Revelation and the Envirnoment

 September 22, 1995

With the blessing of God, we have assembled like one of the scenes from the Book of Revelation. We come from many cultures and peoples, tribes and tongues, nations and faiths. Yet we share a common concern for the future of the planet and the quality of human life and relationships throughout the earth. We are assembled on a kind of latter day ark, in itself a symbol that would have delighted St. John. As we begin our voyage, the ship faces us with our essential interdependence. Here, in microcosm, is a truth that we need to bring to our distress in any part of the ship: the passengers dining in first class will not for long escape the consequences.

We shall be voyaging to Patmos on the sea of possibility, the sea from which life itself emerged. It is a time of profound cultural change and, at this moment, we are mindful of the Spirit of God, which in the beginning moved upon the face of the waters and which continues to move on these waters. We have been drawn together by a memory. Nineteen hundred years ago on the island of Patmos, St. John received the Revelation, which forms the final book of the New Testament. This occasion, however, is not intended to be a simple anniversary or an academic conference about an ancient text. Revelation begins and ends with the good news of the parousia, of the coming and the presence of Christ. At the climax of the New Testament, there is no full stop, but only an opening to the work of the Holy Spirit in the future, and the promise of a new creation. A new heaven and a new earth; a new community in a holy city; a river of life and a tree with leaves for the healing of nations. It seemed appropriate to celebrate this anniversary with a conference about our common home, the natural environment. St. John’s vision is of a united human family – of every nation and kindred singing a new song.

The Story of Symbols

Much of the Bible is addressed to those with ears to hear, but the Revelation granted to St. John is also addressed to those with eyes to see. The story is told in symbols and archetypes. The root of the English word “symbol” lies in the Greek notion of bringing together fragments of truth in order to achieve a more profound understanding than would otherwise be available through mere analysis. Symbols help us to comprehend the relations between our sometimes fragmentary and fugitive perceptions of reality. Great symbols are not devised to illustrate some thesis that we may wish to advance. They arise rather from some deep level of consciousness and are disclosed to our reason. They have the power to communicate in a way that itself generates energy. Two such symbols have been entrusted to our generation. These are the “cloud” and the “globe.”

In this year of anniversaries, we are all deeply aware of the mushroom cloud, which during the sacred Feast of Transfiguration, on August 6, 1945, opened a radically new chapter in human history. The cloud, however, is a symbol also known to the Bible. And, while the mushroom cloud is reflective of man’s transmutation, it should not be understood in an entirely negative way. For the first time in history, by unraveling some of the forces, which lie at the heart of creation, we have acquired the power to destroy all human life on the planet. By the same act, the world community is under threat. The work, which lies ahead for all those who love life, is to translate this world community, which exists as an object under threat, more and more into a subject of promise and hope.

In practice, of course, we extrapolate and anticipate in a single act, which is one of the reasons why science and theology need to be in dialogue at this particular moment of transition. Symbols of the End-Time combine with what we consider possible to create a field of action and to fill it with either hope or despair. Science saves faith from fantasy. Faith generates the energy for a new world. We face a need to communicate in ways that release healthful energies for restraint and change. Moralizing exhortations about the common good are limited in their usefulness. “Mere appeals to ethical fraternity will never evoke in man that age-old power, which drives the migrating birds across the ocean” (C.G. Jung).

I hope and expect that this conference will increase our understanding of the various ways in which we may perceive and engage with the world around us. Together, as Orthodox Patriarchs, Metropolitans and Archbishops, we seek your expert counsel, suggestions and input so that Orthodox worldwide can better contribute to the common front being forged by intrepid scientists, environmentalists and theologians who desire not only a pollution free world, but a “healing of nations” as well. Indeed, our common future depends on developing a way to perceive and participate in the world, which will complement the analytical approach with an ecological awareness of entities in their various relationships.

The statement entitled “Orthodoxy and the Ecological Crisis,” published under the aegis of our predecessor of blessed memory, Patriarch Demetrios, reaffirmed that the monastic and ascetic traditions of the Orthodox Church have important insights for us. These traditions develop a sensitivity toward the suffering and beauty of all creation. “Love all God’s creation,” urged Dostoevsky, “the whole of it and every grain of sand. Love every leaf and every ray of God’s light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything you will perceive the divine mystery in things.”

Theosis, Metanoia and Enkrateia

It is a life-creating tradition, which beckons all to become a new creation in Christ, by being born of “water and spirit” (Jn 3.5), so that all matter, all life, may become sanctified. In order for sanctification or theosis [lit., deification] to become real, there must be a metanoia, a conversion or changing of the mind, reflective of the sanctity of tears. It is not a mere poetic coincidence, that a contemporary Christian poet describes the rivers, seas and oceans as “a gathering of tears” bearing witness to humanity’s adventure and struggling journey. So too, the Fathers of the desert considered “the baptism of tears” as a lofty blessing empowering all men and women who seek “to come to the knowledge of the truth” (I Tim. 2.4). Therefore, instead of asking for wisdom and strength and holiness, the angels of the desert asked for tears of repentance in their sojourn and struggle for salvation.

