INDEX

WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES GENERAL ASSEMBLIES
 * Amsterdam, Netherlands, August – 4 September 1948
 * Evanston, Illinois, United States, 15–31 August 1954
 * New Delhi, India, 19 November – 5 December 1961
 * Uppsala, Sweden, 4–20 July 1968
 * Nairobi, Kenya, 23 November – 10 December 1975
 * Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, 24 July – 10 August 1983
 * Canberra, ACT, Australia, 7–21 February 1991
 * Harare, Zimbawe, 3–14 December 1998
 * Porte Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, –23 February 2006

Various prayers issued by the WCC

Faith and Order became part of the WCC in 1948-

Protestants within Faith and Order had wanted Orthodox participation in their missions and already begun their theological dialogue with Father Florovsky and continued doing so when Faith and Order became part of the WCC in 1948. All this time Father Florovsky had been one of the chief spoksmen of Orthodox theology.

The establishment of the WCC conformed to a shape that was distinctly Protestant and which aimed at addressing problems raised by them. The early group of Orthodox who signed the 1948 Charter of the WCC had such a negliable role in the actual process of organizing the parameters that WCC embraced, that it is not unlikely that they held to the ideal of an organization which operated within the spirit and limits of the 1920 encyclical of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, i.e. one of a "League of Churches".

In reality however, the WCC constitutions were not designed for equality of the members, and minority rights were not given built-in protection from majority dictatorship if it were to arise. This reliance on the goodwill of the majority placed Orthodox participation within a compromised position at the outset of the organization. This arrangement created an environment in which pleasing the majority would by default, be built into any dialogue, especially those that most closely affected the heart of the Orthodox self identity.

It is ironic that an organization that looks to overlook differences in the spirit of unity, would be begin with a stacked deck so to speak, where minorities would be part of a system in which the symantics of unity would only be achieved through a process of homoginization into a prexisting majority.

Amsterdam 1948

General Assemblies:

General Assembly at New Delhi in 1961

1963 Montreal World Conference on Faith and Order

1975 Nairobi General Assembly

.http://www.romanity.org/htm/rom.12.en.orthodox_heterodox_dialogues.01.htm

Nikos Nissiotis', Visser 't Hooft, the first General Secretary of the WCC

John S. Romanides "The sickness of religion"

Orthodox co-founders

Archbishop Germanus of Great Britain and Father Georges Florovsky, professor at St. Sergius School of Theology in Paris, both representing the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople New Rome. The third Orthodox co-founder was Professor Hamilcar Alivizatos of the University of Athens who represented the Church of Greece.