It has become painfully apparent that humanity, both individually and collectively, no longer perceives the natural order as a sign and a sacrament of God but rather as an object of exploitation. There is no one that is not guilty of disrespecting nature, for to respect nature is to recognize that all creatures and objects have a unique place in God's creation. When we become sensitive to God's world around us, we grow more conscious also of God's world within us. Beginning to see nature as a work of God, we begin to see our own place as human beings within nature. The true appreciation of any object is to discover the extraordinary in the ordinary.
Sin alone is mean and trivial, as are most of the products of a fallen and sinful technology.
But it is sin that is at the root to the prevailing destruction of the environment. It has succumbed to a theory of development that values production over human dignity and wealth over human integrity. We see for example delicate ecological balances being upset by the uncontrolled destruction of animal and plant life or by a reckless exploitation of natural resources. Created by God, the world reflects divine Wisdom, divine beauty, divine truth. The hymns and prayers in the Office of September 1st, composed by the gifted hymnographer of the Great Church, the late monk Gerasimos of the Holy Mountain, extol the beauty of creation but also remind us of our tragic abuse of it.