Bartholomew I says it’s time to act, it’s time for 'subversion'
At the international meeting ‘No one is saved alone. Peace and Fraternity’, the Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople calls upon the world to overcome fundamentalisms and ideologies to rediscover the world as a "common home" as well as humans and reality as a "mirror" of God. This represent real "subversion,” ending the “absolute domination of human beings over the entire universe,” signalling the birth of "ecology as a sign of the presence of the divine in creation.”
Rome (AsiaNews) – Bartholomew I, Patriarch of Constantinople, spoke today at the International Meeting of Prayer for Peace No one is saved alone. Peace and Fraternity in Piazza del Campidoglio, Rome, where representatives of various religions gathered after each performed its own prayer for peace.
In his address, the ecumenical patriarch said that “The great challenges of the moment, which concern all life in our wonderful home, the world, and not only some peoples or nations," require decisions that cannot be postponed. The "time to act" has come, and so has the time to “subvert a secular socio-cultural order” that sees the world only as an object and not as a “common home” of which humans are the custodians.
Speaking to the assembly, small because of coronavirus-related health restrictions, Bartholomew stressed two points.
The first one is that “the time of ecological fashion, of its idealisation or, worse still, its ideologisation is over. The time for action has begun.” In short, It is necessary to overcome ecology as only an affective, sociological issue, idolising a pure world with no room for humans seen as a "polluting threat".
The second one, linked to the first, is that it is time to see the world and humans together as God’s creatures. It is necessary to rediscover the religious dimension of commitment to society and nature. This is why it is necessary "to subvert a secular socio-cultural order and perceive the divine fragment that is in it.”
Quoting the philosopher Anaximenes, Bartholomew, stated that it is necessary to overcome a purely scientific (or materialistic) view of reality and the cosmos.
it is also necessary to look at the elements of the cosmos as part of the "common home", a place inhabited by the community of human beings. It is necessary “to place the common home on the same level with the four elements since it is through it alone that the salvation of mankind and all creation is possible.”
Finally, it is important to look at nature and human beings as a "mirror" of God’s image. For the patriarch, “The common home is like a house of mirrors, a mirror in which we see our own image reflected, like that of every fellow human being and with us every element of creation.
“Created in God’s image and likeness, we see our fellow human being’s image in ourselves and the divine fragment in every human being. Looking at what is around us, we see divine work contained therein.
"The socio-cultural and anthropological upending that follows leads us to see ecology as a sign of the presence of the divine in creation.” This marks a real "subversion,” thereby ending the “absolute domination of human beings over the entire universe" and signals the birth of "ecology as a sign of the presence of the divine in creation.”
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20/10/2020 19:35
20/10/2020 13:27
