orthodox evangelism key to biodiversity preservation

Preaching PAST 7201 (Veronis) Sermon 3 Bioethical Challenge 3 Dec 2014 Michael Odegaard

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart

be pleasing to you O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.

Did you know that ten known species of life became extinct

last week? Actually thats the conservative estimate, as some

scientists are saying the actual number is closer to 690 species, and

this rate has happened each week for the last decade. During that 1

time the Caribbean Monk Seal was officially certified extinct, and

there are now fewer than 500 remaining in the Mediterranean.

41% of marine life, which is 90% of the Earths life, is now

endangered.

How did you respond to the 2010 British Petroleum Oil Spill

in the Gulf of Mexico? In his response to this unprecedented

anthropogenic environmental disaster, His Holiness, the

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew declared, to mistreat the

natural environment is to sin against humanity, against all living

things, and against our creator God. All of us individuals,

http://www.nature.com/polopoly_fs/1.16523!/menu/main/topColumns/topLeftColumn/pdf/1516158a.pdf. Last accessed December 15, 2014.


institutions, and industries alike bear responsibility; all of us

are accountable for ignoring the global consequences of

environmental exploitation. 2

Today it is widely acknowledged that the degradation of the

natural environment, in particular traditional habitats, also entails

a loss of indigenous cultural and linguistic diversity. Indigenous

language loss has a negative impact on biodiversity conservation. 3

You see, there is a fundamental linkage between indigenous

language and traditional knowledge related to biodiversity. Local

and indigenous communities have elaborated over many hundreds

of years complex classification systems for the natural world,

reflecting a deep understanding of their local environment. This

environmental knowledge is embedded in indigenous names, oral

traditions and taxonomies which can be lost when an indigenous

community is either dislocated or shifts to another language. The

National Academy of Sciences in 2012 both announced that (1) the

http://www.goarch.org/news/patriarch-gulfoilspill%20-05102010. Accessed December 1, 2014.2

http://www.unesco.org/new/en/culture/themes/endangered-languages/biodiversity-and-3linguistic-diversity/. Accessed December 1, 2014.


rate of extinction of species is now approaching 1000% faster than

historic rates as well as (2) predicted that 90% of the worlds

languages will disappear by the end of the 21st century. 4

Why is biodiversity important to us? From a moral

standpoint, contributing to the destruction of living things goes

against what it means to be human, based on our understanding of

the Noahdic covenant and calling to preserve life. Practically, 5

humans benefit from biodiversity; plants, animals, bacteria and

fungi provide raw materials for human use. Half of all the

medicine we use depends on this biodiversity. Healthy biodiversity

also provides a number of natural services for everyone

ecosystem services, such as protection of water resources, soils

formation & protection, pollution breakdown and absorption.

The greatest of all threats to the Earths biodiversity is

deforestation, especially to tropical rainforests: though only

covering 7% of the Earth, tropical rainforests house more than half

http://www.pnas.org/content/109/21/8032.abstract. Accessed December 1, 2014.4

Genesis 8:1 - 9:175


of the worlds species. While scientists have already identified 2

million species, estimates indicate that there are 9 million more

that remain undiscovered, yet through logging, mining and 6

farming, humans destroy 2% of the Earths rainforests every year.

Thats 36 football fields every minute! In recent history, 7

deforestation has led to 36% of all extinctions, and as the habitat

loss accelerates the number will increase. And, in the last 100 8

years in Brazil, colonists eliminated 90 indigenous tribes. 9

Prioritizing the topic of Biodiversity and Conservation in the

first chapter of Sacred Commerce: A Conversation on

Environment, Ethics, and Innovation, published this year by our

own Holy Cross Orthodox Press and documenting the 2012 Halki

Environmental Summit, Fr. John Chryssavgis presents zoologist

Jane Goodalls prescription: We will save some of the forest by

http://eol.org/info/about_biodiversity. Accessed December 1, 2014.6

https://www.worldwildlife.org/threats/deforestation. Accessed December 1, 2014.7

http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/conservation/issues/biggest-threat-to-8biodiversity.htm. Accessed December 1, 2014.

