Your Excellency, the Minister of the Environment,

Honorable and beloved friends,

We would like to express our joy and satisfaction that the sensitivity of the people and government of Norway is such that a specific minister bears the responsibility for environmental affairs.  Our joy is increased on the occasion of this luncheon, Your Excellency, for we share the same concern and passion for the creation as well as the same interest and action to provide better conditions of life for the entire world.

In the final analysis, the primary purpose of our interest for the protection of the environment is our concern for humanity in our own time and in future generations.  Of course, we are not indifferent toward the preservation of natural elements that are endangered.  Indeed, we see in them God’s love and wisdom.  Therefore, out of respect for God, we consider it a duty of our love toward Him to preserve His creation, which bears witness to His goodness.

Our attitude toward the whole of creation is influenced by our faith in God and our love toward Him and His works, and especially toward our fellow human beings.  We see the entire world as an expression of the goodness that characterizes the Supreme Being.  We know that everything that exists has a reason for its existence.  Nevertheless, we also believe that the original harmony of every being in the universe has been disrupted through the intervention of the human will, which has rebelled against it.  The only way in which a complete harmony can exist in accordance with the original divine plan is if the human will embraces and voluntarily submits to this plan.

Science concentrates all of its attention on one object.  It is of necessity, analytical.  Therefore, the gathering of general principles that regulate the universe – which many of the Church Fathers, and especially St. Maximus the Confessor, describe as the “inner principles” – constitutes a philosophical task.  In the theology of the Church, which delves into the revealed truth and appreciates human knowledge, this is described as “the heavens declare the glory of God.”  Consequently, any effective resolution to the contemporary environmental crisis requires a theological basis, whose natural result is an appropriate environmental ethos.

This ethos was the object of detailed study during the recently concluded fourth sea-borne international and inter-religious symposium on the Adriatic Sea, entitled “Religion, Science, and the Environment.”  It is our hope that the recommendations of that symposium will assist in the formulation of such an ethos, which in turn will assist in the improvement of environmental conditions.

We raise this cup for the health and welfare of Your Excellency, our host, and for our beloved friends, as well as the beloved Norwegian people, in order that a proper environmental ethos may prevail for the restoration of the divine harmony in our universe.  Amen.