Folia Theologica et Canonica 10. 32/24 (2021)
Sacra theologia
14 MIHÁLY KRÁNITZ Holy Spirit.2 Individual and community initiatives at the level of prayer and human friendship have built fraternal relationships between Catholics and Protestants. In an almost imperceptible way, the Catholic Church has shifted from its closed-minded behavior toward fraternal manifestations that are still scattered. Pope Pius X (1903-1914) blessed the Octave of Prayer, and Benedict XV (1914-1922) extended it to the universal church in 1916. In the early twentieth century it was a prominent Catholic initiative the series of discussions in Malines (1921-1926) and the Benedictine Orthodox community, which first formed in Amay sur Meuse in 1925 and then in Chevetogne from 1939. In July 1932, the French Catholic priest Paul Couturier discovered the desire for Christian unity in himself thanks to the work of the forerunners of Catholic ecumenism, Cardinal Désiré Mercier (1851-1926) and Dorn Lambert Beauduin (1873-1960), the founder of the Chevetogne community.3 II. The Pioneer of Catholic Ecumenism: Paul Couturier Paul-Irénée Couturier was bom in Lyon on July 29, 1881. The encounter with more than ten thousand Russian refugees in his hometown in the 1920s was decisive for him. In 1932 in the Benedictine community of Amay-sur-Meuse, Belgium - founded in 1925 by Dom Lambert Beauduin with the support of Cardinal Mercier and Pope Pius XI -, he received an “enlightenment.”4 During his one-month stay in the convent, Couturier recognized that prayer, and spiritual ecumenism is the way to Christian unity. The Benedictine monks prayed with the Orthodox so that East and West were simultaneously present in a reconciled community for Couturier. It was here that the idea matured in the power of prayer to turn unceasingly for the unity of Christians to Jesus, abandoning the idea of a return to Rome, which even the Anglican Paul Wattson represented at the beginning of his prayer for unity. For Couturier, unity is not a return, but a prayer done together. Couturier held prayer days for Christian unity in Lyon in 1933, and extended it to a prayer octave between January 18-25, which fit into the initiative of 2 For the Catholic recognition of ecumenism, it took place at the II Vatican Council. Unitatis redintegratio 1: “Everywhere large numbers have felt the impulse of this grace, and among our separated brethren also there increases from day to day the movement, fostered by the grace of the Holy Spirit, for the restoration of unity among all Christians.” 3 https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/iLvatican_council/documents/vat-iLdecree_ 19641121_unitatis-redintegratio_en.html (consulted: February 4th 2022). J At the initiative of the Anglican Lord Halifax and the Catholic Fernand Portal, Cardinal Désiré Mercier held conversations de Malines at the Anglican Priesthood and was advised by a liturgical professor at the Benedictine Dom Beauduin, Sant Anselmo Theological College in Rome.
