In Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Egypt there will be moments of prayer, awareness meetings and activities dedicated to ecological issues. The desire to “recover our ability to listen to the voice of creation” animates the events. Initiatives aimed at young people and reforestation projects have been programmed.
Beirut () – Christians in the Middle East have organized a series of initiatives in connection with the “Season of Creation 2022” to help care for the planet and raise awareness of the many environmental problems in a critical situation, as reports show. who speak of an increasingly “uninhabitable” region. The ecumenical time under the motto “Listen to the voice of creation” began on September 1 with the World Day of Prayer and will end on October 4, the feast of Saint Francis. The event unites the different traditions of the Eastern and Western Churches under the banner of a common concern for the problems of the environment, ecology and the future of the planet, “our common home” that we must “take care of”, as pointed out by the Pope Francis in the encyclical “Laudato Sì”.
In the message dedicated to the day, the pontiff recalled that this should be “a special time for all Christians to pray and care for our common home together.” Originally inspired by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, the Pope continues in his reflection, this time is “an opportunity to cultivate our ‘ecological conversion’, a conversion encouraged by Saint John Paul II as a response to the ‘ecological catastrophe’ that had already Saint Paul VI anticipated in 1970”.
September 1 was proclaimed the Day of Prayer for the Environment by the then Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios I in 1989, coinciding with the beginning of the year for the Orthodox Church and the commemoration of God the creator of the world. For their part, Catholics and the Church of Rome celebrate the feast of Saint Francis of Assisi, author of the Canticle of the Creatures, on October 4. Over the years major Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant and Anglican organizations have come together to encourage the world’s 2.2 billion Christians to pray and be active in ecological issues, led by an ecumenical commission set up with that finish.
In the Middle East region, initiatives and activities related to the “Season of Creation” began for the first time last year and were enthusiastically supported by many realities in the area. By 2022 the Christians of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Egypt ideally join the “Christian family in the world” according to the principles of ecumenism, promoting moments of prayer and awareness of ecological issues and initiatives aimed at caring for the planet.
For the second consecutive year, the Middle East Council of Churches (Mecc) has translated into Arabic the booklet dedicated to the “Time of Creation”, to facilitate reading for the inhabitants of the region. “Paying attention to the voice of creation – explains Mecc in a note – requires a degree of listening that is increasingly rare” in modern societies. Within the Christian ecumenical family, the text continues, “there is a vast network of traditions that help to recover our ability to listen to the voice of creation”, to which are added the initiatives promoted by the Mecc and were presented by the secretary Gen Michel Abs.
“Our campaign includes times of prayer throughout the Middle East, with Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon as highlights,” explains the Rev. Rima Nasrallah, a board member of MECC. “There are also youth-oriented activities -she adds- and reforestation projects”. The first event took place in Lebanon on September 3, with an excursion through the natural areas of the Kfardebian – Keserwan region for young people. At the end of the walk, there was a moment of ecumenical prayer followed by an apple harvest and a visit to a vinegar production center. The second event will take place in Egypt on Sunday, September 11, with a solemn concelebration at the Anaphora Prayer Center in Wadi El Natroun. In Syria, the Season of Creation will then be commemorated with a mass in the Church of the Holy Cross in Damascus. And then Jordan, with a celebration at the evangelical church of al-Fadi (the Redeemer) in Jabal-Amman on Monday, September 26. The Mecc will conclude its program with a return to the land of the cedars and a solemn mass at the Maronite patriarchal seat of Bkerké on October 3 in the evening.
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