Media Office-Jerusalem- Archbishop Hossam Noom delivers the sermon on the declaration of the Latin Patriarchate in Jerusalem on Wednesday 29.1.2025
On the evening of the fifth day of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity in Jerusalem, on 29 January 2025, the Archbishop of the Anglican Archbishop Hossam Noum delivered the sermon at the Cathedral of the Patriarchal Translation of Latin, during the Evening Prayer Service presided over by His Excellency Cardinal Pierbatista Pitsabala, the Patriarch of Jerusalem of Latin. In the presence of church leaders and representatives The service included snippets of hymns, readings, and prayers.
Archbishop Naum thanked Cardinal Pittsabala for the initiative to exchange pulpit and sermons between the Anglican and Latin Churches, when Bishop William Shumley shared the sermon in the Anglican Cathedral last Sunday.
In his sermon Bishop Noah commented on the readings set from Exodus and the Epistle of Philippians and the Gospel of John. And he said, “In these prayers for unity we seek to fulfill the Lord’s prayer: that his disciples may be one just as he is and the Father.” (John 17:11) Recalling his ecumenical experience and sharing last year with a number of Latin and Anglican bishops on a pilgrimage to Rome and Canterbury, where His Holiness Pope Francis and Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Wilby blessed and sent two bishops coming together from the same region, to witness unity under the slogan ‘growing together’ at St Paul’s Basilica outside the walls. Archbishop Rafik Nehra is mentioned to be a part of the Latin Church.
Bishops and church representatives gave the blessing according to their language and ritual, as students of the Latin Ecclesiastical Institute in Beit Gala did the altar service, and the prayer was concluded by the choir of the students of the Armenian Ecclesiastical Institute in Jerusalem.