Feature story
“It was a real joy to welcome members of the spiritual life planning team to our diocese and to the Episcopal Church,” said Bishop Peter Eaton of the diocese of Southeast Florida.
The fact that the meeting took place in the Roman Catholic St Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary in Boynton Beach reflected, Eaton said, the ecumenical partnership that has grown up in the region.
During their 5–13 November meeting, the members of the spiritual life team prepared the daily rhythm of prayers for the World Conference to take place in October 2025, while sharing prayers and meals with the seminarians and faculty at the regional seminary.
“It was a truly memorable experience to be preparing prayers and spiritual resources within such a living community of prayer and pastoral formation,” said Rev. Dr Mikie Roberts, the WCC’s programme executive for Spiritual Life and Faith and Order. ”It was a place where ecumenical theology and spirituality were realized together.”
The seminary was founded in 1963 and, with the use of English and Spanish, is the only fully bilingual theological seminary in the United States.
“Having the WCC working group with us was a great blessing. We work hard to invite our seminarians to increase their global awareness; this visit did so in many ways,” said Father Alfredo I. Hernández, the seminary’s rector and president.
“The incarnational reality of this visit, that the group shared life and prayer and table with the seminary community was important to building bridges, which is at the centre of our mission as a seminary,” said Hernández.
In the 2024–25 academic year, the seminary welcomed a record number of seminarians.
“Our conversations, prayer, and time together with the representatives of the World Council of Churches was a real taste of Christian unity, a concrete encounter of ecumenism which demonstrated to me the work that the WCC is doing in the world to unite brothers and sisters in Christ,” said seminarian Aristedes Lima from the Archdiocese of Miami.
The World Conference on Faith and Order will mark the 1700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea, a foundational moment for Christianity that led to the Nicene Creed, a statement of faith that is recited still today in the world’s Christian churches.
“As the visiting members from the World Council of Churches reminded us, what unites us as Christians is far greater than what divides us, as evidenced in our common Trinitarian faith as expressed in the Nicene Creed,” said deacon Christopher Holcomb, from the diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee, and who is preparing for his ordination to the priesthood.
“It was wonderful meeting with men and women from across the world who share belief in Christ and the wonderful ways that the Spirit continues to move,” he said.
Dr John Dennis, the seminary’s professor of sacred scripture, said he had learned a great deal from the encounters, and hoped that the relationships would continue.
For Dr Saya Ojiri, a member of the WCC’s spiritual life team from the Anglican Church in Japan, it was a “joyful and fruitful experience” to prepare prayers for the World Conference with the other team members at the seminary.
“It was also a valuable opportunity for me,” she said, “to rethink the purposes of ecumenism, the meaning of Christian unity, and what is needed in our ecumenical work today.
Prayer to be spiritual heartbeat of Faith and Order conference (WCC news release, 22 November 2024)
