Churches worldwide are coming together to adopt a major new Christian festival: the Feast of Creation, also known as Creation Sunday.
From 2024-2025, all the major Christian denominations and networks gathered for two ecumenical councils in Assisi, Italy. Through this time of prayer, discussion and friendship, they have agreed to mark the first Sunday in September as a day to celebrate the Creator God and the mystery of creation in Christ. From Eastern Orthodox, to Pentecostals, to Roman Catholics, to Mennonites, Anglicans and more, the world’s Christian traditions are uniting around the conviction that celebrating, praying for and protecting God’s creation is essential to the Christian life.
Rev. Dr. Dave Bookless, Head of Theology for A Rocha International, attended the first Assisi conference, and offers his reflection:
The first Assisi conference was an extraordinary time of listening, learning and sharing with global church leaders, liturgists and theologians from across the global Christian spectrum. Held outdoors when possible, the plenary sessions and discussions were bathed in worship. We concluded with a pilgrimage up Mount Subasio where St Francis used to pray surrounded by nature.
The Feast of Creation coincides with the Season of Creation, which is a more extended celebration from 1 September to 4 October each year. The Season of Creation activities are coordinated by an ecumenical steering committee, of which A Rocha International’s Kuki Rokhum is a member. Our Head of Theology, Rev. Dr. Dave Bookless, also participates through the Season’s Advisory Committee, which provides theological and liturgical expertise.
From ancient eastern origins to the modern world
The first of September has ancient roots as a day of beginnings. Before the time of Christ, the ‘early rains’ of September marked the beginning of the agricultural year. Beginning in the 7th century, Byzantine tradition marked the creation of the cosmos on 1 September, and it came to be celebrated as the beginning of the liturgical year. This also parallels the Jewish calendar, which celebrates its New Year, the feast of Rosh Hashanah, around the Autumn Equinox.
‘I want creation to penetrate you with so much wonder that everywhere, wherever you may be, the least plant may bring you to clear remembrance of the Creator.’
St. Basil the Great, Hexaemeron V. 2
This ancient tradition became more relevant than ever as ecological crises worsened around the world. In 1989, based on this ‘sign of the times’, the Orthodox Church’s Ecumenical Patriarch Demetrios I invited the entire Christian world to celebrate the World Day of Prayer for Creation on 1 September. Two years later, the newly elected Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I (known as ‘The Green Patriarch’) convened an unprecedented ecological gathering of leaders to extend this celebration throughout the Orthodox Church.
This invitation led to an ecumenical explosion. The World Council of Churches was instrumental in extending the celebration to a ‘Season of Creation, lasting from 1 September until 4 October, the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi. Christians worldwide have embraced the season as part of their annual calendar. Pope Francis established the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation in the Roman Catholic Church in 2015, and in 2019 started officially celebrating the Season of Creation, as well. Pope Leo XIV has since added a ‘Mass for the Care of Creation’ to the Missal.
An ‘Ecumenical Kairos’ in Assisi
There is now ecumenical dialogue underway around the Feast of Creation that is unprecedented in the long history of Christianity. A series of theological dialogues beginning in 2024 has become known as the ‘Assisi Process’, which brings together 13 Christian world communions and various ecumenical bodies to discuss how they may adopt the Feast of Creation or Creation Sunday in their own context.
The process has revealed a pressing need to revitalize the doctrine of creation as central to Christian theology. The central concept drafted during the process is: ‘The Feast of Creation commemorates God’s act of creation of all things through Christ, also leading to praise the Holy Trinity as Creator and to cherish the created order as sacramental and covenantal.’
In May 2025, the second Assisi conference marked the 1,700th anniversary of the Ecumenical Council of Nicea. Since 325, the Nicene Creed has signified a bond of peace and communion between Christians. Fittingly, the Feast of Creation is grounded in the Creed’s proclamation of our faith in the Triune God that the Creed describes: ‘God the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth’; Jesus Christ, who is ‘true God from true God… through [whom] all things were made’; and the Holy Spirit, who is ‘the giver of life’.
