Paul Couturier

Paul Irénée Couturier (29 July 1881 – 24 March 1953) was a French priest and a promoter of the concept of Christian unity. He was instrumental in the establishment of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

He was born and educated in educated at Lyon, France, to a family with some Jewish blood, then raised in Algeria, among the largely Muslim population there. Upon returning to France, Couturier was ordained a priest in 1906 as a member of the Society of St. Irenaeus. After spending three years studying physical science, he started teaching at the Institution des Chartreux at Lyon, where he remained through 1946.

In the 1920s Fr. Couterier worked with the thousands of Russian refugees and became acquainted with their Russian Orthodox spiritual heritage. Later, in 1932, when he was with the Benedictine Monks of Unity at the Priory of Amay-sur-Meuse, he read an introduction to the work of Cardinal Désiré-Joseph Mercier and was introduced to the work of Dom Lambert Beauduin. These stimulated his own interest in the ecumenical movement. He became an oblate there, and took the name of Benoit-Irenee in acknowledgement of his two primary sources of inspiration. In 1933, he established a Triduum for Christian Unity at Lyon, which later became an Octave in 1934, extending from the feast of the Chair of Saint Peter to the feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul. This was an outgrowth from the Octave for Church Unity which had been established by two Anglicans in 1908. However, Couturier specifically offered his Octave for the unity of any and all baptized into the Christian faith, including Orthodox, Anglican, and other Christian groups. Beginning in 1939, its name was changed to the "Universal Week of Prayer for Christian Unity".

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