Ecology of Transfiguration

Perspectives on Orthodox Theology of Creation

With the encyclical Laudato Sì – On Care for Our Common Home, Pope Francis has marked ecology on the map of the theology of the Roman Catholic Church. As this essay will show, Orthodoxy anticipated this development by several decades. In Western Christianity, new terms such as creation spirituality or creation ethics have been developed to signpost the newly discovered place of ecology in the theological landscape. In the Orthodox tradition instead, ecological awareness is deeply rooted in the faith and life of the church, as recent approaches by Orthodox theologians reveal.

Demetrios and Bartholomew

“The Green Patriarch” – this is how Bartholomew I (Dimitrios Archondonis), the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, is sometimes referred to. Just one month after taking office, in November 1991, a conference entitled “Living in the Creation of the Lord” was held under his presidency in Crete.¹ The following year, he organised a pan-Orthodox conference in Istanbul, at which ecological issues also played an important role. In 1994, he founded the Religious and Scientific Committee, which within fifteen years organised eight international symposia, each of which was dedicated to the ecology of hydrologically important areas (Adriatic, Black Sea, Amazon, Mississippi, etc.). Bartholomew’s writings, statements and initiatives on ecology were documented and summarised by his advisor, the Australian Orthodox theologian John Chryssavgis.²

Bartholomew’s ecological commitment follows on from that of his predecessor Demetrios I (1972–1991). In 1986, the latter convened a pre-synodal pan-Orthodox conference in Chambésy (CH), which addressed the pressing challenges of the present, including the environmental crises caused by Western countries. In an encyclical published on September 1, 1990, he declared September 1 each year – the beginning of the liturgical year in Orthodoxy – as Day of Protection of Environment, on which prayers specifically composed for the occasion and aimed at ecological conversion should be recited.³ The initiative was taken up by the World Council of Churches (WCC) and led, among other things, to the proclamation of the Season of Creation from September 1 to October 4 (Memorial Day of St Francis of Assisi) by the third European Ecumenical Assembly in Sibiu in 2007.

Key Points of Orthodox Creation Theology and their Ecological Relevance

The ecological initiatives of the two ecumenical patriarchs are not to be understood solely as a reaction to the multiple environmental crises or as an expression of their personal inclinations and sensitivities. Rather, their commitment is rooted in the fact that the theology of creation, with its not only protological, but also soteriological and eschatological aspects, has retained its central importance in Orthodoxy to a much greater extent than in the Western Church. This theology of creation is rooted, obviously, in the Bible – primarily in the Old Testament – and in the works of the Church Fathers, above all Basil the Great, Gregory of Nazianzus and Maximus the Confessor. The significance of theology of creation in the liturgy and spirituality of Orthodoxy is reflected not least in the conference volume “Toward an Ecology of Transfiguration: Orthodox Christian Perspectives on Environment, Nature, and Creation” (New York 2013), which goes back to an Orthodox theological conference organised in California in October 2007.⁴ Among the most prominent authors in the volume are the British theologian Elizabeth Theokritoff, who teaches in Cambridge, the aforementioned John Chrissavgis (born 1958), who edited the volume together with the philosopher Bruce Foltz, as well as the two recently deceased scholars and metropolitans Ioannis (John) Zizioulas (1931–2023), who was of Greek origin, and Kallistos (Timothy) Ware (1934–2022), who came from the south-west of England and taught at Oxford.

Kallistos Ware emphasises the theophanic transparency of creation: the world as a whole has a sacramental dimension, it is a sign of salvation that points to God, as is clear in the story of Moses and the burning bush (Exodus 3:1–6).⁵ Referring back to Gregorios Palamas (14^th century), Ware speaks of a panentheism which recognises the transcendence of God who manifests himself in the created and at the same time remains hidden. Two characteristics of the created characterise the sacramentality of the world:

• Distinctiveness: Every element of nature proves to be unique, it “selves”.

