Religion: The Unionist

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One of the most influential leaders of U.S. Protestantism is a lean, white-haired man with bushy black eyebrows and a startlingly soft voice. Dr. Samuel McCrea Cavert's parish has, from his youth, been almost the whole U.S.; as much as any other man, he has been responsible for the movement toward unity among the nation's Protestant Churches. Last week, at 65, he had a new job—tending the garden of unity among the Protestant and Orthodox Churches of the world.

Sam Cavert was a small-town boy, son of a farmer-businessman of Charlton, N.Y. (pop. 100). After Union College in Schenectady, N.Y., he headed for Union Theological Seminary, graduated summa cum laude in 1915, and was ordained a minister in the Presbyterian Church. His first ecumenical job came two years later: assistant secretary of the General Wartime Commission of the Churches.

After World War I, Unionist Cavert joined the Federal Council of Churches, by 1930 became its executive head. In 1950, he became head of the newly formed National Council of Churches, of which the Federal Council became a part—a vigorous collaboration of 30 churches representing a total membership of some 35.5 million. Presbyterian Cavert's delicate balance of diplomacy and decision was indispensable in the council's triumph over the formidable opposition of inertia and denominational differences. Cavert's approach: "A council of churches is not so much an attempt to create unity as to practice such unity as we already have." . After World War II, Cavert took a six month leave of absence from his job to help organize the World Council of Churches. Last month he retired from his old job to become U.S. executive secretary of the World Council, just in time to help plan its second assembly next August in Evanston, 111.

"The National Council is the kind of organization that should be run by young people with a lot of ambition and drive," said Sam Cavert last week. "The World Council should be headed by people who have a lot of experience and wide acquaintance in the churches. My new job is more appropriate for a man of my age."