http://www.rain-tree.com/facts.htm#.VIlu4IurKWU. Accessed December 1, 2014.9


working in partnership with the local peopleand show how all of

these things are interconnected and how contact between the

natural world and that of the spiritis ever so precious and all so

important. 10

The international community recognized the importance of

working in partnership with indigenous communities in 2007 with

the United Nations adoption that year of the Declaration of Rights

of Indigenous Peoples. And biodiversity Specialist Claudia

Sobrevila titled her 2008 policy report to the World Bank, The

Role of Indigenous Peoples in Biodiversity Conservation: The

Natural but Often Forgotten Partners. The indigenous are often 11

forgotten for reasons related to colonial capitalism, including

either willful marginalization or unconscious ignorance of their

existence, either unintentionally by thoughtless consumers in the

Chryssavgis, John and Michele L. Goldsmith. Sacred Commerce: A Conversation on 10Environment, Ethics, and Innovation. Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press. 2014, pp. 1-17.

http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2008/05/9633734/role-indigenous-peoples-11biodiversity-conservation-natural-often-forgotten-partners. Accessed December 1, 2014.


global economy, or intentionally by those who profit by such

popular ignorance. 12

It is critical that we recognize the groups most affected by

linguistic colonization are the same as those which have been

subjected to ongoing economic colonization over the past five

centuries: indigenous and minority populations. Chief among the

types of violence committed against these peoples over the last

500 years is linguistic genocide, in which indigenous culture is

destroyed as mega-languages such as English and Spanish become

the only legal languages of a particular region.

Indigenous peoples effectively serve as the planets

biodiversity guardians in that, while they manage only 20% of the

worlds land, they speak 60% of the worlds languages yet only

represent 4% of the total human population. You see, life on 13

Earth is seriously imperiled when its linguistic traditions are under

attack through linguistic genocide, which the UN says may include

The contemporary fair trade international commerce movement attempts to establish ethical 12standards for non-exploitative third world trade.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiversity. Accessed December 1, 2014.13


prohibiting the use of the language of an indigenous group in

daily intercourse or in schools, or the printing and circulation of

publications in the language of the group, or even whereby

speakers of a minority language are made to feel ashamed of their

language and are overlooked by publishers and libraries

discriminating against literature in these languages. 14

Over Thanksgiving break I was fortunate to join the

Archdiocesan Byzantine Choir in their pilgrimage to

Constantinople on the occasion of the Roman Popes visit with the

Ecumenical Patriarch at the Phanar. Part of the excitement of my

first flight across the Atlantic was for the opportunity to meet the

Green Patriarch Bartholomew whose environmental activism

confirmed for me the truth of Orthodoxy and inspired this

indigenous Hawaiian Christian to request his Orthodox

chrismation in 1997.

http://www.languageeducationpolicy.com/whatareleps/languagemarginalization.html. 14Accessed December 1, 2014.


While touring the Christian holy sites in modern Istanbul, I

was initiated into the tension felt by my Greek bretheren who were

nervous about spies and government observers among the gift

vendors and craftsmen who were eager to lure me into their stores.

My hosts paranoia seemed excessive, even making me to feel

uncomfortable, since these local vendors seemed to be so kind and

helpful. Nevertheless I heeded my guides advice and avoided

conversations with the local vendors. However, back at the hotel I

took the opportunity to interview a local, but European-educated,

concierge to find out if he was aware of the oppressed feelings

among the Greek, Armenian and Kurdish minority populations

caused by the homogenizing influences of the dominant Turks. I

then explained to him how Republics are supposed to protect their

minority community rights, as well as how the Turkish Republic is

similar to the American Republic, since the indigenous Greeks

apparently feel the pressure of Turkish assimilation in the same

way that many of the First Nations of America also feel it. I


appealed to the concierges environmental sensibilities by

reminding him how important it is to preserve the ancient

indigenous cultures of ones society for the sake of the lands

biodiversity conservation. Fortunately, my new Turkish friend

agreed with me, and now were Facebook friends.

Our accord illustrates that agreeing about what has happened

to Turkeys indigenous Greeks, and recognizing this forced

assimilation as a crime, isn't admitting that he personally had a

hand in it. Likewise, African-Americans know that they can't

blame Anglo-Americans of today for the ills of their ancestors, but

we can expect them to admit to the truths of the injustice of racial

profiling and white privilege. However, not to do so, is to 15

continue the mindset of their ancestors and to share in their guilt.

Our easy access to information precludes us from being able to

claim ignorance of the global biodiversity problem. In his 1998

Pulitzer Prize award-winning contemporary classic Guns, Germs

and Steel Dr. Jared Diamond suggests a helpful means of

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_privilege. Accessed December 1, 2014.15


reassessing what we understand civilization to be, using the

ecological ethic of biodiversity as its chief criterium, so that we

now understand the most civilized societies on Earth to be those

which sustain the most biodiversity.