• Transparency: In its uniqueness, everything created points beyond itself to the Creator.

With William Blake, Ware therefore speaks of a “double vision” of creation: It is precisely in its iconic transparency towards God that creation demonstrates its beauty in and of itself. Man’s vocation is to celebrate this sacramentality of creation by offering it, and with it himself, to the Creator. In this mediating and offering function, man is therefore the priest of creation, he is, as Ware – quoting the Dalai Lama – states, the “voice of the universe”. In order to fulfil this vocation, a threefold conversion (metanoia) is required:

• nepsis (mindfulness) to take off our shoes in the sacrament of the present moment, like Moses before the thorn bush, and to recognise that the place where we stand is holy ground;

• sophrosyne (integrity) to allow our creativity to unfold with purified Eros, freed from attachments;

• enkrateia (self-restraint) in order to allow everything created to become a sacrament of communion with one another and with God in frugality and generosity.

Chryssavgis’ contribution ties in here by outlining an iconic view of nature:⁶ Not only man is created in God’s image (eikon), but all of creation shares in God’s likeness and becomes a reflection of the Creator’s glory for the believer. Just as an icon represents the spatial dimension of God’s holiness in the world, the liturgy represents the temporal dimension. In fact, the liturgical performance has the effect of sanctifying time. As a “cosmic liturgy” (Maximus the Confessor), the prayers and celebrations of the Church extend to the whole of creation, which participates in this sanctification of time. Finally, the ascetic practice of the faithful – fasting, moderation, renunciation – aims to free creation from constraint and control and to grow in love for it in order to contribute to restoring its original beauty. In conclusion, Chryssavgis presents three models of care for the earth:

• the biblical model, which focuses on solidarity with the weak and needy – and this includes the earth with its collapsing ecosystems and endangered animal and plant species;

• the ascetic model, which uses renunciation and penance to strengthen the will and ability to act responsibly towards the wounded creation;

• the sacramental model, which emphasises communion with God and the whole of creation through the sacraments – the sacraments transform us into priests of creation.

Orthodox Vespers, as Elizabeth Theokritoff points out, begins daily with Ps 104, which is a hymn of praise to God as Creator.⁷ The psalm text expresses wonder and joy at the beauty of the cosmos, whereby man is only mentioned in passing (in vv. 14–15 and 23). His task and position are illuminated at the end of the psalm:

I will sing to YHWH as long as I live,
I will sing praise to my God while I have being. (Ps 104:33)

The morning prayer (Orthros) ties in with this, as one of the opening prayers is Psalm 103, which begins with a call to praise God (“Praise YHWH, my soul!”) and ends with an invitation to all of creation to join in the praise (“Praise YHWH, all his works!”). Fittingly, the morning liturgy ends with Ps 148, which performs the cosmic liturgy, as it were (“Praise YHWH sun and moon, praise him all you shining stars”, Ps 148:3). As Theokritoff explains, the creation-theological dimension of the Orthodox liturgy can thus be divided into three aspects: “We praise God for all creation, as in Ps 104; but we equally praise him with all creation, animate or inanimate. And in a certain sense, we offer praise also on behalf of all creation.”⁸

Priest of Creation (John Zizioulas)

The approach of John Zizioulas deserves special attention. Born in a northern Greek village in 1931, Zizioulas became a student of the Russian-American theologian Georges Florovsky at Harvard University before obtaining his doctorate at the University of Athens in 1965. He then taught in Scotland and at King’s College in London until he was appointed (titular) Metropolitan of Pergamon in 1986 and from then on taught at the University of Thessaloniki. Zizioulas died in 2023 in Athens at the age of 92.

The term “priest of creation” is at the centre of Zizioulas’ anthropology. In an anthology published three years ago, John Chryssavgis and Nikolaos Asproulis (Volos Academy for Theological Studies) compiled important papers and contributions by Zizioulas on this key anthropological concept.⁹ The seventeen texts, which were written roughly between 1990 and 2016, range from Pauline and patristic theology to liturgical and ethical aspects and (in a broader sense) spiritual and cultural implications.

