There are 4.2 million Catholics in Great Britain: roughly 10% of the population. There are 22 dioceses, 2814 parishes and 720 churches that do not form parishes. The baptized of the Church of England (Anglicans) number some 25 million; there are 43 Anglican dioceses in England plus the diocese in Europe that comprises 260 “congregations” present as far afield as Morocco, Turkey and the Asiatic countries of the former Soviet Union. The 43 English dioceses comprise 13,000 parishes. To mark the Prayer Week for Christian Unity, various religious functions have been organized throughout Great Britain. The celebrations in question are mainly at the parish level, more rarely diocesan. The chosen form is not always the shared religious celebration; in many cases each church organizes a moment of ecumenical prayer during the Sunday services. In other cases, discussion meetings are organized for the Week for Christian Unity, as in Tunbridge Wells, in Kent, where a school of theology is held in which one Catholic parish and four Anglican parishes participate. In Bristol, an important city in the south-west of England and another centre where ecumenical relations are very good, there will be an ‘exchange of pulpits’ during the Prayer Week for Christian Unity: in other words, the pastors and priests of the various Catholic and Protestant churches will be guests of other churches and give sermons in place of the local priest or vicar. The Catholic bishop Declan Lang will this year officiate the most important religious service organized in the Anglican cathedral of Bristol, while the Anglican bishop Barry Rogerson will preach in the chapel of the Lord Mayor of Bristol, during a religious function in which members of all the Christian confessions will participate.
