Ecological Asceticism

When we speak of asceticism, we think of such things as fasting, vigils and rigorous practices. That is indeed part of what is involved; but askesis signifies much more than this. It means that, in relation to the environment, we are to display what the Philokalia and other spiritual texts of the Orthodox Church call enkrateia, "self-restraint." That is to say, we are to practice a voluntary self-limitation in our consumption of food and natural resources. Each of us is called to make the crucial distinction between what we want and what we need.   Only through such self-denial, through our willingness sometimes to forgo and to say "no" or "enough" will we rediscover our true human place in the universe. (Patriarch Bartholomew I, "Sacrifice: The Missing Dimension"(PDF).)