The theological discourse of the world as creation not only makes a statement about the cause and origin of the cosmos, but also implies an enduring relationship between the Creator and the created, as Zizioulas emphasises with reference to Rom 1:25, where ktisis (“creation”) and ktistis (“Creator”) are assigned to each other. Consequently, man is not the inhabitant and ruler of the world, but its guardian and steward – creation is God’s gift to man. While the idolaters, against whom Paul polemicises in Rom 1:25 (“they worshipped the creature and adored it instead of the Creator”), identify the created with God himself, believers gratefully recognise the Giver behind and in the good creation, because “everything that God has created is good (kalos) and nothing is reprehensible if it is enjoyed with thanksgiving” (1 Tim 4:4). Consequently, the idea of creation leads to a basic Eucharistic attitude that urges us to offer what we have received to the Creator in gratitude and in this way to experience ourselves as ontologically and existentially connected to everything that has been created and to the Creator.

This thanksgiving of man to the Creator has a Christological centre, because Christ, the incarnated Logos, is the “firstborn of all creation” (Col 1:15). The eschatological work of salvation revealed in Jesus Christ therefore has a cosmic dimension and purpose. As Paul states in a central section of his letter to the Romans (cf. Rom 8:19–23), “creation waits eagerly” to receive a share in salvation through man (the “children of God”) (v. 19). Meanwhile, creation “groans” over the continuing sins of humanity (v. 22): “Creation is groaning, and we see this very clearly when animal species disappear daily as a result of ecological turmoil, when the Arctic ice that for centuries provided sanctuary to so many species melts and leads these creatures to extinction, when the overheating of the earth and the resulting rapid climatic change profoundly disrupt nature’s balance so that numerous and diverse species of the planet cannot seek refuge for survival on our planet. Who among us listens to this groaning of creation?”¹⁰ For Zizioulas, the Letter to the Romans thus clearly expresses human responsibility for the multiple ecological crisis. At the same time, he emphasises the hope mentioned in the passage: Through the gift of the Holy Spirit, we already share in the redemption wrought in Christ and become agents of salvation for the whole of creation (cf. Rom 8:20, 23–25).

This mediation of salvation by man is inherent in the order of creation, for in man as the final work of creation (cf. Gen 1:26–28), the entire cosmos is united to a certain extent: According to Maximus Confessor (ca. 558–662), man represents a microcosm in which all the elements of creation are bundled together and reflected, what elevates him to the status of mediator between God and his creatures.¹¹ By overcoming the self-centredness in which he has become entangled in and since the fall into sin, by virtue of the Holy Spirit and, as homo eucharisticus, offering the whole world gratefully to the Creator in the liturgy and expressing his gratitude and appreciation in everyday life through ascetic frugality (“I only take what I need”), man finds his natural destiny as a priest of creation.

Accordingly, it is in the liturgy that man’s vocation as a priest of creation finds its most intense form of expression, because it represents the “most positive and active acceptance of the world and creation”.¹² The celebration of the liturgy therefore does not mean turning away from the world, but rather turning intimately towards the world. In the liturgical celebration, a Eucharistic vision of the world is revealed to man: He perceives the world for what it is, namely a gift from the Creator, and among all creatures he is the actual recipient. It is therefore up to him to offer thanksgiving to the “Giver of all good” (cf. Jas 1:17). As priest of creation, man does this on behalf of all (silent) creatures (cf. Ps 19:3: “Their voice is not heard”), but also together with all creatures who join him in praising God (cf. Ps 148; 150), and also by means of the created things, which he symbolically presents to the Creator in the Eucharistic gifts of bread and wine.

