Abstract
In recent years, churches across the world have become involved in dialogue on the theory and practice of sustainable development. A number of Western churches have expressed their concern about climate change and destructive living patterns, stressing the need for human beings to exercise the care for all creation based on a life of sharing and sacrifice. Some Orthodox churches, however, quite recently included the environmental issues in their agendas. While the Bases of Social Concept, a major doctrine of the Russian Orthodox Church adopted in 2000, for the first time emphasises the Church’s position in overcoming environmental crisis and presents a solid basis on which to build the future environmental strategy of the Church, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church has not yet drawn up a programme document that might serve as a framework for the Church’s current extensive activities in the field of biodiversity conservation and sustainable forestry practices. Hence, despite certain closeness of both institutions, there is the potential for strengthening their roles in promoting sustainable development, based on the Biblical concept that the Earth belongs to the Lord and humans are responsible stewards assigned the duty to work for creation and care for it. This paper seeks to demonstrate by means of comparable analysis between the two Churches, Orthodox in nature but different in rites and religious practices, that traditional, highly conservative faiths may serve as powerful instruments of spreading out the ideas of sustainable development as the basis of spiritual revival in the situation of the two concurrent and interrelated crises – spiritual and ecological.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Asghedom Ghebremichael.: 2003, Socio-Cultural and Economic Roles of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church: Sketching a Long, But Not so Glorious, History, TigraiNet: http://www.tigrai.org/News/Articles2003/AsghedomOnOrthodox.html.
Belopopsky, A. and Oikonomou, D. (eds.): 1996, The Orthodoxy and Ecology Resource Book, SYNDESMOS, The World Fellowship of Orthodox Youth, Orthdruk Orthodox Printing House, Bialystok, Poland: http://www.goarch.org/en/ourfaith/environment/
Berhane-Selassie Tsehai.: 1994, ‘Ecology and theology of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church’, in D.L. Hallman (ed.) Voices of South and North, Translation into Russian, Moscow, 1997: http://www.krotov.info/libr_min/ae/aecoteol/eco_197.html
Binggeli, P.: 2001, ‘Workshop discussions’, in Proceedings of the Workshop on the Biodiversity Conservation in Ancient Church and Monastery Yards in Ethiopia, University of Wales, Bangor, and the Ethiopian Wildlife and Natural History Society, Addis Ababa, pp. 19–24.
Churches Together in Britain and Ireland (CTBI): 2002, Briefing for the Johannesburg Earth Summit: http://www.churchesearthsummit.org.uk/briefing.htm# respond.
Church World Service (CWS): 2002, Ethiopian Orthodox Church – Development and Inter-Church Aid Commission: http://www.churchworldservice.org/Development/project_description/descriptions/25.html
Conference of European Churches (CEC): 2002, Sustainable Development and the European Union: The Need to Develop New Strategies and New Lifestyles, A report of the working group on Economy, Ecology and Social Issues, Church and Society Commission: http://www.cec-kek.org/English/SustainableEU1.htm.
The Economist: 2000, Not Spreading the Faith, 357, 8202, 35–37.
Krotov, Y.: 2003, Index of Reactionary Activities of the Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church, Yakov Krotov Electronic Library: http://www.krotov.info/yakov/past/bishops.html.
Melakeselam Dagnachew Kassahun.: 2001, ‘The role of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church in preserving trees and woodlands’, in Proceedings of the Workshop on the Biodiversity Conservation in Ancient Church and Monastery Yards in Ethiopia, pp. 5–8.
Roberson, R.: 2000, The Ethiopian Orthodox Church; The Orthodox Church of Russia: http://www.cnewa.org/ecc-ronaldroberson.htm
The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC): 2000, ‘The church and ecological problems’, in The Bases of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church, 13–16 August, Moscow, The ROC official website: http://www.orthodox.org.ru/sd00e.htm.
Tamene Getnet (1998) ArticleTitle‘Features of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and the clergy’ Asian and African Studies 7 1 87–104
Taye Bekele, Getachew Berhan, Sisay Zerfu and Kumlachew Yeshitela.: 2001, ‘Perspectives of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church in forest biodiversity conservation’, in Proceedings of the Workshop on the Biodiversity Conservation in Ancient Church and Monastery Yards in Ethiopia, pp. 9–18.
United Nations: 1992, ‘Strengthening the role of major groups’, in Agenda 21: Programme of Action for Sustainable Development, United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), 3–14 June, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Yarigina, T. and Shalganova, I.: 2000, The Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church. Report for the Civil Society European Academy: http://www.academy-go.ru/Site/English/N4(44).shtml.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Readers should send their comments on this paper to: BhaskarNath@aol.com within 3 months of publication of this issue.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Votrin, V. The Orthodoxy And Sustainable Development A Potential For Broader Involvement Of The Orthodox Churches In Ethiopia And Russia. Environ Dev Sustain 7, 9–21 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-003-5053-9
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-003-5053-9