Robert Bilheimer, 89; organizer for the World Council of Churches

The Rev. Robert Bilheimer, 89, who organized the first meeting of the World Council of Churches, died Dec. 17 in Canandaigua, N.Y., of complications from a hip fracture and the late stages of Alzheimer’s disease.

Bilheimer organized that meeting in 1948. The council, made up of 340 churches, denominations and church fellowships in more than 100 countries, is a broad movement with the goal of Christian unity. He became an associate general secretary of the council and organized a 1960 mission for the South African members, which led to a proclamation rejecting all religious arguments supporting apartheid.

Bilheimer began work as the senior minister of Central Presbyterian Church in Rochester, N.Y., in 1963. He returned to the ecumenical movement in 1966 to become director of the international affairs program of the National Council of Churches. In 1971, he organized conferences around the U.S. for Christian and Jewish leaders against the war in Vietnam. He was executive director of the Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research in Collegeville, Minn., until retiring in 1984.

Bilheimer became interested in theology while attending Yale University. He earned a master’s degree from Yale Divinity School in 1945 and wrote extensively on the ecumenical movement.