Week of Prayer for Christian Unity celebrates 100 years of ecumenical commitment
Episcopal News Service. January 18, 2008 [011808-01]
Matthew Davies
Christians around the world are observing an important ecumenical milestone this week as the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity celebrates 100 years of inspiring international events that recognize the importance of prayer and promote unity between different Christian traditions.
The Week of Prayer is observed in most countries between the Feast of the Confession of St. Peter (January 18) and the Conversion of St. Paul (January 25). In 2008, the theme is "Pray without ceasing," a Biblical verse taken from St. Paul's First Letter to the Thessalonians (1 Thes. 5:17).
Information and resources pertaining to the Week of Prayer are available here.
Bishop Christopher Epting, the Presiding Bishop's deputy for Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations, acknowledged the importance of Christians uniting in prayer and commended the numerous local expressions of the 2008 Week of Prayer in which Episcopalians are involved.
"Lively conciliar ecumenism and the many full communion relationships which have been established over these last 100 years are tangible evidence of Prayer for Christian Unity," said Epting. "As Cardinal Walter Kasper has said, 'Ecumenical work is a spiritual task and can be nothing other than participation in the High Priestly Prayer of Jesus...this means prayer, especially common ecumenical prayer, for the unity of Christians.'"
The Week of Prayer was first realized when, in 1908 at Graymoor in Garrison, New York, the Franciscan Friars and Sisters of the Atonement held the first Church Unity Octave. They have prayed for Christian unity "without ceasing" ever since, the Week of Prayer website notes. "Today, Christians around the world celebrate the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity Together, with the encouragement of the World Council of Churches' Faith and Order Commission and the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity."
A list of events and observances for the Week of Prayer are available here.
A 12:10 p.m. Eucharist at the Chapel of Christ the King, 815 Second Avenue, New York City, inaugurates the 2008 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity for the Episcopal Church Center community. As the week concludes on Friday, January 25, the Rev. David Henritzy, a Methodist minister, will join Epting at the altar to celebrate the Episcopal Church's interim Eucharistic agreement with the United Methodist Church. Henritzy will also preach at the 12:10 p.m. Eucharist service. All are welcome to attend.
At Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., students will gather at noon during each day of the Octave for prayer, discussion, and fellowship.
In London, England, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams is the preacher for a special January 18, 5 p.m. observation at Westminster Abbey (http://www.westminster-abbey.org), sponsored by Churches Together in Britain and Ireland.
Also in London, on January 19 at 10 a.m., a Unity Walk will feature a tour of Anglican, Presbyterian, Roman Catholic, Salvation Army and religious community churches and buildings, starting at Our Lady of La Salette & St. Joseph, Melior Street in Southwark.
A January 19 celebration in Boston University's Marsh Chapel at 11 a.m. will welcome guest preacher the Rev. Dr. James Forbes, senior minister emeritus of the Riverside Church in Manhattan, and the Drew University Ubuntu Pan-African Choir. The service will also include the installation of the Rev. Jack Johnson as the ninth executive director of the Massachusetts Council of Churches.
In downtown Toronto at St. Paul's Roman Catholic Basilica on January 20, Anglican Church of Canada Primate Fred Hiltz will preach at a 4 p.m. city-wide ecumenical service.
At Washington National Cathedral on January 20, a 4 p.m. Evensong will include Mary Reath, author of "Rome & Canterbury: The Elusive Search for Unity," as homilist. A reception and book signing at the Cathedral College will follow.
In Rome, on January 24, an afternoon of reflection and prayer at the Centro Pro Unione, Via Santa Maria dell'Anima, 30, 1st floor (Piazza Navona), will culminate with a 4:30 p.m. presentation of an award to the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches. The presentation will include a lecture by Walter Cardinal Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, followed by an ecumenical celebration of the Word. The Rt. Rev. John Flack, director of the Anglican Centre in Rome, will preside and the Rev. Dr. John Gibaut, director of the Faith and Order Commission, will preach.
St. Mark's Cathedral in Seattle, Washington, will be the venue for a January 25 celebration at 7 p.m. sponsored by Church Council of Greater Seattle in cooperation with its 15 member denominations.
"Although prayer is certainly at the heart of Christian life, praying together is not an easy exercise for churches within worldwide Christendom," said the Rev. Kersten Storch, a German Lutheran pastor who works for the World Council of Churches. "Even today, common prayers are exceptional events rather than part of the daily life of the churches."
Although the week is marked from January 18-25 in most parts of the world, some countries in the southern hemisphere use another time, such as Pentecost.
Since the mid-1960s, biblical and liturgical materials for the week have been published by the Vatican and the WCC's Commission on Faith and Order, in a joint effort by the Roman Catholic Church and the WCC.
"This year's theme...highlights the fact that Christians and churches cannot cease to pray for the unity of all," said Storch. "The divisions, which are still a reality between and within the churches, do not simply follow denominational lines. They are often, at least to some extent, rooted in ethnic or national identities, in issues of race, social status, gender or sexuality, exclusion of people with disabilities or of those living with HIV/AIDS."
In Geneva, the central event on January 20 will highlight the meaning of prayer for unity in a world of conflict and distress. Dominican sister Sheila Flynn from Ireland will share her experience of working with people living with HIV/AIDS in South Africa. The Rev. Pierre Wallière, from the Nazarene Church in Haiti, will speak about his work with youth in a context of violence, and the reconciliation ministry of churches in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
Pope Benedict XVI reiterated the call to "pray without ceasing," in remarks during his general audience at the Vatican on January 16. "It is indeed necessary to pray without ceasing, insistently asking God for the great gift of unity among all the Lord's disciples," said the pontiff. "May the endless strength of the Holy Spirit move us to a sincere commitment to seek unity, so that all together we may profess that Jesus is the one Saviour of the world."
Each year, a local ecumenical group in a different part of the world is given responsibility to prepare the materials for the annual prayer week.
"It was the tradition of preparing together for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity which led churches in Slovakia to the idea of preparing a special ecumenical celebration when the country entered into the European Union in 2004," Storch notes. "In Jerusalem - one of the places where the divisions within Christianity have often become visible in the most distressing ways - the impact of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity on the life of the churches is confirmed by the fact that opportunities for common prayer multiply almost spontaneously."
The 100th anniversary marks the proposal in January 1908 by the Rev. Paul Wattson, then a North American Episcopal priest and Mother Lurana White, co-founders of a small religious community, to dedicate January 18-25 to prayers for Christian unity.
Wattson and White envisaged unity as a re-union of Christendom under the Pope's authority -- they themselves later joined the Catholic Church -- and the week was primarily Catholic in orientation.
In 1926, the Faith and Order movement, one of the church unity initiatives that led to the formation of the WCC in 1948, began publishing "Suggestions for an octave of prayer for Christian unity". In 1935, Abbé Paul Couturier, a Catholic priest of the Archdiocese of Lyon in France, worked to encourage prayers for unity between Catholics and non-Catholic Christians.
The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity cannot provide a solution to all the problems and divisions that face churches, notes Storch. But, she adds, "its celebration every year is a victory over divisions, because it expresses the unity which Christians do have in Christ."