As we begin this week, we are reminded that one hundred years ago Father Paul Wattson, an Episcopal priest, introduced a Prayer Octave for Christian Unity that was first celebrated January 18–25, 1908. The practice of observing this Week of Prayer for Christian Unity grew so that churches around the world began receiving materials prepared jointly by the World Council of Churches and the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (Catholic Church) in 1968.

The biblical text for this centennial year’s Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is taken from 1 Thessalonians 5:13b–18, “Pray without ceasing.” The apostle Paul exhorts the first-century Christians at Thessolonica to first seek peace among themselves and to admonish, encourage, help, and be patient with one another. It is a reminder to live out the unity that is given to us in Christ and to strengthen that unity with the gift of prayer. Praying without ceasing becomes the practice of dynamic, active, relational unity. Praying without ceasing leads us to experience that wherever two or three communities, congregations, denominations are gathered, Christ reveals himself in new and marvelous ways.

The Indian Hills Episcopal Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, has sought to make visible this unity as the congregants pray, work, and fellowship together. As a dually affiliated congregation of the Presbytery of Cincinnati and the Diocese of Southern Ohio in the Episcopal Church, the Indian Hills congregation has demonstrated that it “can accept those denominational differences, be enriched by them, and use them to create new traditions.” What began fifty years ago as an experiment in ecumenism stands today as a witness to the power for prayer and faithfulness.

—Rev. Robina Marie Winbush, associate stated clerk and director, Department of Ecumenical and Agency Relations, Office of the General Assembly