Religions Participate in Various Environmental Efforts Around the Globe

July 6, 2006

Source: Beliefnet

Wire Service: AP

http://www.beliefnet.com/story/195/story_19537_1.html

On July 6, 2006 the Associated Press reported, "More than a decade ago on an Aegean island, the spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Christians made a startling proposition: That pollution and other attacks on the environment could be considered sins.

At the time, the idea earned him little more than a nickname - the 'green patriarch.' It's no longer such a radical view.

Eco-friendly attitudes have increasingly moved into the mainstream of many faiths - from Muslim clerics urging water conservation in the fast-growing Gulf states to evangelical preachers in the United States calling attention to global warming.

Next week, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I will lead another high-profile group of religious leaders, scientists and activists on a trip to examine the interplay of faith and ecology. The weeklong voyage along the Amazon starting next Thursday will be Bartholomew's sixth green journey since the first in 1995 to the Greek island of Patmos - where biblical tradition says the book of Revelation was compiled."