Archbishop-emeritus John F. Donoghue, left, and Metropolitan Alexios, right, join Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory for a final blessing of the congregation. (Photo by Michael Alexander)<\/p><\/div>\n

Alexios<\/a>, Greek Orthodox Metropolitan of Atlanta, joined Roman Catholic Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory<\/a> on May 6 for an \u201cEvening of Prayer and Unity\u201d service at Atlanta’s Cathedral of Christ the King in honor of the Jubilee Year of St. Paul. Archbishop Gregory graciously welcomed Orthodox Christians to the service. \u201cOur Orthodox brothers and sisters represent a fraternity in the Lord that we cherish and long to strengthen in the Holy Spirit,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

According to The Georgia Bulletin<\/a>, a diocesan newspaper, the “prayer service blended together Eastern and Western traditions with song, prayer and words of wisdom from shepherds of each of the churches.” The paper said that members of the Choir of the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Annunciation in Atlanta and the Chanters of the Cathedral of the Annunciation then sang \u201cPhos Hilaron.\u201d The Cathedral Choir of Christ the King also sang the hymn, this time in English, “again linking the two traditions together in Christ.”<\/p>\n

Metropolitan Alexios, in his remarks to those at the prayer service, issued a plea for unity:<\/p>\n

\u201cThank you for taking the initiative (to call for this service),\u201d Metropolitan Alexios told the archbishop. \u201cThe spirit of St. Paul is with us this evening.”<\/p>\n

He thanked the clergy and laity present and said the event was an important step in bringing the communities together. \u201cThe thing that has separated us is not the faith,\u201d he said, indicating that the reason was a political issue and a weak moment in the history of the two churches.<\/p>\n

But all of these things that are happening now, he said, are signs that the two churches have to do something together. \u201cI pray for a unity \u2026 to let the spirit of understanding, the spirit of the Lord prevail,\u201d he concluded.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alexios, Greek Orthodox Metropolitan of Atlanta, joined Roman Catholic Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory on May 6 for an \u201cEvening of Prayer and Unity\u201d service at Atlanta’s Cathedral of Christ the King in honor of the Jubilee Year of St. Paul. Archbishop Gregory graciously welcomed Orthodox Christians to the service. \u201cOur Orthodox brothers and sisters represent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1784],"tags":[731,102,181,732,730,160,296,277,99],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2248"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2248"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2248\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2264,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2248\/revisions\/2264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}