Eric LeMasters
November 11, 2009
In an event co-sponsored by the liberal Center for American Progress and Georgetown University, His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, Archbishop of Constantinople and leader of Orthodox Christendom, promoted progressive public policy measures in a lecture entitled “A Changeless Faith for a Changing World.” The Patriarch specifically advocated for nonviolence, universal health care, and environmentalism as critical public policy issues for the United States. Since his enthronement as Ecumenical Patriarch in 1991, he’s been an international advocate for environmental conservationism, earning him his title of “The Green Patriarch.”
His lecture on November 3 in Washington, D.C. came in the midst of a U.S. tour that began with an environmental symposium on the Mississippi River and has included visits with top U.S. and world leadership. That same morning he met with President Barack Obama at the Oval office to discuss environmental and religious liberty issues, and was hosted at a formal dinner with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton the following Thursday.
The Patriarch’s address to Georgetown University characterized Orthodox Christian doctrine as a progressive force in the sense that it has produced revolutionary changes in human institutions since Christ’s ministry. He was careful to point out that Orthodox Christianity does not side specifically with “progressives” or “conservatives,” in the American political sense, stating rather that “the only side we take is that of our faith, which today may seem to land us in one political camp, tomorrow another.”
In his first topic, he reflected on the Biblical injunction to “resist not evil,” as exemplified by Christ himself and his followers at the hands of unjust authorities.
“For human beings, [this thinking] is completely counterintuitive. Our first instinct is to strike back, not turn the other cheek,” he said. He further explained how this new principle helped spread the revolutionary Christian faith throughout the Roman Empire. Although he did not detail how this might be applied on the level of American foreign policy, he touted peaceful resistance as a powerful tool for social change, linking the lives and ministries of Dr. Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi to the Orthodox roots of this discipline.
Bartholomew’s speech then turned to universal health care, which he considered to be “the concept of philanthropy in its most essential meaning.” He appealed to the historical role of the church and government in health care at the time of the Eastern Roman Empire as a way to inform the health care reform debate in the US: “These [early Byzantine hospitals] were funded by the emperor and by the church, respectively. In other words, they were public institutions that were free of charge and created for the public good.”
“We owe to them the view that every member of society from the greatest to the least deserves the best quality health care available at that time,” he said. “This is obviously relevant today, and as the United States debates the best way to provide health care for its citizens, we hope and pray that the Byzantine Orthodox approach provides a model worthy of emulation.”
Perhaps the pith of the Patriarch’s lecture came with his discussion of the Christian’s role in conserving the natural environment. Foundational to his argument was the Orthodox doctrine of asceticism – a lifestyle that calls for the renunciation of worldly excesses. “This asceticism requires voluntary restraint in order for us to live in harmony with our environment. By refusing consumption… we ensure that resources are left for others in the world and for the coming generation.” He characterized the mistreatment of the earth’s resources as “a crime against the natural world” that deserves “ethical and even legal recourse,” and a sin from which we need forgiveness.
“It is with that understanding that we have called upon the world’s leaders to take action to halt the destructive changes to global climate that are being caused by human activity,” he pronounced. “This common cause unites all human kind – just as all the waters of the world are all united.”
Although he is perhaps best known for his environmental work, the Patriarch has traveled extensively to advocate for interfaith unity and peace throughout Post-Soviet Eastern Europe and his homeland. He’s also been an advocate for religious liberty, especially in Turkey where Orthodox Christians have often been marginalized. In 1997 he received the Congressional Gold Medal for his “outstanding and enduring contributions toward religious understanding and peace.”
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