The ascetic tradition also offers a celebratory use of the resources of creation in a spirit ofenkrateia [abstinence, but literally, “a holding within”] and liberation from the passions. Within this tradition, many human beings have experienced the joy of contemplation, which contrasts with the necessarily fleeting and illusory pleasure of relating to the world as an object for consumption.

At the same time, we would want to celebrate the resources offered by the international community of scientists and journalists. As we enter the Mediterranean, it is encouraging to recall the achievements of the Med Plan, detailed by Peter Haas in his book Saving the Mediterranean (Columbia, 1990). It is easy to be cynical about the impact of scientific experts and communicators on the calculations of nation states, but the Med Plan and its development ought to reinforce the urgency with which we seek to build up a network of personal relationships at even higher levels. We hope that this conference and its aftermath will serve as a major contributor to this growing family.

The Orthodox Church is particularly well represented in parts of the world where “the earth has been hurt,” to adopt a phrase from the Book of Revelation. In a perversion of science, would-be God-slayers have laid waste to great tracts of territory. In these countries, the experience of the martyrs, which St. John also aptly describes, is very contemporary. We pray that the energy, which comes from giving up life for the sake of God and His Church, may flow into a life-giving stream for the benefit of the entire community of humankind.

Another symbol has been given to us, which points in this hopeful direction, although being more recent it has sunk more profoundly into human consciousness. The earth-rise photograph taken in 1969 from the Apollo spacecraft shows the entire planet sapphire blue and beautiful, just as no human being since the dawn of history had ever seen it. This angelic view is foreshadowed and enlarged in the Book of Revelation, when John is shown the heavens opened and contemplates a great multitude out of every nation, rejoicing before the throne of God.

It may be that the choice between life and death always being put before us by the Spirit is in our day being translated into a choice between one world or more. Theology and science ought to be partners in this work. We ought not divide the one reality, but rather seek – as one theologian has expressed it – “peaceful co-existence at the price of mutual irrelevance.” (see J. Moltmann, God in Creation)

The Revelation of Hope

We recognize however that many people may have doubts about the possibility of traffic between the worldview expressed in modern science and the visionary material in ancient Book of Revelation. How can Revelation’s vision of hope, sustained in the midst of passages portraying terrible destruction, be distinguished from a rather unconvincing whistling in the dark to keep the spirits up in a time of danger and change? One approach is to consider the various ways in which our languages enable us to contemplate the future in as many languages as possible. We must contrast between the future – which is entirely constructed out of past and present, and which will itself soon become past – and the future which, beyond our control, will come upon us. In Greek, ta mellonta is what will be; whereasparousia, a term which is frequently used in the New Testament, suggests a future coming.

There is a similar distinction in Latin languages, derived from this same notion, between futurus andadventus. Futurus suggests a future entirely constructed out of past and present and, as such, it is a stimulus to planning. Futurologists of this school are those who rely on extrapolations from present trends. Often, of course, the collision between trends makes exact predictions. However, there is another problem with this approach to the future. Prolonging and projecting the present endorses present patterns of power and ownership and suppresses alternative possibilities, which the future holds. Parousia, on the other hand, alerts us to what is on its way to the present. In the Book of Revelation, Jesus Christ is hailed as “the one who is and who was and who is to come” when the series might logically have been completed by Him who will be. A sense of the future as parousia stimulates the anticipation by which we attune ourselves to something ahead, whether through fear or through hope. These foretastes, symbolic sketches and attainments, are part of every perception of the unknown which we explore by reference to ultimate criteria like happiness or unhappiness, as well as life or death.

The climax of our celebrations will be the Divine Liturgy on the island of Patmos. The liturgy is a work, which binds human beings together in the Spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ and liberates them to hope and to work for His future coming in the world. Not everyone in this Symposium shares the Christian faith. Nevertheless, we trust that we are all here around a common table like the “symposiasts” of ancient times, because we all know that we are on the threshold of a new day. Conscious of the threat of nuclear destruction and environmental pollution, we shall move toward one world or none. We hope that we are assembled as those who are weary of defining their own tradition principally by excluding others. For many generations the Patriarch of Constantinople has occupied what is known as the Ecumenical Throne. There is in that title a reaching forward to the End-Time of the healing of the nations, when there will be communion between God and human beings in a new heaven and a new earth “and there shall be no curse anymore.” We pray that this conference may contribute toward mobilizing all people of good will in our world and bringing closer together the day foreseen in the vision of Patmos.