Week of Prayer for Christian Unity celebrates beginnings of modern ecumenical movement
Episcopal News Service. January 20, 2010 [012010-02]
Matthew Davies
The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity includes a Scottish flavor this year as Christians around the world remember the 100th anniversary of the 1910 World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh that is widely regarded as a major milestone in the modern ecumenical movement.
Each year, an ecumenical group in a different part of the world prepares the materials for the annual prayer week, which runs Jan. 18-15. For the 2010 Week of Prayer, a Scottish ecumenical group, brought together by Action of Churches Together in Scotland (ACTS), helped to develop the resources.
"This Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is our recommitment to that unity that Christ prayed for his disciples," said the Rev. Tom Ferguson, the Episcopal Church's interim deputy for ecumenical and interreligious relations, citing a biblical reference from John 17:20-21. "We as Episcopalians are committed to that in our dialogues and relationships both locally in the United States and through our engagement with the ecumenical work of the Anglican Communion."
The theme of this year's Week of Prayer, "You are witnesses of these things," is also being used to celebrate the centenary of the 1910 missionary conference at an event in Edinburgh in June.
The theme "has particular resonance, perhaps more so than when the theme was chosen," said Ferguson. "We are witnesses to the heart-rending images of the suffering and devastation in Haiti; this year, may they be a call to us to be one in mission and service to our brothers and sisters."
Although the annual Week of Prayer is observed in most parts of the world between the Feast of the Confession of St. Peter (Jan. 18) and the Conversion of St. Paul (Jan. 25), some countries in the southern hemisphere use another season, such as Pentecost.
The Week of Prayer was first realized in 1908 at Graymoor in Garrison, New York, when the Franciscan Friars and Sisters of the Atonement held the first Church Unity Octave.
Each year the Friars and Sisters of the Atonement around the world join with Christians of every denomination as they pray for Christian unity during the Week of Prayer.
In 2008, Christians around the world observed an important ecumenical milestone as the annual Week of Prayer celebrated 100 years of international events that recognize the importance of prayer and promote unity between different Christian traditions.
"During the past century reconciliation between Christians has taken on very different forms," said Fr. Tom Orians, associate director of the Graymoor Ecumenical and Interreligious Institute. "Spiritual ecumenism has shown how important prayer is for Christian unity and great energy has been put into theological research which has led to major steps in the theological dialogues between the leaders of numerous Christian denominations. Over the years the Spirit has inspired practical cooperation between churches in the social field which have given birth to numerous fruitful cooperative initiatives."
Several Episcopal parishes throughout the U.S. are holding events and services for the Week of Prayer. Check with your local parish or diocese for details of events in your area.
The Rev. John Gibaut, director of the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches, said that "the unexpected intuition to flash forth" from the 1910 conference "was the awareness that Christian disunity is destructive to the very mission of the church, and the corresponding search for Christian unity began."
Gibaut's comments were made during a Jan. 18 sermon in a service at the WCC headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, to mark the beginning of the Week of Prayer, according to an Ecumenical News International report.
The Edinburgh conference was one of the initiatives that led to the founding in 1948 of the WCC, which now gathers 349 churches, including most of the world's Orthodox, Anglican and Protestant churches, the ENI report noted.
"Something unexpected happened [in Edinburgh], and we rightly identify that 'something' as the beginning of the modern ecumenical movement," said Gibaut, a Canadian Anglican. "The insight of our ecumenical pioneers at the Edinburgh missionary conference in 1910 is that witness to the things of Christ's resurrection will only be effective if Christians are united with one another."
Biblical and liturgical materials for the prayer week have been published since 1968 in a joint effort by the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and the WCC's Faith and Order Commission.
Information and resources about the Week of Prayer are available on the Graymoor Ecumenical and Interreligious Institute website. Resources for the Week of Prayer are also available on the WCC website here.