Orthodox environmentalism

Since today is Blog Action Day on the environment, and so I feel under some kind of obligation to blog about the environment. The problem is that I only discovered that is was blog action day this morning, so there wasn't really time to write anything original about it. The best I can manage is to string together some articles and resources that may be useful to me in future if I want to write something about it later, and may possibly be of use to anyone else reading it and looking for resource materials.

• On the protection of the natural environment, Patriarch Bartholomew I.
• The Orthodox Church and the environmental movement, by Dr. Elizabeth Theokritoff, an Orthodox theologian and writer from England.
• The Orthodox Churches and the environment - Conclusions of the Inter-Orthodox Conference on Environmental Protection, Crete, 1991.
• Examples of Orthodox environmental initatives, by Alexander Belopopsky.
• Orthodox ecology, a review of Beyond the Shattered Image by John Chryssavgis, reviewed by Vincent Rossi in Touchstone magazine.

And I close with a couple of quotes from the last item:

For most environmentalists, theology remains a last resort, if they resort to it at all. This generalization stands, I believe, despite the new academic interest in religion and ecology. Even if secular environmentalists are now actively seeking theology’s support, it is not as the “queen of the sciences” that they turn to theology, but merely as a form of eco-ethics buttressed by the supposed moral support of “religion” in general.

For those, however, who are genuinely interested in the interface between religion and the environment as a first line of defense against the rape of nature, a restored theological vision capable of overcoming a disastrously individualistic and anthropocentric worldview and reintegrating God, man, and the natural world is a vision-quest worthy of every effort. Arguably, the deepest ecological thinking, the widest and most inclusive scope of environmental reconciliation, and the loftiest and most complete cosmic vision and spirituality are to be found in the riches of the Orthodox Christian theological tradition.