Beginnings The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity began in 1908 as the
Octave of Christian Unity, and focused on prayer for church unity. The dates of the week were proposed by Fr
Paul Wattson and
Lurana White, the co-founders of the
Society of the Atonement. Before they became converts to
Catholicism from
Episcopalianism, they conceived of the week beginning with the
Feast of the Chair of Saint Peter, which was then kept on the
General Roman Calendar on January 18 - the day that the Anglican Church kept the
Feast of the Confession of Saint Peter - and concluding with the
Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul on January 25. In 1960 Pope John XXIII removed from the General Roman Calendar the January 18th feast of the Chair of Peter, along with seven other feast days that were second feasts of a single saint or mystery and merged it with the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter at Antioch, kept on February 22. This calendar was incorporated in the 1962 Roman Missal. Hence, only those Catholics who still retain the
General Roman Calendar of 1954 keep the January 18th Feast, although the date continued to serve as the beginning for the Unity Octave. The Feast of the Confession of Peter continues to be observed by Anglican churches on January 18. Pope
Pius X officially blessed the concept, and
Benedict XV "encouraged its observance throughout the entire Roman Catholic Church." For a while, the observance was renamed the "Chair of Unity Octave" by Wattson, in order to emphasize the relationship between Christian unity and the Petrine See (
i.e., the
papacy). Protestant leaders in the mid-1920s also proposed an annual octave of prayer for unity amongst Christians, leading up to
Pentecost Sunday (the traditional commemoration of the establishment of the Church).
Evolution Abbé
Paul Couturier of
Lyon, France, who has been called "the father of spiritual ecumenism", had a slightly different approach from that of Wattson and White. He advocated prayer "for the unity of the Church as Christ wills it, and in accordance with the means he wills", thereby enabling other Christians with differing views of the Petrine ministry to join in the prayer. In 1935, he proposed naming the observance "Universal Week of Prayer for Christian Unity", a proposal accepted by the Catholic Church in 1966. Couturier's message influenced a Sardinian nun,
Maria Sagheddu, whose deep, prayerful, sacrificial devotion to the cause of unity is held up by Rome as an example to be followed. In 1941, the Faith and Order Conference changed the date for observing the week of unity prayer to that observed by Catholics. In 1948, with the founding of the
World Council of Churches, the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity became increasingly recognised by different churches throughout the world. In 1958, the French Catholic group Unité Chrétienne and the
Faith and Order Commission of the
World Council of Churches (a body which includes, among others, most of the world's Orthodox churches as well as many Anglican, Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist, Reformed, United and Independent churches) begin co-operative preparation of materials for the Week of Prayer. The year 1968 saw the first official use of materials prepared jointly by the Faith and Order Commission and the
Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, representing the entire Catholic Church. Collaboration and cooperation between these two organizations has increased steadily since, resulting recently in joint publications in the same format. ==Observation==