2011 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity - Jerusalem

The Churches from all round the world will focus their attention on their "Mother Church", the church of the first Christians, in Jerusalem as they observe the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity in January 2011.

Recalling first century harmony as well as experience of historical and contemporary challenges to unity, the Churches and communities of Jerusalem have prepared material with the theme, "One in the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread and prayer," a phrase from the Acts of the Apostles.

Zenit reports (14 July 2010) that the retired Patriarch Michel Sabbah of Jerusalem of the Latins was among those who collaborated with Orthodox, Lutheran and Episcopal officials and other Christian leaders to prepare the resources.

In the introduction they explain, "The call for unity this year comes to churches all over the world from Jerusalem, the mother church. ... Mindful of its own divisions and its own need to do more for the unity of the Body of Christ, the churches in Jerusalem call all Christians to rediscover the values that bound together the early Christian community in Jerusalem, when they devoted themselves to the Apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

"This is the challenge before us. The Christians of Jerusalem call upon their brothers and sisters to make this week of prayer an occasion for a renewed commitment to work for a genuine ecumenism, grounded in the experience of the early Church."

The Week of Prayer began as the Church Unity Octave, an Anglican-Papalist initiative in 1908 led by Father Paul Wattson in the US and the Revd Spencer Jones in England. When Fr Paul and his Franciscan community entered the Roman Catholic Church, the Octave became established in the Catholic world. In 1933 it was re-imagined as the Week of Universal Prayer for the Unity of Christians by Fr Paul Couturier in Lyons and gained in popularity among Catholics, Orthodox, Lutherans, Anglicans and Reformed Christians, as well as people of other faiths. After Couturier's death, in the wake of the Second Vatican Council, the Week of Prayer was entrusted to the World Council of Churches and the Secretariat (now the Pontifical Council) for Promoting Christian Unity as a joint venture.

The international resources for the 2011 Week of Prayer can be found here on the Vatican website. The UK version, developed by Churches Together in Britain and Ireland is available here.