The Religion, Science and the Environment Movement

RSE symposia are organised under the auspices of His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the pioneer of this movement. Patrons of past symposia have included HRH Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh; HE Jacques Santer and HE Romano Prodi, Presidents of the European Commission; and UN Secretary General HE Kofi Annan.

The symposia have also reached out across different faiths and denominations, revealing the wisdom of diverse theological traditions, as well as a common imperative to protect the natural world. During the 2002 Adriatic Sea Symposium, Pope John Paul II and Patriarch Bartholomew signed a joint declaration underlining the spiritual duty of caring for God’s creation in the interest of future generations.

Past symposia have drawn global attention to the degradation of the Aegean Sea, the Black Sea, the Danube River, the Adriatic Sea, the Baltic Sea, and the Amazon River. RSE’s impact has left a positive environmental legacy in all these regions. For example, RSE was instrumental in establishing the Black Sea Convention and organised a series of Environmental Training Seminars for priests and journalists from the region; created a network of cooperation among churches, NGOs, and journalists along the Danube; confronted Albanian authorities over toxic waste entering the Adriatic from abandoned chemical factories in Porto Romano, accelerating the area’s subsequent clean-up; initiated the ongoing Bread and Fish programme for marine environmental protection in the Baltic Sea; and accelerated agreement on a moratorium on multinational traders buying soya from newly deforested land in the Amazon rainforest.

Travelling down rivers and around seas, sometimes literally following pollution from its source to its point of impact, these waterborne journeys have offered up a tangible sense of the interconnectedness of the world’s waters and all its ecosystems, demonstrating the destructive ripples human actions can send through space and time. By bringing participants to the places where environmental problems are most acute and focusing on practical remedies rather than theoretical discussions, RSE Symposia have inspired positive change through collective action.