Ecumenical New Start

After the war, Visser ’t Hooft advocated the prompt return of German Protestants to the worldwide ecumenical movement. Accompanied by a delegation of the World Council of Churches, he unexpectedly attended the meeting of the new Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany in Stuttgart on October 18-19, 1945 at which the Stuttgart Declaration of Guilt was adopted.

In an address to the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany, Visser ’t Hooft stressed the importance of the witness to faith revealed in the Kirchenkampf, the importance of German Protestantism for the ecumenical movement and the church’s prospects for the future after Germany’s defeat.