Orthodoxy & Creation
Symposium on the Arctic:
“The Mirror of Life”
Part One: Welcome and Opening Address
It is a great privilege and blessing to be standing on the soil of this magnificent island at the start of a fresh deliberation on the fate of the earth. This is the seventh symposium we have organized, and it is in many ways the most important. This is not only because the danger of an avoidable environmental catastrophe is now more acute than ever, but also because we are gathering in a place whose awesome but fragile beauty is at once an inspiration and a warning to anyone who cares about the future of our planet.
As we begin our symposium against a background of grave pronouncements from scientists about the consequences of climate change for every living thing on earth, it is above all to the people of Greenland that we look for guidance. On behalf of the ecologists, policymakers, journalists and religious leaders who have gathered in Greenland, we thank you for inviting us to this marvelous land. We ask for your wisdom and counsel as we reflect together on the spiritual and physical consequences of the profound ecological changes which are already affecting the whole of our planet and the polar regions in particular.
It is now more than a decade since we began holding symposia on Religion, Science and the Environment. ... In the early days many people were puzzled by the links we were trying to establish. Religious people were relatively indifferent or hostile to science. Many scientists and ecologists could see little relationship between their world and the world of faith. Now, as some of those connections have become obvious, there is hardly a religious leader who is not preoccupied by the problems of pollution and climate change.... As more and more people now realize, religion and environmental science are both concerned with ultimate matters, with the final destiny of mankind, the earth and the whole of creation.
For that reason spiritual leaders and ecologists cannot avoid engaging in a profound dialogue with one another. But neither our scientific friends, nor our fellow leaders of the world of faith, would have come to Greenland if we thought the future of the planet was utterly hopeless. It is because we believe in the possibility of saving the earth and of restoring the covenant between man and God that we have traveled here, in a spirit of penance, pilgrimage and gratitude to our hosts.
We have called this symposium “the Mirror of Life” because scientists tell us that the Arctic is a stark and vivid reflection of the state of the planet. The ecological misdeeds committed by societies further south, such as chemical contamination or nuclear radiation, are visible in the Arctic environment. Above all, the dramatic rise in global temperatures is having a palpable effect on the landscape of Greenland, even though it has not been caused by anything that Greenlanders have done. The societies whose industrial activities and extravagance do cause climate change are often blind to the consequences of their behavior. But here in the polar region it is possible to see things much more clearly.
The idea of a mirror as a reflection of reality... is familiar to Christians. That is why Saint Paul warns us that in our present, fallen state, we can only see the world in a mirror, or as one translation puts it, we observe reality “through a glass, darkly” (1 Corinthians 13:12). In the same verse, Saint Paul offers us the hope that one day we will see more clearly: we will stand before the glory of God, and hence have a complete understanding of everything else.
Saint Paul’s words refer to the spiritual hope of a Christian, that the glory of God will be fully visible to human beings, but they take on a new meaning for any person who comes to Greenland. The Arctic is not a crude, man-made mirror; it is a brilliant and powerful one, given to us by God. Its silent beauty offers a brilliant reflection of the glory of God while the abundance of life in the Brazilian rainforest, which we observed last year, offers another. At the same time, the climatic changes taking place in the Arctic, and the contamination of parts of its food chain, are an accurate and unavoidable image of human thoughtlessness. When we visit this island or sail along its coast, we cannot hide our eyes, either from the beauty of God’s creation or from the changes which human folly has already caused, and may cause in the future, to this pristine place. Nor can we avoid pondering the terrible consequences for the remainder of the world, if glaciers continue to melt and sea-levels continue to rise.
Dear friends from Greenland, we ask you to forgive us if we, as visitors, seem slow to see and understand things which are obvious to you. We will need your help, not just this week, as we reflect on the challenges which face this region and the rest of the world in a rapidly warming planet. Long after this symposium is over, we will still need to be guided by your resilience, wisdom and faith if we are to cope with the bewildering environmental dislocations which are now in progress in every part of the earth.
Part Two: Keynote Address at the Katuaq Cultural Center
It is a great privilege to be standing in Greenland’s capital.... For your gracious hospitality, for your help in making our symposium possible, and indeed for your deep understanding of the purpose of our symposium, we offer heart-felt thanks.
The physical environment of your beautiful island is utterly different from the eastern Mediterranean, where the Ecumenical Patriarchate has been located for the past 17 centuries. There is also an enormous contrast between the silent dignity of the Arctic icefields which surround us now, and the abundance of life in all its forms which we encountered during our last symposium in Brazil.
But by today’s standards, the distance we have traveled is not really so great, and in certain ways, both good and bad ways, that distance is becoming smaller all the time. Modern transport has made it relatively easy for us to make the journey to Greenland, and it is now possible for messages, images and ideas to travel between Greenland and every other part of the world in the twinkling of an eye. Depending on how they are used, these communications can be a blessing or a curse.
In many parts of the world, indigenous cultures have been undermined by seductive images from the supposedly civilized world, propagating the idea that happiness is only to be found in consuming more and more material products. But we have a strong sense that the people of Greenland, and their elected rulers, have avoided such temptations. You are bringing your people some of the practical benefits of modern science and technology, while also holding onto everything that is best in your traditional way of life, including your magnificent tradition of story-telling.
