Why Christian Unity?

Jan 17, 2025

Reminiscing Church - Richard Chia
The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (WPCU) is an ecumenical Christian observance that is celebrated worldwide. This year, the World Council of Churches (WCC) together with the Catholic Church’s Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity (DPCU) has set January 18-25 2025 and has chosen the theme Do you believe this? (John 11:26).

This year 2025 will mark the 1,700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council in the year 325 in Nicaea. This commemoration celebrates the common faith of Christians as expressed in the Nicene Creed.

“Unity”, according to the dictionary, is defined as a noun, meaning “the state of being joined together or in agreement or working together”. In the Church context, Christian unity is a process, a journey and a work-in-progress.

Historically, the followers of Jesus Christ had undergone many divisions and splits (called schisms) since the first major schism in the year 1054, with the division of the Eastern and Western Churches. Down through the centuries, the many Christian heresies (false or erroneous teachings) caused further breakage from the mainstream Church. This resulted in many Church Fathers or Church Doctors that emerged, that has shaped the Christian theology today.

The big schism that occurred in the 16th century, called the Protestant Reformation, resulted in numerous Christian groups being formed. They in turn underwent their own schism, causing many splinter groups, which grew, and now form one of the many thousands of Christian denominations globally.

I will not dwell on the reasons for the schisms, as that will fall under the realm of Church history. Instead, this article focuses on why today the idea of ecumenism (the promotion of unity among the world’s Christian Churches) is being championed by Our Holy Father and the WCC. The WPCU began in 1908 and focused on prayer for Church unity. By annually observing the WPCU, Christians move toward the fulfilment of Jesus' prayer at the Last Supper "that they all may be one." (John 17:21).

In the beginning, the prayer for Christian unity was for the unspoken purpose of praying for the return of non-Catholic Christians to the Catholic Church. Needless to say, such an observance would not attract many of our separated brothers and sisters to the prayer. It was subsequently changed to "for the unity of the Church as Christ wills it, and in accordance with the means He wills". The desire for Christians to pray together was part of the spirit of the age.

Pope Benedict XVI, in his General Audience on the first day of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity in 2012, asked, "How can we give a convincing witness if we are divided?".

The prayers, prepared and published jointly by the DPCU and the WCC’s Commission on Faith and Order, contains resources, guidelines, biblical texts to share and instructions for preparing the ecumenical worship service. The local Churches will use these and develop into a prayer session with each participating Church taking turns to lead various sections of the worship service.

In Malaysia, where Christianity is practised by only 10 per cent of the population, we must remain united, at least in prayer. WPCU is celebrated in different ways with different intensities, depending on the organisers, comprising of participating churches.

At the national level, the Christian Federation of Malaysia (CFM), together with various Catholic dioceses may organise ecumenical prayers, bringing together many neighbouring churches. In the past, participating churches numbered ten or more, with the organising team meeting regularly months ahead. Some parishes may organise prayers at area, district, vicariate or deanery levels as well.

Every aspect of the ecumenical prayer is discussed and agreed upon, including what hymn to sing, which Church is to do which prayer, and who is to deliver the sermon, etc. It is both challenging and an eye-opener to realise how different and yet how similar we are in our approach to community prayer. One example I noticed, in the Catholic Church, a lector (or reader) always bows to the front upon ascending the lectern. This is because we have been taught to bow to the tabernacle and altar in front. But, when the ecumenical prayer service is held elsewhere, readers from the other Churches do not bow, perhaps because there is no tabernacle and no altar present.

In Sabah and Sarawak where integration among the diverse groups are better, ecumenical prayers are not confined to just one week in a year. Last year, the Association of Churches in Sarawak, together with the Catholic Church, organised an ecumenical prayer service in conjunction with the 61st Sarawak Day Celebration.

Obviously, there is lots of room for improvements in promoting Prayers for Christian Unity. Ideally it should be ingrained in us to do so naturally. We are not there yet. Thus, the reason I started by saying that “Christian unity is a process, a journey and a work-in-progress”.

For those who have yet to experience these ecumenical prayer services, praying together in solidarity with our Christian sisters and brothers brings us together in oneness. It helps us recognise our commonalities, rather than our differences. It gives us opportunities to visit each other’s places of worship, and hold joint meetings with a common purpose. Most of all, it helps us relate and bond with our Christian brothers and sisters.

Allocating one week a year to Christian unity is hardly enough, but it is a great start. If every Catholic lay faithful makes it a point to want to, and pray with our brothers and sisters in Christ, we will be one step closer to Christian unity. It should not be confined to our clergy and bishops to pray for Christian unity.

If you haven’t already done so, do sign up to participate and invite others to join in this year’s Prayer for Christian Unity Week, at a church near you.

Richard Chia reflects on the Church in Malaysia’s journey over the past forty years, highlighting its challenges, achievements, and progress toward embracing synodality. 

(The views expressed are entirely the writer’s own.)