The Good News I want you to know today is: in our Lords

Great Commission to make disciples in every nation in the spirit of

Pentecost, we can see that conservation of biodiversity is the

outcome our Merciful Creator has set into motion! As the Holy

Tradition has permeated the diverse ethnic societies throughout

history, the end result has consistently been the stabilization of the

same communities!

The Good News for you who are called to the mission field is

that the work of translating the Divine Liturgy into every tongue 16

is our best hope of slowing down the accelerating rate of language

death among indigenous peoples and, therefore, of maximizing our

opportunities for biodiversity conservation. For the creation waits

https://www.facebook.com/TheLiturgyInEveryTongue. Accessed December 1, 2014.16


with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. The day 17

of Pentecost taught us several relevant lessons: (1) that one

language is not to be exalted above other languages, since each

language is uniquely capable of expressing the Word of Salvation,

(2) that the Church cannot speak to people in languages that they

dont understand, and (3) that we must counsel those practitioners

of Social Darwinism who would subvert the Great Commission by

restricting the holy Apostolic Succession to the boundaries of one

ethnic group.

I have Good News for those of you to whom God has granted

the desire to embrace the indigenous peoples of your own

hometown: in his popular tract Mystery of Fidelity, Fr. Joseph 18

Allen has outlined what I believe is an Orthodox ethic of

indigeneity in his chapters titled Fidelity to the Earth and

Fidelity to Community. Fr. Allen explains not only how we

encounter the mystery of fidelity to the earth by cultivating,

Romans 8:1917

Saliba, Met. Philip and Fr. Joseph Allen. Meeting the Incarnate God: From the Human Depths 18to the Mystery of Fidelity. Brookline, MA. Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2009.


protecting and transforming it, but that we must also learn to be

faithful in humility like the Earth is faithful to God: never

deceptive, the Earth surrenders itself to that intent which God

created, is vulnerable to abuse yet ever hopeful toward the future

with every rising dawn. Fr. Joseph reminds us that we have

nothing to say to one another in communion, even to God, unless

we are ready to do violence to ourselves with an earthlike

humility that Fr. John Meyendorff says acknowledges the right

of every nation to worship God in its own language. Our 19

linguistically pluralistic Eastern Christian ethic is historically

characterized our openness to integrated, multi-ethnic liturgical

worship that respects, by including, the indigenous language. 20

Beholding the beauty this temple and landscape, I would ask

you to consider if God is calling you to learn the indigenous

language of your community, and if so, how doing so could

Meyendorff, John. Catholicity and the Church. Crestwood, NY: St. Valdimirs Seminary Press. 191983, p. 138.

Bouboutsis, Elias. Singing in a Strange Land: The Ancient Future of Orthodox Pluralism. 20Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press. 2010, pp. 124-125.


develop your appreciation and understanding of your communitys

deep ecology, history and future culture? A search on the internet

will reveal dozens of indigenous American language lessons that

you can begin to study online today. It is our Orthodox heritage

and destiny to reveal God in the context of the indigenous cultures

where we live. You already know Wampanoag words like squash,

skunk, moose, and moccasin; imagine how understanding the

meanings and historic significance of such place names as

Nantuket, Narraganset, Mashpee and Massachusetts will deepen

your appreciation of this beautiful place? I hope our school will

seize the present opportunity to partner with the local indigenous

community and assist them with their Wampanoag language

revitalization efforts. Fr. Luke Veronis identified reconciliatory 21

efforts like this as being among our best opportunities for

evangelism. Can you think of a better way we can respect the 22

http://www.wampanoagtribe.net/Pages/Wampanoag_Education/S004B1EF9. Accessed 21December 1, 2014.

Veronis, Fr. Luke. Go Forth: Stories of Mission and Evangelism in Albania. Ben Lomond: 22Conciliar Press, 2009. p. 210.


faithfulness of those who have lived in this place for thousands of

years? How do you suppose they view us? Do they see the Greek

Orthodox Church as a Trojan Horse leading to environmental

degradation, genocide and their perpetual enslavement or as a

liberating icon of the Ark of Salvation that brings every nation into

the Kingdom of God?

Through the prayers of most holy Theotokos and Ever-Virgin

Mary, Sts. Cyril & Methodios, Heiromartyr Juvenaly, Fr. Herman,

St. Innocent, St. Peter the Aleut and of all the saints, O you who

are the Redeemer of Nations: Lord Jesus Christ our God,

strengthen our fidelity to the Earth, to its every Community and

especially the indigenous poor, the guardians of its biodiversity;

have mercy on us, and save us, for you are good and love all

mankind, you with the Father and Holy Spirit, one God, now and

forever, and to the Ages of Ages! Amen.

orthodox evangelism key to biodiversity preservation

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