THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH
AND CHRISTIAN UNITY
The Rev. Harold Shepherd, CD, M.A., S.T.M., LL.B., LL.M.,
Ph.D.
Sermon from January 16, 2005
Paul, called to be an apostle of
Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes,
to the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are
sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together
with all those who in every place call on the name of our
Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours.. I Corinthians
1: 1-3
According to Acts 18:11, Paul spent eighteen months in
Corinth during his second missionary journey. Acts 18:17
recounts the story of Sosthenes, an official from the
synagogue who had become a Christian, who was seized by
other members of the synagogue, and beaten before the Roman
governor, Gallio. During his third missionary journey,
probably at Ephesus, Paul wrote to the Christians in
Corinth to deal with a number of pastoral and doctrinal
issues. His letter was addressed to the "saints"- those
sanctified in Christ Jesus and set apart for God’s
service. For Paul, the Church is not only local, but
extends to all people in every place who call on the name
of the Lord Jesus. All local churches are united in one
body of Christ universal. Divisions in the Church developed
between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church
of AD 1054, between it and the Protestant Church in the 16h
century, and within Christianity in subsequent years. In
recent years, the ecumenical movement has attempted to
build bridges within the Church universal. According
to A Brief History of the Week of
Prayer by
Nicholas Jesson, "The eventual institution of the Week
of Prayer derives from a recommendation from the Lambeth
Conference in 1878 for "the observance of a special
season for [prayer for reunion] round about Ascension
Day." A particular date was chosen for this observance
by the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1894. It was observed
by the Church of England on Whit Sunday - Pentecost - in
both 1894 and 1895. In 1895, the Roman Catholic Church
in England joined their Anglican neighbours in this
observance in obedience to the request of Pope Leo XIII.
Leo XIII had already "enjoined upon Catholics throughout
the world the first octave or novena of prayer for
Christian Unity to be observed from the feast of the
Ascension to Pentecost." In 1897, in the encyclical
Divinum illud munus, Leo XIII established this novena in
perpetuity.
It was not until 1908 that the octave was observed on the
January dates with which it is commonly associated. Spencer
Jones, a Church of England clergyman, and Lewis Thomas
Wattson, Episcopal clergyman (and founder of the Franciscan
Friars of the Atonement), jointly initiated the observance
as January 18 to 25, the feasts of the Confession (or
Chair) of St. Peter and the Conversion of St. Paul. In
1909, Pope Pius X approved the observance of the new
octave, and extended its observance to the whole Roman
Catholic Church the following year. Though the modern dates
of the Week of Prayer were established in the U.S.A. in
1908, it was Paul Couturier in France who popularized its
observance. In 1935, Couturier appealed for a universal
week of prayer "for the unity Christ wills by the means He
wills." It is for this that he is known as the father of
the Week of Prayer. It was not until the Second Vatican
Council's Decree on Ecumenism (1964) that Roman Catholics
were permitted, and indeed encouraged, to meet together
with other Christians for common prayer for unity.
The dates of January 18 to 25 are still observed annually
throughout the world. In Canada the Week of Prayer is
observed between the two Sundays within which January 25
falls. In the United States and elsewhere, the January 18
to 25 dates are observed more rigidly. The advantage of the
Canadian dates is that there are always two Sunday services
during the observance. There has been some discussion of
moving the Canadian observance to summer dates so as to
avoid winter weather. This change has been resisted so as
to allow Canadian churches to observe the occasion
simultaneously with churches around the world.
Worship and educational materials have been prepared
annually since 1968 by a joint committee of the World
Council of Churches and the Vatican's Pontifical Council
for Promoting Christian Unity. This material is distributed
worldwide in many languages, and is distributed with
supplementary material by local ecumenical centres and
national councils of churches."
This year’s theme is Christ, the one
Foundation of the Church and the Biblical text is I Corinthians 3:
1-23. The Churches in Slovakia have prepared the liturgical
material this year that can be downloaded at the
World Council of Churches
website.