The prayer week is an expression of the ecumenical movement desire: to heal the divisions within the Church, to promote dialogues among churches and Christian communities, and to encourage Christians everywhere to better understand and reflect the words of "One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism."
The 2008 prayer week would mark the 100th anniversary since this event first started. The theme for this year would be for Christians everywhere to join in prayer "that they may all be one" with the Lord Jesus Christ.
It was originally started by an Episcopal priest and an Anglican vicar who wanted to explore the possibility of prayer for Christian unity.
In 1908, the first Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, organised by the Society of the Atonement, a small group of Franciscan and Sisters and Friars, commenced where one of the co-founder, Mother Lurana White, wrote in her diary that this first week was in itself done by the Almighty God.
"I often think if the Society of the Atonement had never done another thing, this alone is a great work of God, so far reaching in its effects as to baffle our weighing its influence either now or in the days to come," Mother Lurana wrote in her diary.
In 1967, representatives from the Orthodox, Protestant and Roman Catholic Churches agreed to jointly observe a time of prayer called the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Since 1968, the World Council of Churches and the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity have collaborated annually in selecting scriptural themes and helpful materials to promote prayer for the unity of the Christian Churches.
The week of prayer will commence on January 18th to the 25th where in honour of the centenary, the Society of the Atonement is sponsoring events to promote Christian unity and shared their successful experiences in the ecumenical movement.