Word: vissering
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...Evanston Assembly in 1954. The makeup of the World Council's delegation to Russia was well designed to disprove any lingering notions Moscow's Patriarch Alexis might have that the W.C.C. was "a political tool of Western imperialism." Under the leadership of World Council General Secretary Willem Visser 't Hooft (Dutch Reformed), the delegation consisted of: British Anglican Francis House; U.S. Lutheran Dr. O. Frederick Nolde, director of the W.C.C.'s Commission on International Affairs; Greek Orthodox Dr. Nick Nissiotis; and Burma Baptist U Kyaw Than, administrative secretary of the East Asia Christian Conference...
Back in Geneva and jaunty in a Russian fur hat. Secretary Visser 't Hooft last week described the "songs and shouts of welcome, the waving of handkerchiefs, and the joy of being with Christians of other churches, the sincere desire for closer contacts with those from other lands." How was Christianity doing? Orthodox leaders estimated church membership at about 25 million (total pop. 208,826,000), and the theological seminaries were well-filled with high-caliber students. Congregations are surprisingly large (as many as 10,000 in one service at Leningrad), but the question is how long they will...
...wasn't an easy meeting, but it was a good one," said General Secretary Willem Visser 't Hooft of the World Council of Churches, as the council's tenth annual Central Committee meeting in Rhodes adjourned last week. The meeting was good for its air-clearing exchanges between Protestant and Orthodox delegates -and even, offstage, with the Roman Catholic observers to Rhodes (TIME, Aug. 31). It was also hard because it did not produce the one big thing the W.C.C. had hoped for: a real breakdown of the barriers separating the Protestant and Orthodox churches...
...Vitaly M. Borovoy, 43, professor of ecclesiastical history at Leningrad Theological Academy, had already spent three weeks studying the World Council at its headquarters in Geneva, and a delegation of W.C.C. leaders will return the visit in Moscow next December. Said the World Council's General Secretary Willem Visser 't' Hooft: "The Russian Church is at the moment in the process of discovering the World Council. If all goes well, it will mean that our relations will develop with churches in Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Rumania and Poland...
General Secretary Willem Visser 't Hooft of the World Council of Churches commented that much would depend on "how ecumenical the council will be, in composition and spirit." There are "enormous" possibilities for cooperation (e.g., joint action against Communist oppression, prevention of atomic warfare, the problems of Christians in non-Christian countries), "provided that the Vatican is willing to admit and accept dogmatic differences." In Britain the Archbishop of Canterbury indicated that the Anglican Church would send an observer, if invited, but a spokesman for the Presbyterian Church of Scotland was dour. "We are very keen on the ecumenical...