The concept of priesthood indicates an ontological and not merely functional relationship between man and creation. Therefore, Zizioulas does not outline an ecological ethics that draws up norms of behaviour, but rather an ethos rooted in a religious culture and community, which is embedded and articulated in a liturgical, spiritual and ethical practice. Three aspects of a Christian-ecological ethos can be distinguished:

• The liturgical ethos aims at the sanctification of the world and draws on a Eucharistic vision in which matter appears as designed for holiness and as a means to (self-)sanctification.

• The iconographic ethos recognises the transparency of creation towards the divine presence in the entire cosmos and strives for an aesthetic that expresses this transparency.

• Finally, the ascetic ethos focuses on self-limitation and renunciation in order to practise an attitude of appreciation and gratitude through fasting.

Man’s relationship to the other parts of creation therefore does not remain external to man in the sense of a responsibility towards his fellow creatures as their guardian or steward, but is internal to man, as he realises his destiny to sanctify the world through them and together with them. As priests of creation, human beings give all created things a share in God’s eternity within the limits of space and time.

The distortions and reductionisms in the realm of spirituality in Western modernity become apparent from the previous discussions. Christian spirituality does not mean turning away from the world and striving towards a spiritual sphere removed from the material, but rather perceiving and practicing the connection with all created things in their transparency towards the Creator. Christianity – especially in its Western form – can learn from indigenous cultures and their religious practices in order to rediscover what is its own, which it has largely lost on its way into the modern age.

Consequently, the current ecological collapse reveals the cultural crisis of modern man. The ecological crisis is essentially a cultural crisis. The way out of the climate crisis, soil degradation, pollution of the seas and waters, species extinction etc. cannot be found at the level of technological innovation, as this would further advance the reductionisms of modernity and consequently the separation of humans from all fellow creatures. The Christian-ecological ethos with its Eucharistic-sacramental and ascetic-practical dimensions can make a significant contribution to cultural renewal. It shows that man is more and something essentially different than an isolated individual who, the more he tries to escape finiteness (i.e. his own death), the more he falls prey to it and drags the whole world into a maelstrom of destruction. Man is a priest of creation who passes on God’s work of redemption to all his fellow creatures by practising and performing thanksgiving to the Creator for them, together with them and through them.

1. An overview on Bartholomew I’s initiatives and theological approaches to ecology is provided by Alexander Maros, “The Ecological Theology of the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I,” in: International Journal of Orthodox Theology 8 (2017), 146–177.

2. John Chryssavgis, Cosmic Grace, Humble Prayer. Ecological Vision of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, Grand Rapids, ²2009; idem, On Earth as in Heaven. Ecological Vision and Initiatives of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, New York 2012; idem, The Patriarch of Solidarity. Ecological and Global Concerns of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, Istanbul 2013.

3. The texts to the „Vespers for the Environment“ are published in: John Chrissavgis and Bruce V. Foltz (eds), Toward an Ecology of Transfiguration. Orthodox Christian Perspectives on Environment, Nature, and Creation, New York 2013, 379–397.

4. The volume is available online.

5. Kallistos (Timothy) Ware, “Through Creation to the Creator,” in: Chrissavgis and Foltz 2013, 86–105.

6. John Chrissavgis, “A New Heaven and a New Earth: Orthodox Christian Insights from Theology, Spirituality, and the Sacraments,” in: Chrissavgis and Foltz 2013, 152–162.

7. Elizabeth Theokritoff, “Liturgy, Cosmic Worship, and Christian Cosmology,” in: Chrissavgis and Foltz 2013, 295–306.

8. Elizabeth Theokritoff, Living in God’s Creation: Orthodox Perspectives on Ecology, Crestwood (NY) 2009, 157–158.

9. John Chryssavgis and Nikolaos Asproulis (eds), Priests of Creation. John Zizioulas on Discerning an Ecological Ethos, London 2021.

10. Chryssavgis and Asproulis 2021, 29.

11. Cf. Lars Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator: The Theological Anthropology of Maximus the Confessor, Chicago 1994, 137–140.

12. Chryssavgis and Asproulis 2021, 135.