European Baptists and the Conference of European Churches

Abstract

"What had just been accepted by an almost unanimous vote was the Constitution which was designed to give a semblance, at least, of form and structure to the Conference of European Churches (CEC), the first meeting of which had taken place five-and-a-half years earlier in January 1959 in Denmark. The movement of the meeting hall was not caused, as it were, by a movement of the divine head, whether in assent or dissent. It was simply that a larger wave than usual had passed under the meeting hall just at the moment of the vote. For this CEC assembly-the fourth-was being held on a liner cruising in the waters between Denmark, Norway and Sweden. To charter a shipthe m.v. "Bomholm"-sailing under the Danish flag, to take the whole assembly to sea, and actually to take some twenty-five participants on board on the high sea, had. been the only way out of a triangular difficulty over visas, which had arisen ,at the last moment, and so ensure the participation of delegations from churches in all parts of Europe"