Our Lord Jesus Christ was also a great story-teller. He knew that a tale taken from everyday life was often the best way to communicate an important truth. He was once asked “who is my neighbor” –– in other words, who is the person close to me, the person that I am obliged to love and care for? (Luke 10:28). He replied with the story of the Good Samaritan. This is the story of a man who was left wounded on the roadside and only received help from a person of a different race.
What Our Lord described was an act of compassion, an act of closeness, between individuals from sharply different communities, communities which normally kept far apart from one other. The broader point is that a person may seem far from us by the logic of this world, but in the sight of God, in the light of eternity, that same person can be close to us indeed, either because we need that person’s help, or because that person needs our help.
For better or worse, we are living in an age when the destinies of all human beings and all human communities are ever more closely intertwined. Patterns of behavior and consumption in one corner of the globe can affect the lives and livelihood of people who live at the other extremity of the earth. If the environment of the polar region is now changing at a frightening pace, that is because of economic activities and energy choices in the industrialized world, far to the south. And the alteration in the Arctic environment has the potential to inundate islands in the tropics or cities as far away as Shanghai or New York. Borrowing a phrase from modern journalism, what we are experiencing is “the death of distance.” There is no segment of the human race which can hope to isolate itself from the destiny of mankind, and of life on earth in general.
This new proximity, this closeness, need not be a bad thing if we learn to read the “signs of the times” (Matthew 16:3). To some degree, we are all drawn closer by a common experience of fear and suffering as the consequences of climate change are felt in different ways. At a time when climatic emergencies of many different kinds are affecting the lives of hundreds of millions of people, we have no moral choice but to “bear one another’s burdens” as the New Testament (Galatians 6:2) enjoins us. Here in the Arctic, melting glaciers are threatening the way of life of traditional hunters. In our home region of southern Europe, we have seen an alarming combination of heat waves, drought, fires and also floods. Scientists inform us that these phenomena are connected. When we visited Brazil last year, the region was still recovering from a highly unusual drought. Brazilian scientists told us that illegal deforestation was leading to a decrease in rainfall and making fires more common. Fires and deforestation in Brazil are among the many factors which are altering the climate, and hence the environment, here on the northern edge of the earth.
If only we knew how to learn the right lessons, the web of causal connections between extreme events in different parts of the world could have a sobering effect. These linkages ought to bring home to every nation and every community how closely involved it is with every other nation and community. It should be more obvious now than ever that no state or ethnic group or economic class can hope to advance its own interests indefinitely at the expense of the remainder of mankind. To restate a simple truth which has guided all of our floating symposia on Religion, Science and the Environment, “we are all in the same boat.”
That truth must always have been evident to the people of Greenland. As inhabitants and administrators of this extraordinary island where the might and mystery of nature and the smallness of man is a constantly felt reality, you can see more clearly than most of us how futile it is for one group of human beings to seek unconditional control of the earth by monopolizing its resources. But to judge from the newspapers, there is a real danger now that the people of the polar region could find themselves caught in the middle of an intense competition by outsiders to achieve domination of the Arctic. If such a competition develops, then the best hope of restraining it may lie in the wisdom the Arctic peoples, in their instinctive sense that this awesome landscape cannot, in the end, be monopolized by any one group of human beings.
As administrators of Greenland, you face enormous responsibilities. Perhaps these responsibilities are graver now than at any time in your history. On behalf of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, endowed by history with a special responsibility for the welfare of the whole inhabited earth, and of the scientists, ecologists and opinion-makers who have gathered here from all over the world, we would like to make you a promise. We promise to stand close to you, to pray with you, to be your neighbors. And we ask you to stand close to us.
Part Three: Symposium Closing Address
By the grace of God we have concluded our symposium, and we are now close to the end of our wonderful Greenland journey. ...
If there is one single message in all the information which we have received during our symposium, it is this: “time is short.” The ice of the Arctic is shrinking at a frightening pace. That is what we are told by scientists; that is what we are told by Greenlanders who know the ice better than anybody. If all the ice in Greenland melts, the consequences for Greenland and the world could be devastating: a Biblical catastrophe in the most literal sense. Some scientists tell us that we have ten years or less to limit the emission of greenhouse gases and hence limit the extent of global warming. So humanity does not have the luxury of quarreling over economic or racial or religious differences; it must act together, and it must act now.
“If there is one single message in all the
information which we have received during
our symposium, it is this: ‘time is short.’”
As Orthodox Christians, we use the Greek word “kairos” to describe a moment in time which has eternal significance. When Our Lord Jesus Christ began his preaching, he declared that a decisive moment, a “kairos” (Mark 1:14) had arrived in the relationship between God and mankind. The Mother of God, who prays for and protects mankind, experienced her moment of “kairos” when she received the angel Gabriel and replied, “May it be according to your word” (Luke 1:38). As individuals we are often conscious of a kairos, a moment when we make a choice that will affect our whole lives. For the human race as a whole, there is now a kairos, a decisive time in our relationship with God’s creation. We will either act in time to protect life on earth from the worst consequences of human folly, or we will fail to act.
On behalf of all of us, on behalf of our Greenlandic hosts and on behalf of all the people, allow me to offer up a public prayer: “May God grant us the wisdom to act in time.”
His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I
