The most interesting, and potentially most dramatic, ecumenical news this week was the proposal of Patriarch Raphael I (Louis Sako) of Bablyon, head of the Chaldean Catholic Church, who proposed a plan for a united Church of the East that would entail his own resignation.

The schism between the Church of the East and the rest of the orthodox Christian world is the oldest surviving division in the Church, its origins dating back to the Council of Ephesus in 431 AD. It was the Christian Church in the Persian Empire, and has often (wrongly) been called Nestorian. Acknowledging that there is no brief way to do justice to the history of communion and schism between the Church of the East and the Catholic/Orthodox Church(es) in the last 1,600 years, suffice it to say that what remains is a very small community based in Baghdad but effectively existing as a diaspora community, with its leaders often in Exile.

There are three current churches succeeding from that original Church of the East, which was founded, according to tradition, by the apostle Thomas and by Mar Addai (Jude/Thaddeus, maybe, or a disciple of Thomas) and Mari, a disciple of Addai.
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June 29, 2013 – Feast of Saint Peter and Saint Paul

On this day when we commemorate the two “pillars of the church”—the apostles Peter and Paul—the heads of the Anglican Church of Canada, the Episcopal Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada are issuing “A Word to the Churches.”

This joint declaration comes just a few days before the four North American church leaders will gather with hundreds of other Anglicans and Lutherans at the first Joint Assembly of the Anglican Church of Canada and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, an example of how our churches are drawing closer together in full communion.
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Two member churches of the World Council of Churches (WCC) from Reformed and Lutheran traditions have united to become the United Protestant Church of France (L’Église Protestante Unie de France). The merger of the Reformed Church of France (L’Église Réformée de France) and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of France (L’Église Évangélique Luthérienne de France) was celebrated at a joint national synod from 8 to 12 May in Lyon, France. The synod adopted revised texts for the constitution and rules of the new church. The revisions reflect inputs gathered from parishes in 2011. Public education and a communication campaign have been accompanying the merger process. WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, who attended the celebration in Lyon, praised the efforts of both churches in creating one transformative structure. He said that this undertaking “reminds us that the unity to which we are called in Christ can be hard work as well as joyful. For many of us in places far away from France your union gives hope that our own work may also bear fruit.”
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by Emily Enders Odom, PCUSA News Promoting the unity of the whole church is a call that the Rev. Jerry Pillay lives out daily. Pillay, the pastor of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Benoni, South Africa, and an ecumenical representative to the 217th General Assembly, is moderator of the Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa
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by John A. Bolt. Reprinted from “The Presbyterian Outlook” [DALLAS] Nearly four decades of Presbyterian presence in the Consultation on Church Union (COCU) could come to an end in Syracuse as commissioners to the 209th General Assembly consider whether to proceed in the face of overwhelming presbytery rejection of the mechanism proposed to participate in
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by Patrick O’Driscoll, USA Today Young revelers rock the ballroom in a New Year’s Eve countdown. At midnight Thursday, the cheer goes up: “Happy New CHURCH!” How’s that again? While millions of us sing choruses of Auld Lang Syne to welcome 1988, some 1,600 Lutheran teens in Anaheim, Calif., will hum a hymn – on
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by James D. Davis, Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel The night before he died, Jesus prayed a strange, earnest prayer for his disciples — “that they may all be one, even as Thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee … that the world may believe that Thou didst send me.” The prayer was strange
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A top Vatican official has told members of a joint Anglican-Roman Catholic commission that his church could recognize the validity of Anglican priesthood if the Anglican Church officially adopts statements agreed to by an earlier joint commission on priesthood and the Eucharist. Cardinal Johannes Willebrands of the Vatican Secretariat for Christian Unity raised the possibility in a letter to the commission, representatives of the panel told a news conference in London. The new Vatican approach could be a major development in ending the 450-year-old rift between Rome and Canterbury. Bishop Cormac Murphy-O’Connor and Bishop Mark Santer, the Catholic and Anglican chairmen of the commission, said they hoped shared communion would result from the changes as soon as the end of the century.
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