Willem Adolph Visser ’t Hooft

Willem Adolph Visser ’t Hooft (born Sept. 20, 1900, Haarlem, Neth.—died July 4, 1985, Geneva, Switz.) was a Dutch clergyman and theologian who led the World Council of Churches as its secretary-general from 1948 to 1966.

Visser ’t Hooft was educated at the Haarlem Gymnasium and prepared for the ministry of the Netherlands Reformed Church at the University of Leiden. His long career as a leader of Christian organizations began with the post of secretary of the World Committee of the Young Men’s Christian Association in 1924, which he left in 1931 to become general secretary of the World Student Christian Federation. He was ordained a minister of the Reformed Church of Geneva in 1936.

The movement for cooperation and fellowship between the various Christian churches had resulted in the provisional formation in 1937 in Utrecht, Neth., of the World Council of Churches, and Visser ’t Hooft was chosen to be its secretary-general in 1938. After the interruption of this work during World War II, Visser ’t Hooft emerged in the postwar decades as a pivotal figure in the ecumenical movement. Under his leadership the World Council of Churches was officially constituted in 1948 by 147 Protestant and Orthodox Catholic denominations, and the organization grew to include nearly 300 denominations in the following decades. Visser ’t Hooft played a major role in the inclusion of churches from communist countries in the World Council, and he also sought to enlarge the role played by African, Asian, and Orthodox churches in the organization. His efforts to include the Roman Catholic church as a member proved unsuccessful, however.

Visser ’t Hooft served as editor of the Ecumenical Review from 1948 to 1966. He was also the author of numerous books on the ecumenical movement and the nature and functions of the church.