During the month of January, Christians around the world unite their prayers together during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (18-25 January). Whilst this week is a particularly graced time of seeking unity among Christians, it is a year-round undertaking. Glenstal Abbey’s Father Martin Browne OSB of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity talks here to the Anglican Communion Office about this task:
Can you tell us more about the work of the Dicastery? How would you summarise its purpose?
‘Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity’ is a long name, and includes a word that is unfamiliar to many, but its meaning is very simple. It is the office in Rome responsible for ecumenism – the quest for unity among Christians. That involves promoting ecumenism and ecumenical initiatives within the Catholic Church, but it also involves engaging in dialogue and cooperation with Christians of other traditions. For example, among the Dicastery’s many relationships, we have two separate commissions working with the Anglican Communion – the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC), which has been engaged in formal theological dialogue since the 1960s, and the International Anglican-Roman Catholic Commission for Unity and Mission (IARCCUM), which promotes practical cooperation between bishops of our two communions.
Why is the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity so important in the life of the Church?
In short, because Jesus prayed for it and Christians need to take him seriously! Dialogue and cooperation nurture unity, but ultimately, Christian Unity is God’s gift, and we need to pray for it. Of course, we should pray for this gift throughout the year, but a dedicated Week of Prayer is graced time each year to pray about Christian Unity with particular intensity. The fact that the prayers and reflections come from a different part of the world each year, but are used by Christians in all parts of the globe, is itself a powerful expression and foretaste of the unity for which we pray.
What does it mean to work for Christian Unity? Why do you feel called to this ministry?
One of the fundamental vocations of the Church is to bear witness to and share the Good News of Jesus Christ. To be a Christian, regardless of one’s particular tradition, is to be evangelical – in the sense of being one who believes in and shares the Gospel. Christian disunity is a countersign. It weakens our capacity to be credible witnesses in the world. How can we expect unbelievers to take Christianity seriously if Christians are marked by division and discord? It is as simple as that. The conviction that what unites Christians is infinitely more significant than what divides us has been central to my own believing and belonging for many years. To find even small ways of experiencing and expressing that unity felt like a key part of my vocation even before I found my way to monastic life and ordination. That I now find myself working full-time in Rome on this quest is an extraordinary privilege.
What excites you about the work of IARCCUM?
IARCCUM is unique! It recognises that while Catholics and Anglicans have not been able to establish a full communion relationship, over half a century of dialogue and walking together has caused them to discover how deep – though still incomplete – is the communion we already share. It challenges our two communions to take practical steps to manifest that communion in the way we minister alongside one another. It invites bishops from our two communions to take the lead in bearing witness to that relationship.
In practical terms, IARCCUM has organised two joint pilgrimages for bishops in the last ten years. I was closely involved in the pilgrimage of January 2024. It gathered over 50 bishops, in pairs, Anglican and Roman Catholic, from throughout the world for a week of walking, talking and praying together, first in Rome and then in Canterbury. During the Vespers at the Basilica of St Paul outside the Walls marking the end of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury jointly commissioned the bishops to “together bear witness to the hope that does not deceive and the unity for which our Saviour prayed” and to “be for the world a foretaste of the reconciling of all Christians in the unity of the one and only Church of Christ”. It was an immensely moving experience. Their evident respect and affection for one another as co-workers for the Kingdom, along with their impromptu sharing in the ministry of preaching, made the words of commissioning that they spoke to the gathered bishops all the more powerful. It can be done!
What encouragements would you give to Anglicans who are seeking to strengthen church unity and encourage ecumenism in their contexts?
I call to mind some words from Pope Francis when he welcomed the participants in the Anglican Communion Primates’ Meeting to Rome last May. “The Lord calls each of us to be a builder of unity and, even if we are not yet one, our imperfect communion must not prevent us from walking together.” He went on to quote from Pope John Paul II’s great encyclical on Christian Unity, Ut Unum Sint, saying that relations between Christians “presuppose and from now on call for every possible form of practical cooperation at all levels: pastoral, cultural and social, as well as that of witnessing to the Gospel message”. The Pope underlined his belief that our differences do not diminish the importance of the things that unite us. I have a sense that this could be an important intuition for relationships within the Anglican Communion as well as for relationships between Anglicans and other Christians. Pope Francis also reiterated a statement he made with Archbishop Justin in 2016, saying that our differences “cannot prevent us from recognizing one another as brothers and sisters in Christ by reason of our common baptism”.
– Lambeth Conference, “What unites Christians is infinitely more significant than what divides us” – Reverend Martin Browne on Christian Unity,” 16 January 2025, https://shorturl.at/0p7mB.