Vatican City, Jan 22, 2006 / 22:00 pm
As the Church continues to celebrate The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, Pope Benedict told thousands of listeners, gathered in St. Peter’s Square for his weekly Angelus Sunday, that prayer must constitute the soul of the entire ecumenical movement.
The Week of Prayer, which is being celebrated from January 18th to the 25th, was born at the beginning of the last century.
Benedict explained that now, the Prayer Week has become "an ecumenical point of reference in which Christians from various confessions all over the world pray and reflect, on the basis of a single biblical text."
He went on to speak on this year's theme, which is taken from the Gospel of Matthew: "If two or three of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them."