The World Council of Churches (WCC) is a worldwide Christian inter-church organization founded in 1948 to work for the cause of ecumenism. Its full members today include the Assyrian Church of the East, the Oriental Orthodox Churches, most jurisdictions of the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Union of Utrecht, the Lutheran World Federation, the Anglican Communion, the Mennonite churches, the World Methodist Council, the Baptist World Alliance, the World Communion of Reformed Churches, the Pentecostal churches, the Moravian Church and the Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church. Notably, the Catholic Church is not a full member, although it sends delegates who have observer status to meetings.
The liturgical year, also called the church year, Christian year, ecclesiastical calendar, or kalendar, consists of the cycle of liturgical days and seasons that determines when feast days, including celebrations of saints, are to be observed, and which portions of scripture are to be read.
Full communion is a communion or relationship of full agreement among different Christian denominations or Christian individuals that share certain essential principles of Christian theology. Views vary among denominations on exactly what constitutes full communion, but typically when two or more denominations are in full communion it enables services and celebrations, such as the Eucharist, to be shared among congregants or clergy of any of them with the full approval of each.
Ecumenism – also called interdenominationalism, or ecumenicalism – is the concept and principle that Christians who belong to different Christian denominations should work together to develop closer relationships among their churches and promote Christian unity. The adjective ecumenical is thus applied to any non-denominational or inter-denominational initiative which encourages greater cooperation and union among Christian denominations and churches. Ecumenical dialogue is a central feature of contemporary ecumenism.
The Trinitarian formula is the phrase "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit", or words to that form and effect, referring to the three persons of the Christian Trinity. It is often followed by an "amen".
Trinity Sunday is the first Sunday after Pentecost in the Western Christian liturgical calendar, and the Sunday of Pentecost in Eastern Christianity. Trinity Sunday celebrates the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, the three Persons of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
The Feast of the Ascension of Jesus Christ commemorates the Christian belief of the bodily Ascension of Jesus into Heaven. It is one of the ecumenical feasts of Christian churches, ranking with the feasts of the Passion and Pentecost. Following the account of Acts 1:3 that the risen Jesus appeared for 40 days prior to his Ascension, Ascension Day is traditionally celebrated on a Thursday, the fortieth day of Easter according to inclusive counting, although some Christian denominations have moved the observance to the following Sunday, sometimes called Ascension Sunday. The day of observance varies by ecclesiastical province in many Christian denominations, as with Methodists and Catholics, for example.
The Catholic Charismatic Renewal (CCR) is a movement within the Catholic Church that is part of the wider charismatic movement across historic Christian churches.
The Society of the Atonement, also known as the Friars and Sisters of the Atonement or Graymoor Friars and Sisters, is a Franciscan religious congregation in the Catholic Church. The friars and sisters were founded in 1898 by Paul Wattson and Lurana White as a religious community in the Episcopal Church. The religious order is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary under the Marian title of Our Lady of Atonement.
"Octave" has two senses in Christian liturgical usage. In the first sense, it is the eighth day after a feast, counted inclusively, and so always falls on the same day of the week as the feast itself. The word is derived from Latin octava (eighth), with “dies” (day) implied and understood. In the second sense, the term is applied to the whole eight-day period, during which certain major feasts came to be observed.
The Catholic Church has engaged in the modern ecumenical movement especially since the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) and the issuing of the decree Unitatis redintegratio and the declaration Dignitatis humanae. It was at the Council that the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity was created. Those outside of the Catholic Church were categorised as heretics or schismatics, but in many contexts today, to avoid offence, the euphemism "separated brethren" is used.
Paul Irénée Couturier was a French Catholic priest and a promoter of the concept of Christian unity. He was instrumental in the establishment of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.
Paul Wattson, SA, was an American priest who co-founded the Society of the Atonement with Mother Lurana White, and the Christian Unity Octave in The Episcopal Church. He was later received into the Catholic Church and is remembered as an advocate for ecumenism.
After the Second Vatican Council, Pope Paul VI contributed in two ways to the continued growth of ecumenism and inter-Christian dialogue. The separated brothers and sisters, as he called them, were not able to contribute to the Second Vatican Council as invited observers. After the Council, many of them took initiative to seek out their Catholic counterparts and the Pope in Rome, who welcomed such visits.
The Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, previously named the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (PCPCU), is a dicastery within the Holy See whose origins are associated with the Second Vatican Council which met intermittently from 1962 to 1965.
The Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham in England and Wales is a personal ordinariate in the Latin Church of the Catholic Church immediately exempt, being directly subject to the Holy See. It is within the territory of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, of which its ordinary is a member, and also encompasses Scotland. It was established on 15 January 2011 for groups of former Anglicans in England and Wales in accordance with the apostolic constitution Anglicanorum coetibus of Pope Benedict XVI, which was supplemented with the Complementary Norms of Pope Francis in 2013.
Donald Joseph Bolen, also known as Don Bolen, is a Canadian Catholic prelate who has served as Archbishop of Regina since 2016. He was previously Bishop of Saskatoon from 2009 to 2016.
The Council of Christian Churches in Madagascar (FFKM) (French: Conseil chrétien des Eglises à Madagascar; Malagasy: Fiombonan'ny Fiangonana Kristiana eto Madagasikara) is an inter-church organization in Madagascar founded in 1980.Basis:
Lurana Mary Francis White (1870-1935) was a Roman Catholic nun, a convert from the Episcopal Church, and co-founder of the Society of the Atonement. This founding was an unusual example of a woman who, in the words of congregation historian Father Charles LaFontaine, "had the distinction of founding a religious community on equal terms with a man."
