Can Orthodox Christianity offer spiritual resources uniquely suited to the environmental concerns of today? This book makes the case emphatically that it can indeed. In addition to being the first substantial and comprehensive collection of essays, in any language, to address environmental issues from the Orthodox point of view, this volume (with contributions from many of the most influential theologians and philosophers in contemporary world Orthodoxy) will engage a wide audience, in academic as well as popular circles—resonating not only with Orthodox audiences but with all those in search of a fresh approach to environmental theory and ethics that can bring to bear the resources of ancient spirituality, often virtually unknown in the West, on modern challenges and dilemmas.
- Cover
- Contents
- Prefatory Letter
- Foreword
- Introduction. “The Sweetness of Heaven Overflows onto the Earth”: Orthodox Christianity and Environmental Thought
- I. “KNOWLEDGE UNITED TO GOD”: ENVIRONMENT, NATURE, AND CREATION IN PATRISTIC THOUGHT
- The Logoi of Beings in Greek Patristic Thought
- Hierarchy and Love in St. Dionysius the Areopagite
- The Beauty of the World and Its Significance in St. Gregory the Theologian
- Natural Contemplation in St. Maximus the Confessor and St. Isaac the Syrian
- Man and Cosmos in St. Maximus the Confessor
- II. “THE HEART THAT RECEIVES”: ENVIRONMENT, NATURE, AND CREATION IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY ORTHODOX THOUGHT
- Ecology, Theology, and the World
- Through Creation to the Creator
- Creation as Communion in Contemporary Orthodox Theology
- The Theological-Ethical Contributions of Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov) to Environmental Issues
- The Cosmology of the Eucharist
- “A ‘Tradition’ That Never Existed”: Orthodox Christianity and the Failure of Environmental History
- A New Heaven and a New Earth: Orthodox Christian Insights from Theology, Spirituality, and the Sacraments
- Proprietors or Priests of Creation?
- III. “LOVE COMES FROM MEETING GOD”: HISTORICAL, THEOLOGICAL, AND PHILOSOPHICAL DIMENSIONS
- Sedimentation of Meaning in the Concepts of Nature and the Environment
- Existential versus Regulative Approaches: The Environmental Issue as an Existential and Not a Canonical Problem
- Nature and Creation: A Comment on the Environmental Problem from a Philosophical and Theological Standpoint
- Physis and Ktisis: Two Different Ways of Thinking of the World
- Human Image, World Image: The Renewal of Sacred Cosmology
- Environment and Security: Toward a Systemic Crisis of Humanity?
- Church Walls and Wilderness Boundaries: Defining the Spaces of Sanctuary
- Orthodoxy and Ecopoetics: The Green World in the Desert Sea
- Perspectives on Orthodoxy, Evolution, and Ecology
- Ecology, Morality, and the Challenges of the Twenty-First Century: The Earth in the Hands of the Sons of Noah
- IV. “SWEETNESS OVERFLOWING ONTO THE EARTH”: INSIGHTS FROM ORTHODOX SPIRITUALITY
- The Fragile Surround
- Liturgy, Cosmic Worship, and Christian Cosmology
- “All Creation Rejoices in You”: Creation in the Liturgies for the Feasts of the Theotokos
- Traces of Divine Fragrance, Droplets of Divine Love: On the Beauty of Visible Creation
- Natural and Supernatural Revelation in Early Irish and Greek Monastic Thought: A Comparative Approach
- Ecology and Monasticism
- The Prophetic Charisma in Pastoral Theology: Asceticism, Fasting, and the Ecological Crisis
- The Spirit of God Moved upon the Face of the Waters: Orthodox Holiness and the Natural World
- APPENDIXES
- A. Vespers for the Environment
- B. Environment, Nature, and Creation in Orthodox Thought: A Bibliography of Texts in English
- C. Glossary
- Notes
- List of Contributors
- Index of Names (Classical)
- Index of Names (Contemporary)
- General Index
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