The World Council of Churches and the Redefinition of “Christian”

The next major shift came with Orthodox participation in the World Council of Churches, founded in 1948. The WCC’s foundational documents define the Church not as one visible, sacramental Body, but as a fellowship of churches that “confess the Lord Jesus Christ as God and Savior.”

Here lies the problem.

This definition does not come from the Ecumenical Councils. The Fathers never defined the Church by minimal confession alone. They defined her by:

Right faith

Apostolic succession

Eucharistic communion

Unity in doctrine and worship

By adopting WCC language, even cautiously, Orthodox representatives entered a framework where contradictory ecclesiologies coexist as equally valid expressions of Christianity. In practice, this has led to statements implying that all who “believe in Jesus” are somehow members of the Church, differing only in degree or tradition.

This is not Orthodox teaching.

Saint Cyprian said plainly:

“He can no longer have God for his Father, who has not the Church for his mother.” (St Cyprian of Carthage, On the Unity of the Church 6, ANF vol. 5).

When Orthodoxy speaks within a body that treats doctrine as negotiable and unity as structural cooperation, the faithful understandably ask: If the Church is one, why is she spoken of in the plural?