Orthodox Environmentalism

[Chesterton]

Wasn't there a priest who asked people to plant trees as penance sometimes?

 

[buzuxi02]

Wasn't there a priest who asked people to plant trees as penance sometimes?

Lolol is that what I have to do for removing my cats from my muscle car??? Not that I care as I dont view it as a sin.

 

[rusmeister]

A difference between 'humanistic' and 'orthodox' environmentalist is that they have different evangelions. Orthodox can only have the evangelion of Christ, but humanists have other evangelions - preaching salvation through any human endeavor. Thus the humanist urban planner proclaims paradise through carefully crafted urban planning. Similarly, the humanist environmentalists preach utopia through carbon control or, rather, sustainability.

The Orthodox would say, "the environment hurts because of our passions which we have brought up to a whole larger scale through modern technology and although the technology is not itself bad, we must be careful to live at a human scale and guard ourselves from the passions."

The humanist says, "Sustainability - we must be able to grow in the satiation of our passions at the largest scale possible without threatening our future growth in our passions." Therefore almost always do they determine sustainability at the count of human lives - 'austerity measures' to keep resources to themselves and radical infanticide to prevent others from partaking in the resources. This is why the U.N. has many times been caught sterilizing African women through vaccination and why the U.S. Military has done forced surgical sterilizations in South America.

And we have humanists received into the Orthodox Church who bring their own, as you say, evangelion, with them. They believe one or more of things like “birth control”, “population control”, etc are compatible with our Faith.

 

[Knee V]

I prefer the term "conservationism". I like clean air, clean water, clean soil, and clean food. I believe that we are at our most human when we are working the land in prayer, and I would like to see as much of that as possible.

As for the rest of what is often called "environmentalism", I have little use for it and mostly see it as political and idolatrous.

 

[Nick T]

Met. Zizoulas has got some good stuff on this topic. I was lucky enough to hear him speak last year and he approached the topic through patristic perspectives, talking about man as the "priest of creation" in the Cappadocians and the interconnectedness of man and the rest of creation in St. Maximos.

Unfortunately I can't seem to find much online (I think Met. Zizoulas often writes more for academic audiences, which I think is a real shame) but he's a good place to start looking at least.

Edit: the Orthodoxwiki article might be a good place to start as well Environmental ethics - OrthodoxWiki