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Care for Creation a Question of Lifestyle?
Petersburg dialogue in Wolfsburg and Hanover
July 19, 2011
On 18 July 2011, the ecumenical working group on Churches in Europe met in Wolfsburg in the context of the Petersburg Dialogue, a German-Russian dialogue forum. Their topic was "Care for creation - Christian contributions to ecology and sustainability". Representatives of the Orthodox Church in Russia and the Catholic and Protestant churches in Germany discussed fundamental aspects of ecology and the related challenge to churches and society in Russia and Germany.
Russian Orthodox Archbishop Longin praised the Petersburg Dialogue, calling it an open dialogue forum offering the opportunity to work on relevant issues together. Catholic Bishop Dr. Gerhard Feige from Magdeburg underlined "responsibility for the Creation as a fundamental assignment for churches and a sign of the times." With the aid of practical examples from the current church campaign "Climate change - lifestyle change", Protestant Bishop Siegfried Kasparick from Wittenberg pointed out that it was not just a matter of generally calling for changes in people's way of life - this had to happen in congregations too.
"Christian faith in God the Creator leads to personal commitment to an ecological lifestyle," underlined social ethicist Prof. Dr. Markus Vogt from Munich. Together with his Russian colleague, Archpriest Dr. Vladimir Fedorov from St. Petersburg, he presented the church's statements on ecological issues. Their long-term, cross-generational perspective and their transnational, global character give the churches a particularly good opportunity to speak out for sustainability.
The results of the discussion within the Churches in Europe working group were fed into a panel on "Preserving resources - ecology securing the future of modernization," bringing together representatives from churches and social groupings. One emphasis was on the culture of moderation, which finds substantiation in Christian ethics.
Wolfsburg and Hannover were venues for the 11th Petersburg Dialogue, in which the churches and their joint working group participated for the fifth time.
Hanover, 19 July 2011
EKD Press Office
Silke Römhild