*agenda, not because they are Christians. Theology is a secondary factor that should either affirm or deny their point of view*".

It is quite interesting that 12% of Evangelical and 26% of Orthodox participants were not able to comment on the attitude of other Christians toward nature and environment. Some were reluctant to comment on what other people think or do. Others acknowledged that they simply do not know. This research also revealed that Evangelical and Orthodox Christians in Russia and Ukraine know very little about specific ongoing local or global interfaith dialogues and initiatives related to creation care.

#### 4.2.4. Perspectives on the Concept of Creation Care

Participants were asked about their understanding of the concept of creation care in research question #5. In many Christian circles today, creation care is understood as Christians' response to the Gospel as a part of the Christian proclamation of Good News (Creation Care and the Gospel: Jamaica Call to Action 2012).

Most interviewees asserted that creation care should be demonstrated in active work to protect and conserve the environment such as tree planting, sorting waste, making a personal contribution to the conservation of the environment, animal welfare, or education of other people to care for creation. This was accentuated 37 times by Evangelical (60.66% of their responses) and 10 times by Orthodox (25% of their responses) interviewees. Examples include:

"*To care about what is around us. Birds, animals, water, ground, etc*". (Orthodox)

"*For me personally, care for the Earth is when you give something, not only receive*". (Orthodox)

"*Creation care begins with us, yet we also should make some impact to motivate other people*". (Evangelical)

Some Evangelical and Orthodox Christians shared the belief that the idea of creation care consisted in not harming nature, or passive care for creation ("don't harm", "don't litter", "don't kill", etc.). Such belief was noted 19 times by Evangelicals (31.15%) and six times by Orthodox (15%). According to one Evangelical interviewee, "*Care for creation begins when we are not harming nature. This is caring—when I personally don't harm nature. When I go camping, I always take garbage bags with me to clean up after myself. This protects nature. I don't do unlawful things to nature, like felling trees*". Per the research, Evangelicals were more inclined to understand creation care in terms of passive activity; i.e., not doing anything that harms.

A good number of Orthodox interviewees understood creation care as environmental stewardship considering the Creator's command to care for creation. Although some Evangelicals were aware of the theological interpretation of creation care, this category weighed stronger in the answers of the Orthodox interviewees. Orthodox participants emphasized this 24 times (60% of responses), whereas only five times was this emphasis made by Evangelicals (8.20% of responses). Following are several examples:

"*The Lord says: 'Cultivate the paradise.' What does it mean? To take care of it, not simply benefit from it*". (Orthodox)

"*Care of creation is God's command, and we have to take this responsibility before God. We should do everything to help creation fulfill the plan of our Creator*". (Orthodox)

"*This is the biblical truth that God initially gave to Adam when he placed him in the garden of Eden. He gave him the command to not only be fruitful and multiply* ... *but also to take care, improve, cultivate. Cultivation has to do with improvement. After all, it is about caring for the place where God put us*". (Evangelical)

Although Evangelical and Orthodox Christians understood creation care in similar terms, their responses contained different emphases—Orthodox Christians tended to emphasize theological aspects of creation care, whereas Evangelical Christians focused on active forms of work to protect the environment.

#### 4.2.5. Personal Environmental Leadership

Research question #6 asked respondents to share how they personally cared for creation. The aim of this question was to identify whether and how the respondents practiced environmental leadership and, thus, implemented what they believed concerning the idea of creation care.

Some interviewees indicated that they tried to not harm nature by their work and daily routine activities. This was emphasized by 56% of Evangelicals (of 101 interviewees) and by 25% of Orthodox (of 50 interviewees). For example, an Orthodox interviewee said, "*First and foremost, I start with myself. I try to not litter outdoors when camping*". A similar response was made by an Evangelical respondent: "*When our church organizes outdoor camp, we always leave that place clean after we finish. A forest ranger once told us, 'Your camp has 200 people, but when you leave, it is cleaner than after 2–3 other people that come'".*

Some respondents said that they actively care for creation: tree planting; sorting waste; growing or buying natural, eco-friendly, anti-pollutant plants; caring for animals; or engaging in agriculture (planting a vegetable garden). This trajectory was taken by 27% of Evangelicals and 32% of Orthodox participants. A few participants mentioned that they volunteer for projects related to environmental conservation and animal welfare (2% Evangelicals and 10% Orthodox). It is important to note that activism, as the expression and demonstration of the gospel in missionary and social reform efforts, is one of the four primary characteristics of evangelicalism (Bebbington 1989).

