Ecumenical Patriarch warns against ‘geocide’

September 01, 2026

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CWN Editor's Note: Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, who holds a primacy of honor among the Orthodox churches, warned against “geocide” in a letter for his Patriarchate’s Day of Prayer for the Protection of the Natural Environment, observed since 1989.

“The multidimensional contemporary ecological crisis is a crisis of human freedom, of our religion and philosophy, of our ethos and our culture,” he wrote. “What comes first is the ‘harmful alteration’ of our freedom—our severance and alienation from the Source of Life; what follows is conduct destructive of the natural environment.”

The Ecumenical Patriarch added:

We shall continue, in word and deed, to promote the ecological vision of the Holy Great Church of Christ and the eco-friendly dynamism of the Eucharistic, ascetic, and doxological relationship with creation, always underscoring that careful theological work is needed for the elucidation of the authentic ecological message of our Orthodox faith and tradition, for the benefit of creation, which is “very good” ...

The “sins of modernity” have created—and continue to create—new divisions and ruptures between humanity and nature. The contemporary “man-god” persists in geocide, disregarding every measure and limit in the name of geopolitical designs and economic interests, of consumerism and of the satisfaction of essentially insatiable needs, but also, on a deeper level, because of an overturning of inner lived experience and values. The consequences of the global dominance of the desire to manipulate, instrumentalize, and exploit nature will prove to be tragic for life on our planet.

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