Paper collection

The paper Archives are kept in the same building as the Ecumenical Centre library in Geneva.  The mandate of the historical Archives is to safeguard and transmit the memory of the World Council and the ecumenical movement.  It is responsible for maintaining, cataloguing, preserving and disseminating the documents produced by the organisation.

Our collection comprises more than 12,000 boxes which are now being inventoried and entered on our computerized database. (see the classification scheme)

Our Archives include the following collections:

• Archives of the World Council of Churches in formation, 1938-1948
• Archives of the World Council of Churches, as from 1948
   Correspondence of the General Secretariat
   Assemblies (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th)
   Central and Executive Committees
   Divisions, Departments, Secretariats and Programmes
• Faith and Order, from 1910
• Life and Work, from 1925
• World Alliance for Promoting Friendship through the Churches, 1906-1948
• International Missionary Council, 1910-1961
• World Student Christian Federation, from the end of the 19th century

Recently catalogued archives

• Programme to Combat Racism
• Ecumenical Commission for the Chaplaincy Service to Prisoners of War
• Relations with the Roman Catholic Church
• Christian Medical Commission