Leaders from 14 Christian denominations or traditions gathered Jan. 24 at St. Gregory the Illuminator Armenian Apostolic Church, 6700 W. Diversey Ave., to pray for Christian unity and to join in a call to care for creation.
Dozens of people attended the service, organized by Ecumenism Metro Chicago. It took place at the end of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, an annual event that takes place from Jan. 18 to Jan. 25, between the feasts of St. Peter and St. Paul.
Auxiliary Bishop Mark Bartosic, who attended from the Archdiocese of Chicago, said after the service that Catholics should and do pray for Christian unity all the time, with references to it in the Eucharistic prayer prayed at every Mass.
“Prayer is all about relationship,” Bishop Bartosic said. “And in the first instance, it’s our relationship with God through Christ. But that relationship is lived out between us human beings in whom Christ lives. So, that’s why it’s important, because when Christ said, ‘I pray that they all may be one,’ that is not just a pretty idea, but it’s a task, and we have to work at it.”
The prayer service, based in the Armenian Church’s tradition, included Scripture and prayers in English, hymns in Armenian and a signing ceremony of letters calling for the United States to rejoin the Paris Agreement on climate change and for all lead water pipes in Illinois to be replaced.
Reverend Father Andreas Garabedian, pastor of St. Gregory the Illuminator, represented the Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church of America and hosted the gathering.
In his welcoming remarks, Garabedian recalled the quote, “In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things love,” saying, “What is essential is not location or language, but recognition that we are children created in the image and likeness of God, our Father, Son and Holy Spirit. What is essential is not judicatory hierarchy — no offense to our leadership — but recognition that Christ is our head, that he is the king of kings and lord of lords. And while we have freedom to question, to wonder, to be different and ask, it is love for all that must be present.”
The 14 participating churches include 1,500 congregations and parishes and over 3.25 million people, according to a statement released in advance of the service.
“In contrast to this fractured time in the U.S., these churches are demonstrating their unity in caring for God’s creation,” the statement said.
Each of the representatives from different denominations read Scripture passages or offered prayers, and Bishop Emeritus Wayne Miller of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s Metropolitan Chicago Synod gave the sermon.
Bishop Miller spoke of the way people almost automatically pay attention when someone points at something, and said that far too often, churches point at themselves, rather than at Jesus.
“We all have our distinctive, cherished and trusted ways of pointing things out,” he said. “It seems to me that what the world needs from us right now, perhaps more than ever before, is absolute clarity, that at the other end of these many and various pointing fingers of ours, there is a shared experience — one shared experience of the incomprehensible truth: In the person of Jesus of Nazareth, the God of the universe and ordinary humanity were perfectly joined as one. And from that perfect union emerges a very great light. A great light that everything comes from, and that everything points toward, and to which everything must one day return.”
After the service, Bishop Miller said that too often, different Christian churches see themselves as being in competition.
“I think that we’re in an environment where we forget that we often slip and religion can become a marketplace where in subtle ways, we feel like we’re competing,” he said, adding that it should not be the case.
Such divisions, Garabedian said, are “the work of the devil.”
“The divisions that exist among us — some small, some large, some important, some unimportant — ultimately are the are the work of the devil,” he said. “When God created Paradise, when God created humanity, God did not create divisions. Anytime we hear about divisions in Scripture, whether it’s the languages, whether it’s the nations, it’s because of sinfulness.”
The letters, signed by each representative in front of the congregation, continue Ecumenism Metro Chicago’s commitment to advocate for the care of creation.
Members of the group signed the “Chicagoland Christians United for the Care of Creation Declaration” in August 2023, during the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago, said Michael Terrien, a Benedictine oblate and chair of Ecumenism Metro Chicago’s committee that focuses on care of creation.
“With humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, we state that the United States of America has a moral obligation to take the necessary legislative and administrative action to have the United States rejoin the Paris Agreement, a legally binding international treaty on climate change,” Terrien said.
The agreement went into effect in 2016 following a historic 2015 meeting in Paris. After taking office in 2017, President Donald Trump announced his intention to withdraw from the agreement, a process that was not complete until November 2020 because of processes in the treaty.
President Joe Biden rejoined the agreement when he took office in 2021, and, after being inaugurated in January 2025, President Trump once again withdrew the United States from the agreement.
The group also looked closer to home, calling on local and state officials to work to replace the lead water pipes that are common in Chicago.
Bishop Miller said that loving God’s creation is part of loving God.
“There is no way to love God without loving what God loves,” he said. “And it’s very clear to us, it’s been revealed to us over and over again that God loves the creation that God has made, and therefore we have, in a sense, an obligation to honor and to cherish and to respect and to care for all of creation which God loves.”
Bishop Bartosic agreed.
“It’s something that transcends the divisions within the body of Christ,” he said. “And in another sense, we’re used to thinking of the earth as our mother. And we love our mother. And so the idea that our mother is suffering is a great motivating factor for Christians of all denominations.”