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Bishop Allen Vigneron will lead an ecumenical service
marking the 100th anniversary of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity,
Saturday, Jan. 26, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. at St. Augustine Church, 400
Alcatraz Avenue in Oakland. Joining him will be Father Thomas Paris, dean
of the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Ascension, and representatives
of the Episcopal Church and various Protestant denominations.
The public is invited to attend the service. Atonement Father Paul Ojibway
will give a history of the week dedicated to prayers for the unification
of all Christian churches. Bishop Vigneron will preach.
Since the 18th century, prayers for Christian unity had been urged by
various religious leaders, but the idea took firmer root in 1907 in a
letter from the Rev. Spencer Jones, an Anglican vicar, to the Rev. Paul
Wattson, an Episcopal priest in New York and co-founder of the Society
of the Atonement.
Rev. Jones suggested designating the June 29 feast of Sts. Peter and Paul
as a day of prayer, while Rev. Wattson proposed an octave of prayer from
the feast of the Chair of St. Peter (Jan. 18) to the feast of the Conversion
of St. Paul (Jan. 25). Rev. Wattson and Mother Lurana White, Atonement
co-founder, celebrated the event for the first time in January 1908.
A year later the Society of the Atonement was received into the Catholic
Church and Pope Pius X gave his blessing to the Church Unity Octave to
pray for the healing of divisions among Christians.
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