January 18 – 25
The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is an international Christian ecumenical observance celebrated annually from January 18, the traditional Feast of the Chair of St. Peter, through January 25, the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul. With roots going back over 100 years, the dedicated octave of prayers has been jointly commissioned and prepared since 1966, after the Second Vatican Council, by the Roman Catholic Church’s Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity and the World Council of Churches’ Faith and Order Commission.
Each year Christian churches and communities from a different part of the world develop the theme and materials for the Week of Prayer. During this week-long celebration, Christians are invited to gather with their Christian neighbors to join in prayer for Christian unity.
The 2025 theme for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is Do you believe? (Jn. 11:26)
Jesus announces the truth of the new Covenant to Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, even if they die, will live. Those that believe in me will never die.” He invites a response from Martha when he says, “Do you believe this?”
In 2025, the whole Church commemorates the 1,700th anniversary of the first Ecumenical Council of the entire church at that time, called by the Emperor Constantine at Nicaea (presently in the country of Turkey) in the early summer of 325. The result was an agreed upon Creed, what we today call the Nicene Creed.
This theme, by offering a way to see that faith is not just a static set of beliefs, but an active means of receiving grace, is most appropriate for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity in 2025. If faith can raise the dead and conquer all fear, surely faith will bring us the miracle of unity as Christians. Remembering that division, separation and rejection are symptoms of sin, the healing of the Church comes about in the power of the Holy Spirit. We pray knowing to whom it is we pray, as one community. God wills us to reconcile. God wills us to love one another. God will give those who profess the faith of Martha, of Nicaea and of all the holy ones who have gone before us, the precious gift of unity. (www.geii.org)
- from Graymoor Ecumenical & Interreligious Institute
