RELIGIOUS LEADERSHIP AND ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERNS. A MINING PROJECT CASE STUDY

Religious leaders are being viewed as agents with influence over environmental opinion and attitude building. In public environmental project impact debate the Christian religious leaders may play an increasingly complex role due to their anthropocentric position. Rosia Montana Gold Corporation is such a project where The Romanian Orthodox Church has taken a position right from the beginning. Our study explores the local impact area religious leaders' attitudes as to the mining project in particular and the overall view of environmental concerns in religious sermon in general. Orthodox, Catholic, Reformed and Baptist representatives have been interviewed. The main conclusion we drew is that environmental concerns can create leadership style dissonances between different hierarchical levels of the same religious hierarchies, but with benefits at the communitarian-religious levels. The practical implications that arise from this and the possible directions for future research are outlined in the final chapter of our study.