World Council of Churches

The World Council of Churches is an international fellowship of Christian churches founded in 1948 to promote Christian unity, cooperation, and joint action.

World Council of Churches Assembly: The World Council of Churches’ highest governing gathering, where member churches meet to set priorities and elect leaders. Assemblies establish common priorities while preserving the council’s member churches’ autonomy.
Ecumenical movement: A movement seeking greater unity and cooperation among Christian churches. The council became a major institutional expression of this wider movement.
Willem Visser 't Hooft: A Dutch Reformed theologian who served as the World Council of Churches’ first general secretary. He led the council from its founding through its early institutional development.
Programme to Combat Racism: A World Council of Churches initiative launched in 1969 to oppose racism and support liberation movements. It made anti-racism a prominent and controversial element of the council’s public work.
World Evangelical Alliance: An international network of evangelical churches and organizations founded in 1846. Its evangelical identity and membership structure differ from the council’s broad ecumenical fellowship.
World Council of Churches Central Committee: The governing body that guides the World Council of Churches between assemblies. It carries assembly decisions forward between the council’s largest gatherings.
World Missionary Conference (1910): A 1910 gathering in Edinburgh that brought Protestant mission leaders together and helped spur modern ecumenical cooperation. Its missionary cooperation helped shape the movement that later founded the council.
Philip Potter: A Methodist minister from Dominica who served as the World Council of Churches’ general secretary from 1972 to 1984. His leadership strengthened the council’s attention to global justice and churches outside Europe.
Conciliar fellowship: A model of church unity in which autonomous churches share fellowship without forming a single centralized institution. It describes how the council pursues unity without governing its member churches.
Global Christian Forum: An international forum bringing together Christian traditions, including churches and movements outside older ecumenical institutions. It seeks wider Christian conversation, including groups not represented in the council.

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