As we enter the third millennium of Christianity, the Assisi process is a powerful sign of communion amongst the global Christian family. It is also a prophetic gesture that the Church is responding to the groaning of creation. Â Â Â
‘If the Assisi process continues to develop and reach its goal it might become a landmark in the history of Christianity. Looking back into the second millennium, there seems to be only one precedent: the Feast of the Transfiguration, originally celebrated in the East and then adopted in the West in 1456… This ecumenical process, with Western and Eastern churches discerning together a new feast, is ‘new territory’ for our contemporary churches – and a very promising opportunity.’
Bishop Bedford-Strohm
A united creation theology
In part, the Feast of Creation is about celebrating ‘Creation as the created world’, gifted by God to us. More importantly, however, it is about thanking and praising our Creator God by celebrating ‘Creation as foundational mystery’ of our Christian faith. At the Assisi gatherings, a wide group of church leaders, liturgical scholars, theologians from other disciplines and ecumenists discussed what should be core to this Creation Day, and how they might implement it in their own contexts.
Who attended the Assisi process?
- World Council of Churches
- Middle East Council of Churches
- Anglican Communion
- Baptist World Alliance
- Catholic Church – various bodies*
- Coptic Orthodox Church
- Ecumenical Patriarchate (Eastern Orthodox)
- Disciples of Christ
- Lutheran World Federation
- Mennonite World Conference
- Moravian Church
- Pentecostal World Fellowship
- Salvation Army
- World Communion of Reformed Churches
- World Evangelical Alliance
- World Methodist Council
Just as other feasts throughout the liturgical year reveal the mysteries of Christ, the Feast of Creation invites Christians to contemplate the multifaceted mystery of creation through a Christ-centered lens. While discussions are ongoing, four main themes have emerged in the Assisi process so far:
- God’s act of creation: At the core of the feast is remembering God’s act of creating the heavens and the earth. It is a holy mystery that God created ‘out of nothing’ (ex nihilo) and before time (‘in the beginning’). God’s creative activity is continuous (creatio continua) and ongoing, even today. It is also ‘creation out of love’ (creatio ex amore): not from necessity, but from divine freedom and generosity. Through the feast, we offer thanksgiving and praise to God who brought the world – and us – into being.
- Creation as Christological mystery: Jesus Christ is at the centre of the liturgical year, with each feast exploring a different dimension of his mysterious nature. The Feast of Creation invites us to contemplate Christ’s role in the act of creation. All things were created by the eternal Word (logos): in him, through him and for him (Colossians 1:16). Christ is the Alpha and Omega: the one through whom all things were made, and also the one through whom all things are redeemed.
- Creation as Trinitarian mystery: As explained in the Nicene Creed, the three divine persons of the Trinity act inseparably in the creative work. This relational communion between Father, Son and Holy Spirit is reflected in the interdependence of all beings in the created world. Creation is also brought into Trinitarian love: all creatures proceed from the Father and return to the Father through Christ in the power of the Spirit.
- Creation as sacramental and covenantal: Finally, the feast recognizes creation as a sacramental reality that reveals and mediates the presence of its Creator. Although God is transcendent, we encounter his love in and through the created order, which is filled with his presence. The feast is also a time to lament and repent of the ways that humans have desecrated God’s gift of creation through sin. Instead, we are reminded to cherish creation, and to love what God loves. God’s love for creation is so profound, in fact, that the Creator became a creature to establish the New Covenant (John 3:16), which includes the redemption of all creatures.
For much of Christian history, the Church has not embraced its mandate to care for God’s creation, either through complicity and inaction, or through actively harming what God called ‘very good’ (Genesis 1:31). But around the world, laypeople, theologians, activists and clergy have called on the Church to participate in Christ’s healing and reconciliation of all creation. We are beginning to see the fruits of this labor.
While the Assisi process is ongoing, we encourage you to celebrate the Feast of Creation / Creation Sunday on the first Sunday of September! You might also consider joining the longer celebration of the Season of Creation from 1 September – 4 October. This year’s theme is ‘Living Water’, based on Ezekiel 47:1-12, which portrays God’s life-giving water flowing from the temple of God. Visit the A Rocha Resource Hub to learn how you can celebrate the Feast of Creation in your own tradition and for the Season of Creation Celebration Guide.
