St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and National Shrine will host an Ecumenical Prayer Service on Tuesday, January 24, 2023 at 6:30pm on the occasion of the 2023 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.
His Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros of America will offer Words of Welcome and His Eminence Timothy Cardinal Dolan will offer the Homily.
This year’s Week of Prayer is particularly important for our American context. Its theme – “Do good; seek justice” (Isaiah 1:17) – was chosen and developed by the Minnesota Council of Churches.
These words of the Prophet echo our responsibility – in the midst of our ecumenical quest for Christian unity – to condemn racism and hatred as a sin and to support the struggle for racial justice and equity.
The Ecumenical Prayer Service is an opportunity for leaders of all faiths to pray in a Church that will forever be bound to what it means to be an American: tolerant of different beliefs and respectful of other faith traditions and all people, while committed to a place for faith in the public square.
Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church is the only house of worship destroyed when the South Tower fell at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.
On July 4, 2022, the rebuilt Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church was Consecrated and is now open to the public.
Archbishop Anouchavan Tanelian from The Armenian Prelacy, Holy See of Cilicia, Bishop Andrew Dietsche, form the Episcopal Church, Bishop Paul Egensteiner, from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America,
Bishop Vashti Murphy McKenzie, Interim President and General Secretary of the National Council of Churches, Dr. Angelique Walker-Smith, WCC President from North-America and Samuel Davis, from St. Simon of Cyrene Orthodox Mission (New Brunswick, NJ), Orthodox Church in America, will also attend the prayer.
