Growing Together in Unity

Movements, communities and organisations foster prayer, study and dialogue together.

The Focolare Movement

From the 1960s Focolare, which had its origins in the Roman Catholic Church, has had strong contacts with the Church of England and the Anglican Communion. Many clergy and lay people value and make their own its spirituality of unity and its emphasis on living the Gospel in daily life.

On her death in 2008, the Archbishop of Canterbury described Chiara Lubich, foundress of the Focolare Movement, as “one of the great figures of the modern Church, who set a new tone and a new agenda for the community life of many Christians”.

The Association of Interchurch Families
The Association of Interchurch Familiesgives support for couples and families where one partner is usually Roman Catholic and the other of another church;
making their pastoral needs known within the churches,
and working for unity of Christians everywhere.

The Tryptich of  AIF

Our Lady of Walsingham

“Two Shrines, but one domain.”

Though unable to share at the Lord’s Table, Anglican and Roman Catholic pilgrims visit and pray at the two shrines with a wonderful naturalness. Catholics are drawn to the Well and the Holy House at the Anglican shrine, and processions to and from the Slipper chapel are a regular feature of Anglican pilgrimages.

The Feast of the Assumption sees an ecumenical procession that is full of joy and praise when divisions are forgotten in thanksgiving for the joys of Mary.

The Ecumenical Society of the Blessed Virgin Mary

The Society exists to advance the study of the place of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Church and of related theological questions; to promote ecumenical devotion; and to show that, in the Blessed Virgin Mary, Christians of many traditions may find a focus in their search for unity.

ESBVM