Bridging the Ecclesial, the Academic, and the Political
In his 2018 book The Wizard and the Prophet, Charles C. Mann describes the work and approaches of two of the most important environmentalists of the 20th century: William Vogt and Norman Borlaug. Unfortunately, their “blueprints” are contradictory approaches to the problems of climate change. Mann categorizes those who follow Borlaug’s model of “techno-optimism” (that…
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by Chris Durante In 1997, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople coined the term “ecological sin[1]” and since then his idea has come to influence a number of thinkers both within the Orthodox Church as well as others; the most prominent of which has been Pope Francis, who cites Bartholomew in his 2015 encyclical Laudato…
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by Christina Nellist | български | ქართული | ελληνικά | Română | Русский | Српски On the publication of Climate Crisis and Creation Care: Historical Perspectives, Ecological Integrity and Justice and Climate Crisis and Sustainable Creaturely Care: Integrated Theology, Governance and Justice, both edited Christina Nellist (Cambridge Scholars Press, 2021). Today, it is reasonable to…
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by Mark Roosien While the Orthodox Church has gained a reputation internationally as a “green” church, largely due to the environmental initiatives of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the reality is much more complicated on the ground. The science behind the human causes of climate change and its catastrophic consequences is settled, but the issue unfortunately remains…
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On September 1, Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew issued a joint statement in commemoration of the ecclesiastical Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation. As has become typical, this statement expressed concern for the well-being of the poorest of the poor while simultaneously overlooking the primary means by which their poverty has been…
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On Friday, Sept. 1, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and Pope Francis issued a “Joint Message on the World Day of Prayer for Creation.” Just over one page long, the pithy document packs an ethical imperative into its message about prayer for creation. This isn’t the first time that a pope and Patriarch have opined together on…
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“Democracy is coming to the USA.” (Leonard Cohen) Americans don’t like talking openly about politics across party lines; they prefer to talk in their own silos and not to each other. American Christians – at least, this is my experience among Orthodox Christians in America – would almost identify political argumentation as somehow betraying the…
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Public Orthodoxy is a publication of the Orthodox Christian Studies Center of Fordham University
