Orthodox primates speak on human divisions and the environment

The primates of the Orthodox Churches, meeting from 10-12 October at the Phanar, Istanbul, have issued a message to all Orthodox Christians throughout the world, urging them, among other things, to play a part in healing human divisions and caring for creation.

Russian Orthodox Church (Brussels Representation) - Eglise Orthodoxe Russe (Repr�sentation �Bruxelles):

The various nationalistic, ethnic, ideological and religious contrasts continuously nurture dangerous confusion, not only in regard to the unquestionable ontological unity of the human race, but also in regard to man’s relationship to sacred creation. The sacredness of the human person is constrained to partial claims for the “individual”, whereas his relationship toward the rest of sacred creation is subjected to his arbitrary use or abuse of it.

These divisions of the world introduce an unjust inequality in the participation of individuals, or even peoples in the goods of Creation; they deprive billions of people of basic goods and lead to the misery for the human person; they cause mass population migration, kindle nationalistic, religious and social discrimination and conflict, threatening traditional internal societal coherence. These consequences are still more abhorrent because they are inextricably linked with the destruction of the natural environment and the entire ecosystem.