The story of creation presents us with a panoramic view of the world. Scripture reveals that in the beginning God intended humanity to cooperate in the preservation and protection of the natural environment.
 
At first, as we read in Genesis, “no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth and there was no one to till the ground” (2:5).
 

VATICAN (SE): While joint statements from popes and ecumenical patriarchs have a longish history, the most recent one signed by Pope Francis and the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople is the first expressing the concern for the well-being of creation held by the Catholic and Orthodox Churches.