1. Early Life

Willem Adolf Visser ’t Hooft (1900–1985)—known to all as Wim—is often characterized as the person who shaped much of the modern ecumenical movement. Also, though, he himself was deeply shaped by that same movement (Ecumenism, Ecumenical Movement).

Born September 20, 1900, in Haarlem, the Netherlands, Visser ’t Hooft grew up in a family that was closely associated with the legal profession, his…