Patriarch Kirill Greets Participants in the 11th Meeting of Joint Russian-Iranian Commission for Dialogue ‘Orthodoxy-Islam’

Source: DECR
Natalya Mihailova | 09 May 2018

The 11th meeting of the Joint Russian-Iranian Commission for Dialogue ‘Orthodoxy-Islam’ took place on May 5-6, 2018, in Teheran. His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia sent a message of greeting to the participants in the meeting. The message states:

Esteemed participants in the meeting,

I cordially greet you as you have gathered for the 11th meeting of the Joint Commission for Dialogue between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Islamic community in Iran.

In the course of your meeting, you will discuss the protection of the environment. The importance of this topic is difficult to overestimate. In 2015, the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church established a day of special prayer for God’s creation, which is held on the first Sunday in September.

It is clear that environmental problems stem from the manifestation of human egoism. Seeking to live as comfortably as possible, to consume as much as possible, people exhaust natural resources without thinking about consequences. In pursuit of momentary profit, human beings make their planet ever less suitable for life and trample upon God’s creation – nature, thus distorting the design of the Heavenly Creator for the world and ever more strongly enslaving their spirit to flesh. Such a rapacious attitude to nature today dooms the generations to come to deprivations. Therefore, the principal cause of the ecological crisis is precisely the crisis of people’s moral responsibility.

As the Bibles tell us, God took the man, and put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it (Gen. 2:15). We are called to cherish the environment in the awareness of our responsibility for it before the Creator. Let the voices of our communities help us in this endeavor and may the present work of the Joint Commission serve the cause of the common witness of Christians and Muslims to the importance of preserving our home, the Earth, safe and intact.

I wish the participants in the meeting success in their work.

+ Kirill

Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia

Since you are here…

…we do have a small request. More and more people visit Orthodoxy and the World website. However, resources for editorial are scarce. In comparison to some mass media, we do not make paid subscription. It is our deepest belief that preaching Christ for money is wrong.

Having said that, Pravmir provides daily articles from an autonomous news service, weekly wall newspaper for churches, lectorium, photos, videos, hosting and servers. Editors and translators work together towards one goal: to make our four websites possible - Pravmir.ru, Neinvalid.ru, Matrony.ru and Pravmir.com. Therefore our request for help is understandable.

For example, 5 euros a month is it a lot or little? A cup of coffee? It is not that much for a family budget, but it is a significant amount for Pravmir.

If everyone reading Pravmir could donate 5 euros a month, they would contribute greatly to our ability to spread the word of Christ, Orthodoxy, life's purpose, family and society.