The “Season of Creation” is an annual month-long Christian celebration of prayer and action to protect creation. It started when September 1 was proclaimed as a day of prayer for creation (World Day of Prayer for Creation, or Creation Day) by Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios I for the Orthodox Church in 1989, and was embraced by the other major Christian European churches in 2001 and by Pope Francis for the Roman Catholic Church in 2015.

Since then, many Christian churches started celebrating the Season of Creation (also known as Creation Time) from September 1 to October 4, the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi. St. Francis is widely associated with nature, and for Catholics, he is the patron saint of those who promotes ecology.

Several statements over the past few years have called the faithful to observe the Season of Creation, such as those of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines in 2003, the Third European Ecumenical Assembly in Sibiu, Romania in 2007 and the World Council of Churches in 2008. Read more