WCC NEWS: Time for Creation begins with call for change

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>World Council of Churches - News

>TIME FOR CREATION BEGINS WITH CALL FOR CHANGE

>For immediate release: 31 August 2010

In a message honouring the Day for Creation, 1 September, the 
Ecumenical
Patriarch Bartholomew I has expressed his hope that the financial and
economic crisis experienced by many societies would bring about "a
powerful change in direction, to a path of viable and sustainable
environmental development."

Churches from a broad range of countries and traditions will 
participate
with prayers and other activities in the Time for Creation over the 
next
40 days.

In 1989 the late Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios I started a tradition 
of
annual prayer for the environment when he proclaimed the first day of
prayer for the environment on 1 September, the first day of the 
Orthodox
church year.

Nowadays, 1 September is known to Orthodox, Protestant and Catholic
Christians alike as the beginning of the Time for Creation, during 
which
churches and congregations are called to pay special attention to the
responsibility of humanity for the whole earth and all that lives, 
grows
and exists.

In 2010, the WCC proposes to extend the Time for Creation until 10 
October,
so as to join a global civil society movement celebrating climate
solutions around the world on 10 October 2010.

As 2010 is the International Year of Biodiversity (Link:
http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?RDCT=5d6743532984054c564d ), many 
churches will give thanks for the
dazzling variety of nature and pray for its preservation. The WCC and 
the
AACC are asking Christians to pray especially for and with people in
Africa, where biodiversity and human welfare are both threatened by
climate change. Prayers (Link:
http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?RDCT=ad7b742661c9c9a447ac ) and 
other texts and ideas
(Link: http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?RDCT=6b8ee3ba2470b3fa1a03 )
that can be adapted for local use have been made available via the WCC
website.

Read the full text of the message by the Ecumenical Patriarch
(Link:
http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?RDCT=06ffd41f45d02149e20b )

More on the Time for Creation (Link:

http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?RDCT=491c6b704e91a3e1dd8a )

More on the 101010 campaign (Link: 
http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?RDCT=f56d040dc5ff6b57e5b2 )

The World Council of Churches promotes Christian unity in faith, 
witness 
and service for a just and peaceful world. An ecumenical fellowship 
of 
churches founded in 1948, today the WCC brings together 349 
Protestant, 
Orthodox, Anglican and other churches representing more than 560 
million 
Christians in over 110 countries, and works cooperatively with the 
Roman 
Catholic Church. The WCC general secretary is Rev. Dr Olav Fykse 
Tveit, 
from the [Lutheran] Church of Norway. Headquarters: Geneva, 
Switzerland.

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