The wide embrace of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, spiritual leader of the Orthodox Church<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By Annelise Jolley<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In November of 1997, His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew\u2014the spiritual leader of the Eastern Orthodox church\u2014hosted an environmental symposium that would make history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At an Orthodox church set in the palm-fringed foothills of Santa Barbara, California, with the Pacific spreading below like an ultramarine altar cloth, the patriarch spoke to an audience of environmentalists, politicians, and indigenous leaders. He looked then much as he looks now. He wore simple black vestments and a white beard cascading to his chest. His gaze was gentle behind gold-rimmed glasses. Speaking in careful English\u2014one of seven languages he speaks fluently\u2014Bartholomew affirmed his church\u2019s call and commitment to protecting the natural world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then, in a sentence that would quickly wing across the world through newspapers and broadcasts, the patriarch named the connection between environmental destruction and moral failing. \u201cTo commit a crime against the natural environment, against the natural world, is a sin,\u201d he said, pausing to lift his eyes to his audience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n With this statement, he drew a direct link between religious obligation and environmental care\u2014the first time such a connection had been made by a figure of his authority on this kind of public stage. It was a revolutionary declaration that reverberated across religious and secular communities alike\u2014a \u201cdaring revision of the Christian perspective of sin,\u201d as Rev. Dr. John Chryssavgis, Archdeacon of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and advisor to the patriarch, described it in the biography Bartholomew: Apostle and Visionary<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In this historic speech, the patriarch presented environmental care as a moral and spiritual imperative. More than policy change, he argued, humanity needs a spiritual conversion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cExcessive consumption may be understood to issue from a world-view of estrangement from self, from land, from life, and from God,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Only by remembering our interdependence can we heal the damage caused by greed, exploitation, and disconnection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n His words echoed the Orthodox understanding of sin: not as mere moral missteps, but as relational rupture. By naming pollution and deforestation and reckless extraction as sins, Bartholomew underscored the relational breakdown at the heart of the issue, both among people and between people and the earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Santa Barbara symposium was, Chryssavgis wrote, the first time a religious leader connected environmental abuse with sin. But for Patriarch Bartholomew\u2014who is now affectionately known as the \u201cGreen Patriarch\u201d\u2014a commitment to ecological care preceded the symposium by many years, and has only deepened in the decades since.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The recipient of the 2025 Templeton Prize, His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew is one of the longest-serving patriarchs in Orthodox history. He is the 270th direct successor of Saint Andrew the Apostle, the first fisherman called by Jesus to leave his nets behind and become a disciple. More than 300 million Orthodox Christians around the world look to Bartholomew as their spiritual leader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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