Ecumenism

"[19] Ecumenists cite John 17:20–23 as the Biblical basis of striving for church unity, in which Jesus prays that Christians "may all be one" in order "that the world may know" and believe the Gospel message.

Protestantism, for example, includes such diverse groups as Adventists, Anabaptists, Baptists, Congregationalists, Evangelicals, Hussites, Lutherans, Messianic Jews, Methodists (inclusive of the Holiness movement), Moravians, Pentecostals, Presbyterians, Reformed, and Waldensians.

In modern times, there have also been moves towards healing this division, with common Christological statements being made between Pope John Paul II and Syriac patriarch Ignatius Zakka I Iwas, as well as between representatives of both Oriental Orthodoxy and the Eastern Orthodox Church.

The canonical separation was sealed by the Latin sacking of Constantinople (1204) during the Fourth Crusade and through the poor reception of the Council of Florence (1449) among the Orthodox Eastern Churches.

Aside from the natural rivalry between the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire and the Franco-Latin Holy Roman Empire, one major controversy was the inclusion and acceptance in the West in general—and in the diocese of Rome in particular—of the Filioque clause ("and the Son") into the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, which the East viewed as a violation of ecclesiastical procedure at best, an abuse of papal authority as only an Ecumenical Council could amend what had been defined by a previous council, and a heresy at worst, inasfar as the Filioque implies that the essential divinity of the Holy Spirit is derived not from the Father alone as arche (singular head and source), but from the perichoretic union between the Father and the Son.

That the hypostasis or persona of the Spirit either is or is produced by the mutual, pre-eternal love between God and His Word is an explanation which Eastern Christian detractors have alleged is rooted in the medieval Augustinian appropriation of Plotinian Neoplatonism.

Various attempts at dialogue between the two groups would occur, but it was only in the 1960s, under Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras, that significant steps began to be made to mend the relationship between the two.

According to religion scholar, social activist, and politician Randall Balmer, Evangelicalism resulted "from the confluence of Pietism, Presbyterianism, and the vestiges of Puritanism.

[39] Pentecostalism is likewise born out of this context, and traditionally traces its origins to what it describes as an outpouring of the Holy Spirit on 1 January 1901 in Topeka, Kansas, at the Bethel Bible College.

The Catholic Church has always considered it a duty of the highest rank to seek full unity with estranged communions of fellow Christians and, at the same time, to reject what it sees as a false union which would mean being unfaithful to or glossing over the teaching of sacred scripture and tradition.

It absolutely forbids Catholic priests to concelebrate the Eucharist with members of communities which are not in full communion (canon 908), but allows, in certain circumstances and under certain conditions, other sharing in the sacraments.

[45] Pope Paul VI, in his 1964 encyclical letter Ecclesiam Suam observed that "ecumenical dialogue, as it is called, is already in being, and there are places where it is beginning to make considerable progress".

[48]In ecumenical dialogue, Catholic theologians standing fast by the teaching of the Church and investigating the divine mysteries with the separated brethren must proceed with love for the truth, with charity, and with humility.

[56][self-published source] From 1910 to 1911, the era before World War I, Raphael of Brooklyn, an Eastern Orthodox bishop, "sanctioned an interchange of ministrations with the Episcopalians in places where members of one or the other communion are without clergy of their own".

[70] Representatives from the Anglican Communion, Baptist World Alliance, Eastern Orthodox Church, and Salvation Army also participated in the predominantly Lutheran and Roman Catholic event.

[71] Pope Francis, in a joint statement with Bishop Munib A. Younan, stated that "With gratitude we acknowledge that the Reformation helped give a greater centrality to sacred Scripture in the Church's life".

[77] Earlier, Nicolaus Ludwig, Count von Zinzendorf (1700–1760), the renewer of the Moravian Church in the 18th century, was the first person to use the word "ecumenical" in this sense.

In the 1930s, the tradition of an annual World Communion Sunday to celebrate ecumenical ties was established in the Presbyterian Church and was subsequently adopted by several other denominations.

Despite the fact that the meeting had been postponed due to World War II, the council took place in Amsterdam with the theme of "Man's Disorder and God's Design".

"[87] The mutual anathemas (excommunications) of 1054, marking the Great Schism between Western (Catholic) and Eastern (Orthodox) branches of Christianity, a process spanning several centuries, were revoked in 1965 by Pope Paul VI and the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople.

The Catholic Church now recognizes that the Creed, as confessed at the First Council of Constantinople, did not add "and the Son", when it spoke of the Holy Spirit as proceeding from the Father.

A major milestone in the growing rapprochement between the Catholic and Orthodox churches was the 12 February 2016 meeting held in Havana, Cuba between Patriarch Kirill and Pope Francis.

Konrad Raiser, that a new, independent space should be created where participants could meet on an equal basis to foster mutual respect and to explore and address together common concerns through a postmodern approach.

Considering these notions, Pius XI continued "[T]he Apostolic See cannot on any terms take part in [non-Catholic] assemblies, nor is it anyway lawful for Catholics either to support or to work for such enterprises; for if they do so they will be giving countenance to a false Christianity, quite alien to the one Church of Christ.

[104] In his address to the 1914 Convention of the Diocese of Western New York, Walker said that "in my opinion while divided Christendom remains, separated sects are better apart—each peaceably working out its own salvation.

[106] For example, an article published in Catalyst Online: Contemporary Evangelical Perspectives for United Methodist Seminarians stated that false ecumenism might result in the "blurring of theological and confessional differences in the interests of unity".

Therefore, all our people should exercise extreme caution in regard to the "eternal security" movement, whose teachings have been such a detriment to true Scriptural holiness and productive of lives of "sinning religion" in many; especially should they guard against financial support to the same.

We believe that the Holy Ghost distributes His gifts, "dividing to every man severally as He will," for the purpose of edification; and that it is perilous to teach that any one manifestation of the Spirit is necessary to, or an invariable accompaniment of, any work of divine grace.

[125] For example, the United States, in 1956, adopted "In God We Trust" as its official motto "to differentiate itself from the Soviet Union, its Cold War enemy that was widely seen as promoting atheism.

[132] Christian democratic political parties came to prominence after World War II after Roman Catholics and Protestants worked together to help rebuild war-torn Europe.