If ecumenism were to have a patron saint (I'm sure someone will tell me it already has!) my vote (if voting is allowed in these mysterious matters) would be for St Martin de Tours. If you follow the link to Wikipedia you will think he is an unlikely candidate, a saint favoured by men and the military. Although he seems an odd saint for the military as refused to fight.
My reason is the story of St Martin and the Beggar, and my account is influenced by Thom Gunn's poem of the same name which can be found in 'The Sense of Movement' (1957).
Imagine young Martin, the soldier riding his horse across marshland at night. The wind is blowing and the hail bounces off his sword. He is stopped by the figure of a naked beggar and out of sympathy, he takes his sword and cuts his great cloak in half. He hands half to the beggar and wraps the remainder around himself. Later whilst eating a meal in a pub the beggar appears to him and turns out to be Christ. (The Wikipedia account is different but makes the same point.)
'You recognised the human need/Included yours, because/you did not hesitate, my saint,/ to cut your cloak across;/ But never since that moment/ did you regret the loss.
My enemies would have turned away,/ my holy toadies would/have given all the cloak and frozen/ conscious that they were good./ but you, being a saint of man,/ gave only what you could.'
The story goes that small pieces of the cloak were placed in wayside shrines as relics of the saint. The Italian word for cloak is 'capella' and in time these shrines became known as chapels. (Wikipedia tells a similar story for the origins of the word 'chaplain'.) The saint is known for this story and would be understood by those who experience mutuality as a way of life.
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