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| Jonathan Edwards |
Jonathan Edwards, 1705-58, the New England Congregationalist, calls for "A Concert of Prayer… for the revival of religion" among the different churches touched by North America’s early Pentecostal revival movement, at agreed, set times
1746
The Concert of Prayer spreads to Scotland – every Saturday evening and Sunday morning, and also the first Tuesday of each quarter
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| John Wesley |
John Wesley preaches in Newcastle on Catholic Spirit, calling for a spiritual inclusiveness beyond church boundaries (recently termed "transconfessional evangelicalism")
1788
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| Charles Wesley |
1821
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| St Bride's, Percy Street, Liverpool |
with united renewal in the Holy Spirit, rather than the visible unity of Christians as it is now conceived
1825
 |
| Johann Adam Moehler |
Johann Adam Möhler publishes Unity in the Church, recovering the idea of Church as communion, achieved through convergence in unity of spirit (spiritual affinity of prayer), unity of mind (doctrinal accord), and unity of body (fullness of spiritual and sacramental life through perfect communion). Ideas developed in dialogue with Lutherans at Tübingen – hugely influential on Cardinal Wiseman, who commends introduces them to John Henry Newman. Thus they come to Yves Congar and figure in Vatican II’s Lumen Gentium, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church.
1839-40
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| Edward Pusey |
Edward Pusey, leader of the Oxford Movement, declines the suggestion of prayer for unity within the Church issued by Evangelicals concerned at the rise of two movements in the Church of England tending in different directions. His insistence was that prayer for unity had to embrace the whole Church, which the Evangelical approach at the time did not consider
1840
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| Ignatius Spencer |
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| Blessed John Henry Newman |
1846
The Evangelical Alliance calls for the first Sunday of the New Year to be a day of prayer for unity among its 52 member churches
1857
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| Cardinal Wiseman |
The Association for the Promotion of the Unity of Christendom founded by Anglicans (such as Bishop Forbes of Brechin and Dr Frederick Lee of Lambeth), Catholics (such as Augustus Welby Pugin) and Orthodox with the initial agreement of Cardinal Wiseman, as a league of concerted prayer for corporate reunion. In 1864 there were 5,000 Anglican members, 1,000 Catholics and 300 Greek Orthodox. Catholics were obliged to leave in 1864. Wiseman had become concerned that APUC had strayed into promotion of the branch theory, that the Catholic Church was merely one branch of the Church among many, including the Anglicans and the Orthodox. His successor Manning petitioned for a decree from Rome forbidding participation because of the "possible danger of religious indifference"
1878
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| Sir Henry Lunn |
The second Lambeth Conference recommends a season or day of prayer for reunion either on the Tuesday before Ascension Day or the seven days after
1894
Henry Lunn, a Methodist, holds Home Reunion Conferences at Grindelwald and calls on the Archbishop of Canterbury to designate Pentecost as a day of prayer for unity
1894 & 1985
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| Archbishop Edward Benson |
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Edward Benson, calls for Whitsunday to be observed as a day of prayer for unity, in anticipation of a successful conclusion to the commission in Rome to examine Anglican-Catholic relations and questions of Church Order (and possible recognition of Anglican priestly orders)
1895
Pope Leo XIII calls for an octave of prayer between Ascension and Pentecost for Christian Unity, promoting patient study of the possibility of unity through a conciliatory letter, Amantissimae Voluntatis, to the people of England. The Archbishop of York, William Maclagan, proclaims "unity is in the air"
 |
| Archbishop William Maclagan |
1896
The Vatican commission returns an adverse decision (influenced by Manning) on mutual recognition of Anglicans and their Church Order. It is announced in Leo XIII’s letter Apostolicae Curae
1897
Archbishops Frederick Temple and William Maclagan reply with Saepius Officio, and call for persistence in prayer and work for unity in the Church
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| Archbishop Frederick Temple |
1897
Leo XIII in the encyclical Provida Matris formally approves throughout the Roman Catholic Church the novena between Ascension Day and Pentecost as a season of prayer for the Unity of Christians – arguably in response to Saepius Officio. He establishes the novena – "in perpetuity" - in the Encyclical Divinum illud munus, his encyclical on the Holy Spirit
 |
| Pope Leo XIII |
Spencer Jones preaches a sermon at St Matthew’s Church, Westminster, before the surviving remnant of the Association for the Promotion of the Unity of Christendom, on "England and the Holy See", calling for the corporate reunion of Anglicans with the Roman Catholic Church.
1901
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| Bishop Howard Wilkinson |
1902-8
Spencer Jones adapts his 1900 sermon into book on the suggestion of Lord Halifax, England and the Holy See: An Essay Towards Reunion. Published in 1902 it causes a sensation and leads to a correspondence between Jones and Paul Wattson, an Anglican Franciscan in New York State, on the need to pray for reunion
1907
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| Paul Wattson & Spencer Jones |
1908
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| St David's, Moreton in Marsh |
The Church Unity Octave is first observed between 18 January and 25 January, simultaneously in St David’s Church, Moreton in Marsh, Gloucestershire (Spencer Jones’s parish) and in the chapel of Our Lady of the Angels, Graymoor NY, home to Paul Wattson’s community. In the October, the friars become Roman Catholics corporately, and become the Society of the Atonement, with the mission ever since to pray and work for unity
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| Graymoor, home of the Society of the Atonement |
Text (c) 2007 & 2016
