Press release
MAN — CUSTODIAN OF CREATION
in collaboration with the Orthodox Churches
In the Christian tradition of East and West to live on earth is a task and a gift entrusted to human beings
XX International Ecumenical Conference
on Orthodox Spirituality
Bose, Wednesday 5 – Saturday 8 September 2012
in collaboration with the Orthodox Churches
The 20th International Ecumenical Conference on Orthodox Spirituality, which opens at Bose on Wednesday, 5 September, has for its theme “Man — Custodian of Creation”.
In the Christian tradition of East and West to live on earth is a task and a gift entrusted to human beings, custodians, but at the same time guests of creation. On this theme the opening feature talks by the prior of Bose, Enzo Bianchi, and the metropolitan of Pergamum, Ioannis Zizioulas, one of the major contemporary theologians and representative of the ecumenical patriarch Bartholomew I, who with great conviction and numerous initiatives has carried out a constant service in recalling the spiritual and Christian foundations of ecological commitment.
Metropolitans and bishops of the Orthodox Churches and of the Catholic Church (among these cardinal Roger Etchegaray, vice-dean of the College of Cardinals, Antonio Mennini, apostolic nuncio to Great Britain, bishop Mansueto Bianchi of Pistoia, president of the Commission for ecumenism and inter-religious dialogue of the Italian Bishops’ Conference), as well as representatives of the Anglican Church and the Churches of the Reform, of the World Council of Churches (Tamara Grdzelidze), and of the pontifical Council for promoting Christian unity (mons. Andrea Palmieri), in addition to theologians, patrologists, and scholars from all over the world.
In four days of meetings and discussions open to the public the speakers will look at the theological and spiritual dimensions of man’s relation with the environment that surrounds him, seeking the values that can inspire responsible choices to meet the ecological crisis, provoked by man himself, which is causing irreversible wounds to life on out planet.
The teaching of the Orthodox Church on ecological problems will be explained by bishop Amvrosij of Gat?ina, rector of the Theological Academy of St Petersburg and member of the official delegation of the Moscow Patriarchate, headed by metropolitan German of Volgograd.
The goodness of creation according to the Biblical account (Gen 1,31), the relationship between wounded and healed nature and the history of salvation (cf. Rom 8,22), the understanding of the relationship of man with creation in the church fathers, from Ireneus of Lyons to Maximus the Confessor to the Syriac fathers, is at the center of the reflections proposed by John Behr (New York), Nestor Kavvadas (Tübingen), Assaad Elias Kattan (Münster).
- 1
- 2