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Archdiocese of Chicago Observes the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity Jan. 18 - 25, 2025

Chicagoland Christian Churches to pray together throughout the week

Chicago (Jan. 17, 2025) – The Archdiocese of Chicago will join other local Christian churches in praying for unity during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, beginning on Saturday, Jan. 18. Started in 1908, the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is celebrated annually around the world. Those eight days form an “octave” from the traditional feast day of the Confession of St. Peter to the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul.

“In an increasingly fractured world, Christian unity is not just a pious hope,” said Cardinal Blase Cupich, archbishop of Chicago. “It is essential to becoming a truly synodal Church where dialogue and discernment are not occasional events, but the very fabric of our lives and actions. Only by building bridges of understanding and trust among different Christian communities can we step toward greater, visible unity. That is the challenge this Jubilee Year offers us as we are called to be ‘Pilgrims of Hope’.”

The theme for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity in 2025, Do you believe? (Jn. 11:26), is based on the passage from the Gospel of John where Jesus arrives in Bethany and raises Lazarus from the dead. A part of that story is the encounter between Jesus and Martha, at the end of which Martha confesses faith in Jesus as the Messiah and Son of God.

The theme was chosen in recognition of the 1700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council of Christian Churches called by the Emperor Constantine at Nicaea (presently Turkey) in A.D. 325 resulting in what Christians today call the Nicene Creed. During the Council the words “I believe” were chosen to anchor the creed as an instrument of universal Christian unity.

This year, the theme was proposed by the ecumenical monastic community of Bose in Italy, in cooperation with the international team appointed by the Vatican Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity and the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches.

The following are local ecumenical prayer services commemorating the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity:

Saturday, Jan. 18 at 5 p.m.

  • Living Word Community Church, 5407 S. Hyde Park Blvd., Chicago

Sunday, Jan. 26 at 7 p.m.

  • St. Michael Parish, 310 S. Wheaton Ave., Wheaton

For more information, please visit https://eia.archchicago.org/ or call 312.534.5325.