The programme has been published
of the celebration of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity in
Jerusalem.
It will take place later than elsewhere, from 23 to 30
January, out of consideration for the Armenian Orthodox feast of the
Epiphany (which, following the most ancient practice of the Church)
includes also the celebration of the Birth of Christ (“Christmas”) in
accordance with the Julian calendar.
As in most ancient
tradition of the Church, the Armenian Epiphany also includes the
celebration of the Birth of Christ (Christmas).
Ecumenical prayer
services will be held, in the following order; in the Greek Catholic,
Armenian Orthodox, Lutheran, Latin Catholic, Syrian Orthodox, Ethiopian
Orthodox and Anglican churches.
The Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land
will host a service in the Cenacle, the Room of the Last Supper, as well
as the service in the Latin-rite parish church, which is the conventual
church of its principal seat nowadays, St. Saviour’s.
The Greek Orthodox churches in Jerusalem avoids hosting
specifically ecumenical prayer services. To overcome that, Catholics and
Protestants will simply be present at the regular celebration of
“Apodeipnon” (Compline) by the Greek Orthodox monks on Mount Calvary,
within the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre – which the Greeks
suggestively call the Anastasis, the Resurrection - on Saturday, 22
January.
Absent from the list are also houses of worship of significant
Evangelical communities (except for the Anglicans and the Lutherans),
notably the Baptists.
To make the celebration of the Week of Unity specific to Jerusalem, the participating churches have chosen as its theme: “One in the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread and prayer” (cf. Acts 2:42).
They
explain that their purpose is to “call all Christians to rediscover the
values that bound together the early Christian community in Jerusalem.”
Thus they mean to say that, “the Christians of Jerusalem call upon
their brothers and sisters to make this week of prayer an occasion for a
renewed commitment to work for a genuine ecumenism, grounded in the
experience of the early Church.”
In the light of that, these Jerusalem
churches ask of Christians throughout the world to “ remember them in
their precarious situation and to pray for justice that will bring peace
in the Holy Land.”
In the Holy Land, in effect, Christian unity is an existential, not only a theological, imperative.
The
occasional fights between Greek Orthodox and Armenian Orthodox monks at
the Holy Sepulchre are a recurring source of scandal worldwide, and a
cause of great distress to the Catholics who are never involved, are not
allowed to intervene, and are reduced to watching helplessly until the
police restore order.
On a wider scale, the effort to secure the tiny
Christian presence in the Holy Land as a whole can only be rendered that
much more difficult by divisions and disunion.
“That they may all be
one” is therefore a prayer and a task that in this Land have a special
urgency.
SIC: CNA/INT'L