The research showed that there was some inconsistency in the responses of Evangelicals. While many of them stated that creation care for Christians meant to be personally involved in it (sorting waste, tree planting, etc.), speaking about their personal engagement in care for creation, 56% of Evangelicals admitted that they cared for creation only in passive forms. Less than half of Evangelicals practiced what they believed.

Some respondents shared that personal environmental leadership could be accomplished through education, parenting, preaching, leading by example, and everything that influences people to care for creation. Four percent of Evangelicals and 27% of Orthodox interviewees stated this point. Strikingly, a significant portion of Orthodox interviewees stressed that their responsibility was not only to act alone, but also to inform, convince, inspire, and involve other people in creation care. Here are two statements that represented their position:

"*From my position as a teacher, philosopher, Christian* ... *I try to contribute to the public discourse the following idea: if I think in Christian categories, it should be natural for me to think in categories of care for the environment*". (Orthodox)

"*As a priest, I regularly say in my sermon that a person's lifestyle and attitude toward nature is the evidence of what is in his or her soul*". (Orthodox)

#### 4.2.6. Eco-Faith and Eco-Hermeneutics

To what extent do Evangelical and Orthodox Christians in Russia and Ukraine connect ecological themes with their sources of their faith? What ecological hermeneutical strategies do they use? These enquiries were behind the seventh research question that we asked our participants; i.e., what the Bible says concerning nature and animals (question #7). The researchers were open to hearing the ecological perspectives of the interviewees based on other religious sources important to their faith tradition. The analysis of the responses helped to identify six features in the eco-theological and eco-hermeneutical landscape: (1) theology of Creation and creation care; (2) ecological sin; (3) eco-theology in the Old Testament; (4) eco-theology in Jesus and the Gospels; (5) eco-eschatology; and (6) Bible, tradition, and eco-hermeneutics.

#### Theology of Creation and Creation Care

Most participants stated that the first two chapters of Genesis say a lot about nature and animals. This was noted by 46% of Orthodox participants and 40% of Evangelicals. Some added that God commanded people to care for creation when he created the world.

Four Orthodox interviewees linked the Genesis creation narrative with the Eastern Orthodox doctrine of theosis/deification (on both personal and cosmic levels) by using the theory of evolution as a bridge between the two. In their perspective, Christians should engage in active care for creation because personal transformation of believers is inseparable from the ultimate transformation of the universe. For example, an Orthodox priest from Ukraine said:

"*When a human-like creature came to the realization that it was no longer an animal but was similar to God and began searching for God, at that moment we read their names mentioned in the second chapter of Genesis* ... *. Only those people who realized their intelligence, who had a choice, have names. If we have separated ourselves and become the pinnacle of creation, then we will always be part of the animal world and part of the Divine world. If a man achieves holiness, he transforms his part of the animal world, inspires it, and thus accomplishes deification. Through this deification the whole animal world will be transformed*".

A similar idea was expressed by another Orthodox interviewee: "*A man is such a microcosm—through his life, he leads the earth to salvation*".

### Ecological Sin

The Bible indicates that original sin has negatively affected creation in some ways, yet it is still good and splendid (see Ps. 8; 104) but at the same time corrupted (Gen. 3:17; Rom. 8:22). From a Christian perspective, sin could be understood as structural violence, because it describes different systems of oppression, including ecological destruction (Conradie 2020, pp. 5–6).

Our research showed that Russian and Ukrainian Orthodox and Evangelical Christians did not explicitly express that there was a strong link between the Christian doctrine of original sin and contemporary problems of environmental devastation, environmental injustice, and widespread consumerism. The respondents rarely mentioned original sin (the Fall of man) as a factor that damaged creation. In fact, this was mentioned by only 5% of Evangelical interviewees and 9% of Orthodox participants. One Evangelical respondent said, "*From the moment of our wrongdoing, the ground will produce thorns and thistles*". Of all 151 participants, there was only one interviewee, a Ukrainian Orthodox priest, who tied the Christian doctrine of original sin with the current ecological crisis. He stated:

"*When the Fall happened, everything turned upside down* ... *. Sin changed everything completely (even things that seemed to be under humans' submission) and came to the world through a man. And that is why everything should be fixed by a man. Because of this, Christ is the new Adam who came to set us free from sin, curse, death. Indeed, he set us free*".

Thus, in general it is hard to say if the study's participants would strongly agree with Becker (1992) in the argument that the Christian doctrine of original sin helped clarify Christian understanding of the present ecological crisis (p. 153). It is quite peculiar that in our study only a few respondents mentioned the Christian doctrine of sin. This may suggest that these Christians in Ukraine and Russia tended to separate private religious matters from broader environmental issues and/or their eco-theological conscience operated without interconnecting the doctrine of original sin with the contemporary state of ecology.
