His Eminence Metropolitan Antonios Al Soury Opens the Second Day
of the MECC Annual Partners Meeting:
The Season of Creation, is a confession of faith, affirming the world’s inherent goodness
His Eminence Metropolitan Antonios Al Soury, Greek Orthodox Metropolitan of Zahle, Baalbek and their Dependencies, representing His Beatitude Patriarch John X, Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch and All the East, and President of the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC) for the Orthodox Family, opened the second day of the annual meeting held by the Middle East Council of Churches for its international partners, on Thursday, September 11, 2025, at the Liqaa Center - Rabweh, Lebanon.
In his opening speech, which marked the “Season of Creation,” celebrated annually by the Ecumenical family worldwide between September 1 and October 4, His Eminence noted that “Celebrating the Season of Creation, is a confession of faith, affirming the world’s inherent goodness, its potential for transfiguration, and humanity’s call to mediate between God and the world.”
He added, “Man’s consciousness, freedom, and capacity for knowledge allow the world to become self-aware, to return to God in thanksgiving, to become itself in communion. To lose this orientation is to disrupt not only the human, but the cosmic order.”
He continued, “In its essence, the liturgy is cosmic in scope: bread, wine, water, oil, and all the fruits of the earth are offered and transformed, mediating between heaven and earth. Creation is not static, but called into movement – its destiny is not mere preservation, but sanctification and transfiguration.”
His Eminence said, “The Christian ecology vision is clear: the current environmental crisis is not simply technical or political, but spiritual and moral – a crisis rooted in the failure to honor the world as gift and to assume our proper priestly and mediatory role.”
His Eminence's speech was followed by a Prayer for Creation, raised by the attendees with hearts filled with faith and hope on the intention of God's creation and all that is in it.