For nearly half of the second millennium, the Christian church has been divided. This month, an event that would have been unthinkable a few decades ago will bring the two sides closer together, church leaders say. Some have expressed hope for real unity in the foreseeable future.

On Oct. 31, leaders of the Roman Catholic Church and of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) will assemble in Augsburg, Germany to sign the “Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification,” an historic agreement with the Roman Catholic Church.

The doctrine of justification says people become “right with God” because Jesus Christ won their salvation through his life, death and resurrection. This means salvation is strictly a gift through faith in Jesus and not something to be earned.

The Joint Declaration is “a significant milestone in the reconciliation of our two church traditions. By acknowledging that there is agreement on this crucial article of the Christian faith, our two churches have bridged a theological divide that has separated us for nearly 500 years,” said Lutheran Bishop H. George Anderson earlier this year at the national assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).

“This agreement will have a positive effect on the mood of conversations between our two communions. I hope that this theological breakthrough will lead to other agreements in the future,” Anderson said.

Archbishop Alexander J. Brunett, Roman Catholic Diocese of Seattle, called the declaration “a powerful gift from God..., our common understanding of the grace of Christ as central in our lives,” in an address to the Lutheran body.

“What we receive as a gift... also comes to us as a common task and challenge,” said Brunett. “What we understand anew, we must teach anew and live out together anew. This is the last stage that opens between us as Lutherans and Catholics.”

Many other issues remain to be resolved, church leaders said, including an understanding of the sacraments, the office of ministry and the authority of the Pope. But Catholics and Lutherans are saying, “We don't have any church-dividing difference between us any longer on the teaching of justification by grace through faith.”

In Fayette County, Holy Trinity Catholic Church and Christ Our Shepherd Lutheran Church, both of Peachtree City, will celebrate this event together, according to Lutheran intern Jennifer Hepler, who is helping pull together the worship service.

Other congregations have been invited; everyone is welcome, Hepler said.

Asked whether either church changed its position on the justification by faith, Hepler replied: “No. This represents that we are coming to a common understanding. We come from different perspectives, and to get through the language part to where we truly agreed about what we were talking about took a good bit of time.

“We've been talking for the last 20 to 30 years, and are trying to move to some commonality on faith.” Hepler said that once Vatican II “opened the door for ecumenical conversations between Protestants and Catholics,” and the Roman Catholic church recognized Protestant and Orthodox Christians as ecclesiastical bodies, Lutherans began to think more ecumenically.

“The idea of justification was one of the major things that divided us in the first place,” she added.

The worship service here will be one of many similar observations nationwide, according to a statement issued by The Liturgical Conference, an ecumenical association that works to renew liturgy within the churches. The Conference encourages “using the Service of the Word approved for joint Lutheran-Catholic worship or the prayer offices that are the common inheritance of the whole Church.”

Lutheran liturgy has remained very similar to the Roman Catholic mass, which in turn has preserved elements of worship used in ancient Judaism, Hepler said.

“Our form of worship dates back to at least the 2nd century and is based somewhat on the Temple worship of Jerusalem,” Hepler said. “Some would say that this is part of the catholicity of the Church.”

One definition of the term “catholic” is “of or pertaining to the ancient undivided Christian church.” Oct. 31 is significant because on that day in 1517, 482 years ago, Martin Luther introduced his 95 theses, points of contention with the Vatican.

Among other things, Luther denounced the sale of indulgences, letters replacing punishment for the sins of the repentant.

Augsburg was the site, in 1530, of a conference of Luther's followers which drafted a statement outlining the beliefs and practices of the churches in Germany. The resulting Augsburg Confession has served as a founding document of the Lutheran Church.

The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) is a global communion of 128 Lutheran bodies in 70 countries, including the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and represents 58 million of the world's 61.5 million Lutherans.

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