The Franciscan Friars of the Atonement at Graymoor are helping to plan an Ecumenical Service of the Word in Manhattan in observation of the 2026 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.
Organizers said the faithful can join in person or online. The annual event will take place at the Interchurch Center Chapel at 61 Claremont Avenue in the Morningside Heights area of Manhattan, at Riverside Drive. The January 21, hour-long service will start at noon.
Other event sponsors will include the Graymoor Ecumenical and Interreligious Institute and the Interchurch Center Committee on Ecumenical, Interfaith, and Community Concerns.
“It’s a small opportunity, relative to the big picture, for people to be together and focus their attention on the relationships we have with one another, the relationships between our churches, which are broken,” Aaron T. Hollander, executive director of the Graymoor Ecumenical and Interreligious Institute, told The Good Newsroom in a January 7 phone interview. “It’s really about that sense of desire to join with one another, to make Christ’s prayer for unity, for the unity of the Church and the unity of all humanity, to make that prayer our own desire as well as Christ’s desire.”
Hollander noted later via email, “The Vatican II document, Unitatis Redintegratio, famously declared that ‘there can be no ecumenism worthy of the name without a change of heart.’ The document called for ‘public and private prayer for the unity of Christians’ as one means of achieving this ‘change of heart’ toward one another, especially toward those Christian communities against whom we have long-standing grudges or animosities.”
The email concluded, “As much as anything else, gathering for events like this is a way of strengthening the relationships we have with those outside our own tradition, resulting in a network of mutual support and shared understanding.”
Theme reflects St. Paul’s vision of unity
Father Dennis Polanco, SA, vicar general of the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement, will co-preside alongside representatives from the Protestant, Anglican, and Orthodox communities. The Rev. Dr. Abraham M. Malkhasyan, pastor of the Armenian Church of the Holy Martyrs, Bayside, will be this year’s preacher.
This year’s event theme comes from Ephesians 4:4: “There is one body and one spirit, just as you are called to the one hope of your calling.” Organizers said the theme reflects St. Paul’s vision of the unity of the community of believers as a vocation, a calling by the Holy Spirit. This requires conversion of heart, which is not possible without openness to reconciliation. This unity is linked to one hope and practiced in communal support, by embracing diversity while maintaining communion.
The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is an ecumenical Christian observance that is celebrated internationally. It is observed annually between Ascension Day and Pentecost in the Southern Hemisphere and between January 18 and January 25 in the Northern Hemisphere.
For more information, visit Ecumenical Service of the Word 2026. The New York event will be livestreamed at youtube.com/@theinterchurchcenter1462/stream.
By Armando Machado
Originally published on The Good News Room, January 8, 2026
