Between Dialogue and Denunciation: The World Council of Churches, Religious Freedom, and Human Rights during the Cold War

While the historiography on religious Cold War has tended to focus Christian anticommunism, World Council of Churches (WCC) sought transcend while simultaneously advancing freedom in Soviet Union. This article connects WCC's ecclesiastical diplomacy wider story human rights, from which religion too often been excluded. The quest for fellowship led it integrate Russian Orthodox Church into its membership, but this commitment generated tensions with rise dissidence. Moreover, turn towards left and Third contrasted newly ascendant voices rights 1970s: Amnesty International's depoliticised liberalism, evangelical Vatican under John Paul II. Thus, WCC, an early prominent transnational voice ran afoul shifts both politics protest.