Posted by George Patsourakos
on 10/23/2009, 5:42 pm
"We are consuming environmental capital and destroying its resources as if there is no tomorrow," Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew declared in New Orleans on October 21, 2009 in his opening address of the Eighth Religion, Science and Environmental (RSE) Symposium titled "Restoring Balance: The Great Mississippi River."
This symposium will continue until October 26 under the Patriarch's high patronage, and includes a large and diverse group of theologians, scientists, policymakers, environmentalists, and others, according to the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese website.
Roman Catholic Archbishop Gregory Aymond of New Orleans welcomed the Ecumenical Patriarch and read a cordial, prayerful, and personal message from Pope Benedict XVI, in which he conveyed his support and solidarity in the effort of caring and protecting the environment and "the safeguarding of God's creation."
In his opening address, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew said, "We have reached a defining moment in our history...to the point where absolute limits to our survival are being reached, and instead of living on income, or the available surplus of the earth, we are consuming environmental capital and destroying its resources as if there is no tomorrow."
After the Patriarchal Address, retired U.S. Senator Paul Sarbanes, who is a participant in the symposium, read a letter from former Vice President Al Gore, in which he expressed his esteem and respect for the Ecumenical Patriarch's perseverance demonstrated by this Eighth Environmental Symposium. Gore, an ardent environmentalist, is the one who gave Patriarch Bartholomew the nickname the "Green Patriarch" in 1997 when welcoming him to Washington, D.C.
Archbishop Demetrios, Primate of the Greek Orthodox Church in America, welcomed the Ecumenical Patriarch by describing him as "the Healer Patriarch who laboriously, incessantly, and deliberately serves in an extraordinary way the ecological healing process and tends to the wounds inflicted upon nature by human beings."
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