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From “Unity as Calling, Conversion and Mission,” the opening address of His All Holiness the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew to the Plenary of the World Council of Churches’ Commission on Faith and Order event, “Called to be One Church” (Crete, Greece, October 7, 2009):

We should not be frustrated by our human limitations, which unfortunately determine our disagreements and divisions. Our ongoing and persistent pursuit of unity is a testimony to the fact that what we seek will occur in God’s time and not our own; it is, by the same token, the fruit of heavenly grace and divine kairos.

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… genuine humility demands from all of us a sense of openness to the past and the future; in other words, much like the ancient god Janus, we are called to manifest respect for the time-tested ways of the past and regard for the heavenly city that we seek (cf. Heb. 13.14). This “turning” toward the past and the future is surely part and parcel of conversion.

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… it is the preservation of creation as the proper way of worshipping the Creator and the promotion of tolerance and understanding among religions and peoples in our world. Working closely together on issues of ecological awareness and ecumenical dialogue is a crucial reflection of the “everlasting covenant” (verses 25-26), whereby Ezekiel’s God proclaims: “I will be their God and they shall be my people … forevermore” (verses 27-28). Continue reading →

From an interview in the Russian publication Argumenty I Fakty, republished on the site of the Moscow Patriarchate. Worth reading in its entirety. Excerpts:

Should the Church do something to attract young people? Should it seek a special approach to them?

I believe that the search for real freedom is a worthy thing not only for young people but also for all those who are seeking the true life. The Church appreciates the aspiration of the young to freedom and independence, as Christians have never been the adherents of the submissiveness to the reality in which they live and which bears the apparent traces of sin.

At the same time, the search for freedom, unfortunately, do not always bring people to their cherished goals. Young people often take permissiveness and nihilism for freedom. As a result, after a natural dependence of their parents up to a certain age they become slaves of consumers’ worldview and brute instincts that the slavery exploits. Therefore the Church offers its experience of the search for freedom to the youth with the words of the Saviour: “And you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” (Jn 8:32). While helping young people to seek real freedom, the Church is willing to speak with them in the language that they understand.

Young people who go to church are often ‘grounded’ in the history and life of the Church, but are lacking Christian spirit and Christian attitude to the neighbour. What advice would you give to these people? How can the Church solve this problem?

The belonging to the Church of not only a young person, but of any Orthodox believer, should find its expression not in the knowledge of the life of the Church, which is important, but first of all in the irreplaceable aspiration to the main thing, which the Church offers — the new life in Christ. The experience of the real communion with God that a believer receives in the church sacraments and prayer gives him strength to change, to transform himself and finally to become a true man. A true man in the Orthodox understanding is a person of full value who clearly comprehends the meaning of life and wishes to realize himself in the love of the neighbour and in creative work. Continue reading →

Clips from Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew’s various environmental symposia are now on YouTube. This first video is from the patriarch’s address in Santa Barbara, Calif., in 1997 which, the accompanying text says, “was the first time any religious leader had ever called harming the environment a sin.” The second video is from former Vice President Al Gore’s welcome in Washington during the same 1997 visit. See more videos here.