
is thus, – by serving our common Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ – that
our Churches will come closer to each other and discover how urgent and
how necessary it is for all to be one (cf. Jn. 17:21). This is why the
Holy and Great Council prayed “that all Christians may work together
so that the day may soon come when the Lord will fulfill the hope of the
Orthodox Churches and there will be ‘one flock and one shepherd’
(Jn 10:16)” (Relations, 24). In this perspective, may God, glorified in
the Trinity, bless the general secretary with all the collaborators of
the WCC, and all of you, in your important and ongoing mission.
Thank you for your kind attention!
