Week of Prayer and Longing for Unity

Professor Dr. Michel Abs

Secretary General of the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC)

At the start of each year, Christians gather to pray together for a week, commonly called the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. This week, repeated for over a century, has become part of Christian life and relationships among Christians.

Anyone observing the process will realize that the Week of Prayer has expanded to reach additional churches and believers worldwide, clearly reflecting Christians’ longing to be one in Christ, as He commanded us when He was among us on earth.

Overcoming the divisions that Christianity has experienced for a long time is not easy, those divisions that persisted for lengthy eras, creating rifts among believers of one faith, though many elements of Christian doctrine have remained unified.

Praying together, expressing together the faith, values, emotions, and aspirations within us, is wonderful. Equally important is the growing shared Christian (ecumenical) effort—through the formation of national and regional church councils worldwide and ongoing dialogue among these member churches, which extends to the Catholic world. Notably, Catholic churches are members of many of these church councils.

The increase in common ground between historically distant, even hostile, churches and denominations is proof of a certain unity-focused maturity in the Christian world, partly driven by leading figures in the quest for Christian unity. It is no coincidence that this development has run parallel to the rise of freedom movements, human rights, and the acceptance of differences as a blessing, not a curse. These cultural and value shifts changed the face of the world and clearly affected global Christianity. This progress can help reduce takfir (religious denunciation) and hate speech, which threatens all humanity and could return it to the dark age.

When believers pray together, addressing the Lord with one voice in various texts and hymns—reflecting the diversity of civilizations and cultures that have embraced salvific faith—it is the highest act we can perform to fulfill the commandments of the Lord who became incarnate for us.

That this tradition has continued for more than a century, becoming part of our daily life and spreading worldwide, is evidence of a collective longing for unity, expressed in many forms.

I conclude my words at the beginning of the Week of Prayer by saying to you, “For many more years in the unity of the Church.”