Humanity and Nature in Eastern Orthodox Christianity

What is our human relationship to the natural world, according to Christian cosmology? In an age of ecological overshoot and collapse, the question is urgent, and yet it is often assumed or claimed that the Christian faith has no answers to it. It is common to hear that Christianity is an anti-ecological religion, which separates humans from the rest of creation and instructs them to dominate and exploit it. Calls are sometimes made for Christians to ‘modernise’ their thinking in the face of climate change, or adopt an ‘eco-theology’ which departs from traditional Christian teaching. This lecture explores the teaching of the Eastern Orthodox Church about the place of humanity in the world, and weaving the testimonies of outsanding sages and saints, explain that, far from being anthropocentric or antinatural, it in fact offers a deep, subtle and radical answer to the ecological crisis.