Members of local Christian denominations will gather at St. Lawrence Roman Catholic Church on Cree Road at 7 p.m. tonight for a service marking the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, held from Jan. 18 to 25.
The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, an expression of the worldwide ecumenical movement among Christians to heal the divisions within the Church and to promote dialogue among churches and Christian communities, has roots going back more than a century and every year from Jan. 18-25, Christians are encouraged to pray together as a sign of unity.
Rev. Paul Wattson, an American Episcopal priest, and Mother Lurana White, co-founders of the Society of the Atonement-Graymoor, a small group of Franciscan sisters and friars, started the Church Unity Octave in 1908.
Wattson proposed an eight-day octave observance of prayers, sermons and conferences between the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter on Jan. 18 and the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul on Jan. 25.
The sisters and the Friars, along with 13 lay associates, entered the Roman Catholic Church in 1909.
The Roman Catholic Church supports the week at its highest Vatican levels through the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, which is in dialogue with Anglicans, Methodists, World Alliance of Reformed Churches, Orthodox and Pentecostals through the International Dialogue Between Some Classical Pentecostal Churches and Leaders and the Catholic Church.
