Most Reverend Dr. Eder Bishop of Passau and the other brother Hierarchs,
Your Majesty,
Dear representatives of the Federal Governments
and those of the various countries represented here,
Honourable Consul General of Greece,
Learned participants,
My children beloved in the Lord.

At this opening session of the International Symposium on the subject “The Danube, A River of Life” that is part of the broader Program “Religion, Science, Environment” and the continuation of our Symposium two years ago on the subject “The Black Sea in Crisis,” I should like to address first of all heartfelt greetings and a warm welcome to our dear participants and all the other people who are attending this inaugural session with interest. I also feel a genuine obligation to address wholehearted thanks to the ecclesiastical, municipal and political authorities of this historical and most picturesque city of Passau which is offering us its hospitality. My special thanks go to the Most Reverend Dr Eder, Bishop of Passau, the Most Honourable Mayor of the City and all those who have contributed to our hospitality and to the flawlessly organised inauguration of the Symposium here.

Passau is built at the confluence of the Inn, llz and Danube rivers and is situated on the frontier between Austria and Bavaria (one of the federated states of Germany). Thus, it constitutes an ethnological and physical frontier point, since from this point on, travelling on the Danube becomes easier. But although frontiers serve in general as points of separation, it seems, on the contrary, that this city has the historical mission of uniting. For, as we all know, and as I said yesterday, it was here that in the year 1552, peace was reached between Roman Catholic and Evangelical Protestant Germans, while its significance as a centre of trade underlines the peaceful cooperation between peoples, a cooperation which benefits all of them, as is the case with healthy commercial enterprises.

The Danube itself, as we know, is a natural frontier which divides peoples and states into many sections. It is also a water route that unites and brings into contact those it separates and those who live beyond. But, in addition to its attribute as a communications artery which, through international treaties has been declared free for shipping, it is also a bearer of enormous quantities of water from continental Europe towards the Black Sea as well as of mud and toxic waste. This is why the Danube far from being a river of life, is in danger of being transformed into a carrier of pollutants and toxic substances, as an easy receiver of such harmful waste from areas along its banks and carrying them to the Black Sea.

It is well known that the Danube empties 6,000 to 7.000 cubic meters of water per second into the Black Sea. From this point of view, it is a very important supplier of water to this Sea, helping to revitalise it. However, the growth of industry in all the regions along the banks of the river, as well as regions in the interior that communicate with the Danube by means of tributaries, has greatly, increased their output of toxic waste. Thus, through the waters this pollution is brought to the Black Sea which is in peril of becoming a second Dead Sea, as was pointed out during the Symposium of 1997.

Hence it is the duty of all persons of good faith to contribute, each according to their position and ability, not only to keeping the Danube a river with free shipping and transportation of goods from one region to another, but also to keeping it free from pollution, in order to maintain the ecological equilibrium of the natural areas surrounding it, and of the Black Sea.

At this point I cannot fail to express my deepest distress at the recent bombings of Yugoslavia, which also affected the waters of the Danube and caused ecological damage that will be difficult to correct. The expression of my distress is not of course confined exclusively to the ecological effects of the bombings. I have repeatedly expressed my deepest sorrow over the fact that these bombings were responsible for killing people, destroying cultural monuments, Monasteries and Churches, incapacitating factories, contaminating human beings, animals, and plants and nature in general with toxic substances and generally caused material and moral damage on a massive scale. However, the object of the present international scientific Symposium obliges us to focus our interest on the ecological consequences of these bombings, and to point out that their adverse effects are manifested not only in regions neighbouring on the areas directly hit, but also in regions throughout the length of the Danube, as well as those lying on the Black Sea coast.

Of course, we could say, without going beyond the bounds of realism, that human acts have repercussions far beyond the limits of these acts, which we usually regard as extreme in each case. We never know exactly when or how, but we do know with certainty that the pollution of our environment will also have consequences for the polluters, regardless of how far away they are from the point at which the pollutants have been dumped.

The fact that the effects of pollution also travel upstream from the direction in which the river waters flow, must make us all think.

