Final press release

In the Eastern Christian tradition liturgical celebration intimately includes the cosmos in the Church’s praise and adoration. Everything that lives and breathes, and trees, stones, the sun, the moon praise the Lord. The eucharistic celebration above all is a sacrifice of praise offered to the Father, in which the assembly of believers draws in all creation and all human history (Job Getcha, Paris). The cosmic dimension of the Christian liturgy finds expression in the iconography of creation; in the icon there occurs a “re-evaluation of the visible world” that regenerates the interior sight (Anca Vasiliu, Paris).

Scientists indicate the possibility of a collapse of the planet’s ecosystem, and this requires a renewed assumption of shared responsibility. The discussion about man and creation ethics, coordinated by Konstantin Sigov (Kiev), saw an exchange between metropolitan Serafim of Germany, delegate of the Romanian patriarch. the Orthodox theologian Elisabeth Theokritoff, and the Lebanese epistemologist Antoine Courban.

The final day opened with a meditation in “Eucharist and creation” by archbishop Antonij of Boryspil’, vicar of the metropolitan of Kiev and rector of the Kiev Theological Academy, who stressed the cosmic dimension of the eucharistic sacrament, in which all creation, in the bread and the wine, becomes the body of Christ. The American Orthodox theologian John Chryssavgis explored the ways in which the richness of the Orthodox spiritual tradition, faced with the urgency of the ecological problem, translates into a new practice of relation with the natural world, capable of meeting the challenge of the complex problems raised by today’s industrial and technological revolution.

The Benedictine Michel van Parys, member of the scientific committee, in the conclusion of the conference reminded all that the Holy Spirit is “at work to edify a new ark of the covenant and the temple that will be the body of the risen Messiah”. In the dramatic decisions that await humanity with the worsening of the environmental crisis Christians may not forget that, as Ignatius of Antioch wrote, “the great marvels of our salvation are worked out in silence”. This assurance is our hope: “To hope in God’s salvation, to hope in man — is not this the testimony that Christians are called upon to give together to the world?
In his final words of thanks the prior of Bose, Enzo Bianchi, announced that the 21st International Ecumenical Conference will be held on 4–7 September 2013, the theme of which will be decided by the scientific committee in November.