Ecumenical and Inter-Religious Perspectives

Wednesday, January 19th, 2022
12:00 PM Eastern (GMT-5)
Online via Facebook: Join Here

Free and open to the public; the service will remain available online for later viewing.

The 2022 theme for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity was developed by the Middle East Council of Churches based in Beirut, Lebanon, and it refers to Matthew 2:2 – We saw the star in the east, and we came to worship him. Today, more than ever, the Middle East needs a heavenly light to accompany its people. The star of Bethlehem is a sign that God walks with his people, feels their pain, hears their cries, and shows them compassion. It reassures us that though circumstances change and terrible disasters may happen, God’s faithfulness is unfailing. The Lord neither slumbers nor sleeps. He walks beside his people and brings them back when they are lost or in danger. The journey of faith is this walking with God who always watches over his people and who guides us in the complex paths of history and life.

For this Week of Prayer, the Christians of the Middle East chose the theme of the star that rose in the east for a number of reasons. While many Western Christians celebrate Christmas, the more ancient feast, and still the principal feast of many Eastern Christians, is the Epiphany when God’s salvation is revealed to the nations in Bethlehem and at the Jordan. This focus on the theophany (the manifestation) is, in a sense, a treasure which Christians of the Middle East can offer to their brothers and sisters around the world.

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity was first observed in January, 1908. Known then as the Church Unity Octave, it was celebrated in the chapel of a small Atonement Franciscan Convent of the Protestant Episcopal Church, on a remote hillside fifty miles from New York City. This new prayer movement soon caught the imagination of others beyond the Franciscan Friars and Sisters of the Atonement, becoming an energetic movement that gradually blossomed into a worldwide observance involving many nations and millions of people.

Rev. Jared Stahler, an ELCA pastor serving Saint Peter’s Church in New York City, will be the preacher. 

Other Week of Prayer Materials & Daily Reflections

Week of Prayer for Christian Unity materials are still available for purchase (including digital downloads) on the GEII website – please note that orders for physical materials will be processed within two business days, but USPS delays may make digital downloads more reliable as we approach the Week of Prayer.

Other WPCU activities hosted by the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement, including daily reflections and an ecumenical mass on site at Graymoor, will be posted as they are scheduled on the Friars’ website.

Hosting your own Week of Prayer event?

Please share with us (wpcu@geii.org) a description and photos of your event so we may reflect and celebrate the diversity of Prayer Week activities in our coverage of this annual time of ecumenical engagement and outreach.

A great milestone for Ecumenical Trends!

• With our November/December 2021 issue of Ecumenical Trends, GEII concluded the 50th year of the journal’s publication. This celebratory issue, featuring a conversation between ET Editors Fr. James Loughran, SA, and Dr. Aaron Hollander on the history, future, and significance of the journal, is now available for free download on the GEII website. And the first issue of our 51st volume will be available soon – subscribe today and don’t miss a thing!

Stay tuned for other 2022 programming

• Big plans are in the works for programs hosted or co-hosted by GEII in the coming year. More information will be available soon, especially regarding the international Ecclesiological Investigations conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico (June 22-25, 2022), co-sponsored by Graymoor. Visit the conference site, register, or propose a paper today: “Decolonizing Churches: Ecclesiological Investigations International Research Network’s 14th International Conference.”