At this point, allow me to remind you of the information we received from Herodotus according to whom there was a people which considered the rivers to be sacred and polluting them to be a sacrilege. Perhaps those who demythologise ancient beliefs may regard such faith as superstition. However, the superstition is socially preferable to the unscrupulous and irresponsible dumping of harmful substances into the rivers, temporarily relieving those who selfishly pollute the river, but substantially harming the next generation of their fellow men who are going to use it.

Therefore, we must acquire a moral code higher than the one used by such crude people and learn to respect humanity, accepting as a basic principle of our behaviour that it is morally unacceptable to burden others with our wastes. This is the only way to help ensure that the Danube, the longest river of this region as well as the other rivers – becomes a road of life for all. Otherwise, they are in danger of ending up bearers of death; a death that is sown by many selfish people to the detriment of their fellow men and nature as a whole.

This is the deeper reason why our humble person, whose primary mission is the Christian education and sanctification of the Orthodox faithful, has wholeheartedly adopted the present series of International Ecological Symposia. The reason is that, as the Church Fathers also teach, the root of all evils that plague humanity is selfishness and the highest expression of virtue is selfless love. It is not permitted for faithful Christians who are seeking sanctification to remain indifferent to the effects of their acts on their fellow human beings. The sensitivity of their conscience must be increased so that they are not indifferent even to the indirect consequences of their acts. As Abba Issac says, the sensitive and charitable heart “cannot bear even to hear of sorrow, even a small one, in creation. That is why his heart grieves even for creatures not endowed with reason, even for enemies of the truth and even for those who harm him. He addresses to God a prayer for them in tears, that God may spare them and have mercy on them, and similarly for reptiles, his heart being full of mercy like the one that fills the heart of God” (Hom. 81). This saintly sensitivity is, of course, possessed by very few. But this does not mean that we should go to the other extreme, the complete lack of sensitivity, because, as Saint John of Climacus says, the hardened person is a foolish philosopher (Hom. 17. #3).

In the context of our pastoral concern to raise everybody’s awareness of the effects of ecological catastrophe on humankind, I have been active in a variety of directions, among which is participation in the present Symposium, which is under the auspices of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and Mr. Romano Prodi, President of the European Commission, as well as the organisation of the annual summer seminars and the Halki Ecological Institute. In all these, the altruistic importance of protecting the environment is emphasised together with the pleasure God takes in it. In other words, it is stressed that our motives are not simply inspired by our love for nature, – although those who have such inspiration have nobler motives than those who are indifferent to nature and to its destruction – but are strictly human-centred as, in fact, all of creation is anthropocentric. Because, as we know, the Christian faith teaches – and modern scientists also accept – that the world was created for the sake of the human person and that everything is regulated so as to contribute to his survival. Of course, we live in a world that is partly deregulated, but this is the consequence of humanity’s revolt against the harmony of God, which brought with it a partial revolt of nature against humanity’s rule over it. It is known from the book of Genesis that “through your deeds, cursed is the ground; … thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you” (Gen. 3: 17-18), words that were spoken by God to Adam after his disobedience, and which express, according to the Law of God, the relationship between an act and the consequences of the act. These words have given rise to much misunderstanding concerning the goodness of God. For, at first sight, God gives the impression that He is cursing. Yet if we look deeper into the spirit of the Holy Scripture, especially as it was explained by our Lord Jesus Christ in the New Testament, we realise that this was not a punishment imposed by God on the transgressor. Rather, it was God’s communication to the human person of the new ontological situation which was created as a consequence of his disobedience. It was not, in other words, a legal relation between transgression and punishment, but an ontological relation between a situation in which the human person was in communication with God, accepting the favourable influence of Divine grace and love on him and the world, and a new situation in which humanity tried to become independent of God, rejecting communion with Him and the influence of divine grace on us and on creation which was created for our sake. From then on, humanity proceeds independently, refusing the divine grace in the midst of a world whose initial harmony was now ontologically altered.

