Willem Visser ‘t Hooft
General secretary of the World Council of Churches at its founding assembly in Amsterdam in 1948, and editor of its official report. He described the council as a council of churches, not the one undivided Church.
Visser ‘t Hooft was general secretary of the World Council of Churches when its first assembly met at Amsterdam in 1948. Reporting for the provisional committee on the day the council was constituted, he called it a council of churches and not the council of the one undivided Church, “an emergency solution” and a stage on the road (World Council of Churches, First Assembly: Official Report, pp. 28–29). He edited the assembly’s official report and dated its preface from Geneva in September 1948 (World Council of Churches, First Assembly: Official Report, title page and Preface, p. 8). See the World Council of Churches Is Founded.
In the timeline
- 23 August 1948, firm dateThe World Council of Churches Is Founded
Delegates of 147 churches from 44 countries, meeting in Amsterdam, constitute the World Council of Churches as a fellowship of churches that accept Jesus Christ as God and Saviour. The Roman Catholic Church takes no part.