Ecumenical Worship Service during Week of Prayer for Christian Unity

This past weekend, I had the privilege of preaching at the ecumenical service during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity at the local Roman Catholic cathedral.

Father Dariusz (to my right) led the liturgy; Father Alexander
(to my right) also gave a sermon. Father Corrado
(Franciscan) and Archpriest Alexander (Russian Orthodox
Church) in the second row. 

The theme of the week first struck me as rather strange - “We will all be changed by the victory of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Cor 15:51-58). First of all, it seemed odd that a passage about the resurrection would be used to talk about something else entirely – Christian unity. Second, there were a couple of words in the theme that immediately raise red flags for Lutherans - “victory” and “change.” (OK, the second is a joke. Sort of.) About what victory could we speak if we look at the state of the church today? And if we were to think of victory as strictly eschatological (that is, that the victory will be ours only at the end of time), what impulse would that give us for praying and working for the unity of the church now?

After thinking about the text and getting acquainted with the very-well-done preparatory and liturgical materials (you can find them on the site of the Vatican, if you didn't have a chance to participate in the service yourself), I realized that the key to understanding the Biblical passage and the week as a whole was verse 57 - “but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” God gives us the victory. Victory is a given...and that means our standard way of achieving victory (hard work through competition) is annulled; instead the hard work comes after the victory, in our attempts to live in accordance with that gift which we have been given. That thought was at the heart of my sermon.

Women from our congregation in front and other friends
behind as we shared bread as part of the service.

For those of you who know me, you can imagine that I was a might bit nervous when I got up to preach. But the atmosphere was warm (even if the building was cold), the acoustics were great (and that means I didn't have to worry about not being heard), and there were a number of congregation members and friends there – I calmed down quickly.

 After the service, we all gathered in the congregation's parish hall (a.k.a. basement) to hear about an ecumenical project based on the principles of the L'Arche movement. You can read about L'Arche here. You'll see that it is a rather radical form of faith-based living even for the West; in the Russian context it is very unusual and very brave.

I didn't have much chance to mingle after tea, because I immediately got into a rather intense and long conversation with the newly ordained Greek Catholic (Uniate) priest in the city, Father Pavel. It became clear that he and I will continue to have a lot to talk about, so I promise to blog more about him (and about the Greek Catholic church in general) in the future.

Father Pavel speaking about his experience as an intern
 in the ecumenical project based on L'Arche.
All pictures from: sibcatholic.ru