Pope Francis has established an annual World Day of Prayer for Creation, which he hopes Christians of all denominations will celebrate on 1st September each year.
The Day of Prayer is in unity with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, who began a similar day of prayer for the Orthodox Church in 1989. It is also the first day of Creation Time suggested by the European Christian Environmental Network (ECEN) in 1999, widening the original proposal from the Orthodox Church.
In a letter to the heads of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity, Pope Francis said:
‘The annual World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation will offer individual believers and communities a fitting opportunity to reaffirm their personal vocation to be stewards of Creation, to thank God for the wonderful handiwork which he has entrusted to our care, and to implore his help for the protection of Creation as well as his pardon for the sins committed against the world in which we live.
‘The celebration of this Day, on the same date as the Orthodox Church, will be a valuable opportunity to bear witness to our growing communion with our Orthodox brothers and sisters.’