Meeting to prepare materials for 2025 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity
From 11 to 15 September, an international committee jointly sponsored by the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity (DPCU) and the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches (WCC) met at the monastery of Bose near Magnano in Piedmont, Italy to finalise the texts and prayers for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 2025. The drafting of the materials had been entrusted to the brothers and sisters of the monastic community of Bose by the WCC and the DPCU.
The year 2025 marks the 1,700th anniversary of the first Christian Ecumenical Council, held in Nicaea, near Constantinople in 325. This commemoration provides a unique opportunity to reflect on and celebrate the common faith of Christians, as expressed in the Creed formulated during this Council. The materials prepared for the 2025 Week of Prayer invite congregations and individuals to draw on this shared heritage and to enter more deeply into the faith that unites all Christians. It is with this in mind that the guiding biblical text for the week, John 11:17-27, was chosen. The theme for the week, “Do you believe this?” (v. 26), comes from the dialogue between Jesus and Martha when Jesus visited the home of Martha and Mary in Bethany following the death of their brother Lazarus. The proposed Ecumenical Celebration of the Word of God during the Week of Prayer is centred on the meaning of believing and the affirmation of faith, both personal and communal, while the texts provided for reflection on each of the eight days highlight in turn key statements of the Nicene Creed.
Bose is a community of monks and nuns seeking God in obedience to the Gospel and living in fraternal communion and celibacy. Established in 1968, Bose has from the beginning been both a mixed community and an ecumenical one, with Christians belonging to different churches among the first to take vows in 1973. The life of the brothers and sisters at Bose is a cenobitic one, built on prayer and work, in order to accomplish their one real “work”: believing and living in the One whom God has sent, Jesus Christ.
The meeting was chaired jointly by the World Council of Churches programme executive for Spiritual Life and for Faith and Order, Revd Dr Mikie Roberts, and Fr Martin Browne OSB, official of the Western Section of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity.