01/07/2026 15:00 - 17:10

HALL: Parenzo - A8

Contact: Asproulis N.

Chair: Asproulis N.

We are currently living in the Anthropocene, a time of polycrisis defined by humanity's collective self-conceit as a technologically advanced species that produces myriad environmental, social and economic injustices. As Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew says, "[t]he root cause…lies in our self-centeredness and in the mistaken order of values, which we inherit and accept without any critical evaluation…" This order of values is rooted in a neoliberal consumeristic vision of prosperity as abundance in which the vices of arrogance, greed, gluttony and indifference, rather than virtues, such as justice, prudence, or compassion, are actively promoted. This neoliberal socioeconomic system forces people worldwide to view both nature and our fellow human beings as bearing merely a utilitarian value to be exploited for pleasure or profit so, even people who engage in this system unwillingly or unknowingly are guilty of what Orthodox theologians call involuntary sin. Therefore, "What is asked of us is not greater technological skill but deeper repentance, metanoia, in the literal sense of the Greek word, which signifies fervent 'change of mind' and radical transformation of lifestyle" (Bartholomew 2009). Such a social transfiguration requires practicing a "communal asceticism" (Bartholomew 1997) that will entail cultivating nepsis, a state of mindfulness, which can enable a recognition of how our pathological desires (pathoi) for material wealth or social status have been manipulated for profit by powerful elites who exacerbate inequalities and advance the value system at the heart of our polycrisis. Further, it requires a view of flourishing as relational rather than acquisitive and the development of socioeconomic practices rooted in a eucharistic disposition of gratitude for one another and nature so that,"the economy becomes a servant of humanity, not its master" (Bartholomew 1999)