"Responsibility for creation has been a shared rediscovery for the Christian Churches; it is within the ecumenical journey that it has asserted itself as a decisive need, and it is from the ecumenical world (first and foremost from the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople) that the idea of a Day for Creation was born in 1989". It was recalled by the Bishops Commissions for Social Problems and Labour, Justice and Peace and for Ecumenism and Dialogue in the Text prepared for the Day of the Protection of Creation that will be celebrated for the first time in Italy on September 1st 2006. The Day was established by the Italian bishops during the Permanent Council of Cei on January 23rd-26th 2006. In the Text the unabridged version of which is available from today at www.chiesacattolica.it – the two Bishops Commissions highlight the importance of this Day for all of Europe: "For Europe it has been taken up in particular from the II European Ecumenical Assembly of Graz (1997), which urged a reconciliation with creation; in the next III European Ecumenical Assembly (Sibiu 2007), the topic will be positively important as well. Its centrality has also been reflected in 2001 by the Charta Oecumenica: Christian are all worried about the exploitation of the earth’s assets «with no consideration for their inherent value». This is why the Charta pointed at the Christians’ common commitment «to achieve sustainable living conditions for the whole of creation»".
