On the Day August 22 1948

World Council of Churches is Formed

Khen Lim



Episcopal Bishop Charles Henry Brent, 1862-1929 (Image source: patrickcomerford.com)

The church is the One Body of Christ. As the Nicene Creed established, “We believe in… only one holy catholic and apostolic Church.” The true Church is therefore invisible and only Christ alone knows who belongs to Him. And so it is troubling for many Christians to know that the visible church is so fragmented and that these fragments war among themselves.

Almost immediately following the Reformation and its breakup from the Catholic Church, many have sought to reunify them using reason or goodwill or even by shading of blood. There was Martin Bucer (1491-1551) who sought reconciliation from within Protestantism in as much as Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) also tried something similar while he championed international law. Gottfried Liebnitz (1646-1716) tried to piece together the Lutherans and Catholics. No doubt there were countless others.

In the recent century, long-serving YMCA leader John Raleigh Mott (1865-1955) organised the International Missionary Conference in Edinburgh 1910 from which emerged the International Missionary Council eleven years later. 

Meanwhile an inspired Episcopal Bishop Charles Henry Brent (1862-1929), having returned from Edinburgh, sought to create the World Conference of Faith and Order, which bore fruit in 1927 in Lausanne, Switzerland. With this opportunity, Brent wanted to deal directly with the doctrinal issues. At the same time, Nathan Söderblom (1866-1931), Archbishop of Uppsala Primate of Sweden was leading an initiative to bring Christians to Stockholm two years earlier for a Life and Work conference, hoping to rebuild a world under Christendom that was ravaged by the First World War.

It was Brent’s World Conference of Faith and Order that proposed to establish the World Council of Churches (WCC). In 1937 in a Life and Faith conference, leaders present agreed to explore this and a year later, the two movements came together to form its interim operating base in Geneva. 

Despite being invited, the Russian Orthodox and Roman Catholics turned their backs, saying, “Orthodox Christians must regard the Holy Orthodox Catholic Church as the true Church of Christ, one and unique” and with that, the implication that not all ‘churches’ were equal. To join the initiative was to stray from that belief. However, some Orthodox representatives did attend as observers but even so, much effort to hold the first WCC conference was curtailed due to the Second World War.

Image source: theorthodoxchurch.info

It was on this day sixty-eight years ago in 1948 that the plan was finally in place and the WCC was formally founded in Amsterdam. A few years later, Mott’s International Missionary Council merged with the WCC as well. Eventually, even the Roman Catholic Church changed their tune or at least diluted their opposition and despatched observers while they held their own ecumenical council. Importantly too, the WCC paved the way for Third World nations to be actively involved.

At sixty-eight years old, the World Council of Churches is still a relatively young endeavour but as a worldwide inter-denominational fellowship body, it already has in its membership the Anglican Communion, Assyrian Church of the East, some participation from the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Old Catholic Church, Oriental Orthodox Church and many mainline and evangelical Protestant churches, representing some 590 million people in 150 countries. 

It is easy to see the WCC as a sign of God’s healing of the world’s divided churches but some denominations view the body as not only politically manipulated (eg. evidence of KGB infiltration in 1992) but also antagonistic towards Israel with charges of boycotts, sanctions and support for the Palestinian claims in 2009 and therefore write it off as apostate.