The love of God never fails and never will fail (1 Cor. 13.8). However, humanity rejected God’s love and its gifts and tried to create an independent path of its own. And as Abba Isaac says, “those who felt that they, have failed in love” feel such a sorrow in their hearts as though they were in the midst of the worst Hell. “Because the sorrow, that strikes the heart due to failing in love, is sharper than the one that results from any Hell” (Hom. 84)

The love of God never fails and the new situation which resulted in the world because of Adam’s refusal to comply with God’s loving plan for him, i.e. the plan of developing a perfect and constantly improving loving relation between God and humanity, was disagreeable only because it fell short of love, because love is that personal relationship that offers true beatitude and happiness. Due to the love of God, the human being was created with a dual nature, composed of matter and spirit, and due to this love of God, humanity was given an opportunity to enjoy the infinite treasure of God’s material and spiritual gifts.

God’s love never abandoned humanity, even when human beings followed their own independent path; it has given to us nature, good in itself – this earthly and broader cosmic space in which we live, so that from this space we can draw everything we need to live, and, at the same time, we can practice virtue, a part of virtue being the use of nature with reason and gratitude. Unfortunately, some do not use creation in a moderate way, but abuse it and create problems for the others and for the harmony of the natural functions in the physical world that has still remained in place after the Fall. Nature changed ontologically after the Fall, but nevertheless it has not ceased to function according to the divine plan and the divine laws embodied within it.

Within the framework of this rebellious and partly dysfunctional nature, humanity must fight both for its physical survival and spiritual improvement. “All our life must be a struggle full of pain,” Saint John Chrysostom warns us (PG 47, 453) as do all the Church Fathers. Yet the purpose of this struggle is not to strip us of our physical body, which some philosophers have wrongly considered to be the prison of our soul, but to lead to the Aristotelian middle road of developing the spirit and preserving the body, perceived as a useful tool for humanity as a whole, under the guidance of the mind governing it. Christians, living on earth and having their City in heaven (cf. Letter to Diognetus, PG 2. 1173), reject neither earth nor heaven. At the same time, neither do they feel inseparable from earthly goods, nor do they completely reject the earth, having espoused, as they say, the heavenly life. Considering this life as a place of exercise and not as one of one-sided resignation, with the purpose of being killers of passion rather than killers of the body – as an ascetic said once to a person who tried to become perfect through an excessively ascetic life – they have always before their eyes what the Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy: “every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer” (1 Tim. 4,4).

Thus, according to Saint John Chrysostom, our struggle in the present life consists in becoming virtuous in the right way so that God with greater glory will raise bodies (PG, 54, 636). It thus becomes a joyous and creative struggle, full of good works and accepting the whole of the Creation of God as very good. That is why the Church prays continuously for the success of all good human works, “for the blowing of favourable winds and for the rich harvest of the fruits of the earth” and expresses continually its admiration for the beauty of God’s Creation, in a common hymn with the Psalmist: “O Lord, how manifold are your works: In wisdom you have made them all” (Ps. 104, 24).

It is, therefore, in this atmosphere of exuberance, joy, thanksgiving and creativity that a Christian practises the rational use of material goods and natural resources, retaining a sentiment of awe and sensitivity towards the whole of Creation, like a wise administrator of the commandment to work and keep the earth that is capable of providing humanity with food and pleasure for the glory of the all-wise and benevolent Creator. In spite of the disobedience, in spite of the ontological alteration of the world as a result of the interruption on humanity’s part of its loving relation with Him, God has never ceased to do everything for humanity’s sake and for the sake of readmitting us into the beatitude of Love, the fullness of which constitutes the infinite perfection of happiness.

Thus the Church says yes to God’s Creation while at the same time inviting everybody through this yes to reach out to the Creator and accept His invitation to a relation of love, in such a way, that we do not enjoy the gifts of God as ungrateful recipients, but, as grateful and noble ones, expressing our thanks and our love to Him and thereby helping to bring about the eternal and indestructible relation of love, which includes eternal life.

Having then before us the fact that our final goal is to serve the human race by maintaining our natural surroundings in a healthy state, I salute with satisfaction this Symposium which commences today, wishing with all my heart success in its proceedings and welcoming our dear participants, whose precious contributions I highly appreciate and anticipate, and thanking our hosts once more, I invoke upon all of you the Grace and eternal mercy of God.