The meeting at Pendeli was the first meeting of the Working Group of DFI. The DFI sub-unit had been called into existence in 1971 at the meeting of the Central Committee of the WCC, Addis Ababa 1971 and at that occasion Dr Samartha was appointed as its director. But it is worthwhile to look at the earlier developments that led to this decision. I still remember a conference on relations with Muslims organized by Citor Hayward, study secretary of the WCC's Committee on World Mission and Evangelism (CWME) in Brumana, Lebanon in 1966. During that conference some of us urged Dr Hayward to start thinking about the possibility of the WCC establishing a department of interreligious relations, just as the Vatican had done in 1965. Victor Hayward was adamant in his refusal. Interreligious dialogue was such a sensitive topic among the member churches of the WCC that there was no possibility of support for such an undertaking.

However, within two years the situation had changed completely. At the WCC assembly in Uppsala 1968 the first tentative steps in the direction of interreligious dialogue were taken. Dr. Samartha was appointed as study secretary with the special assignment to carry forward a study on 'The World of God and the living faiths of Men'. That study project had already started in 1955 and Samartha was given the task to bring it to new life.

Samartha was not very happy with the wording of the study project. It looked like the opposite of a dialogical approach to people of living faiths: on the one hand the Word of God, on the other hand those people. From the beginning of his work with the WCC Samartha had a different program in his mind, that of the encounter between believers, Christians and people of other faiths. But he was aware that he would have to overcome deep suspicions from the side of many church-leaders and staff members within the WCC. In his commemorative account of his years with the WCC (Between Two Cultures) he tells the story that during his first week on the WCC staff somebody asked him: "Are you the Indian theologian recently appointed to promote syncretism in the World Council of Churches?".

Against this background the achievements of Dr Samartha are all the more remarkable. He was a great strategist, as I experienced time and again. He knew exactly what could be achieved at a certain moment and what would be better postponed to a later occasion. Already in March 1970 he succeeded in organizing the first interreligious encounter of the WCC in Ajaltoun, Lebanon. It was a very cautious beginning with three Hindus, four Buddhists, three Muslims and not less than twenty-eight Christians attending, but it resulted in a stimulating memorandum. I quote one sentence: "The keynote of the consultation was the understanding that a full and loyal commitment to one's own faith did not stand in the way of dialogue". Later I often heard Samartha explaining dialogue as 'a meeting of commitments'. Shortly after Ajaltoun a group of twenty-three Christian theologians - Roman Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant - met in Zurich. They brought out a document, known as the Zurich aide-mémoire. It stressed that throughout the world people (Christians included) are living in a pluralistic society and that they have to learn to live together. Therefore dialogue was demanded in this hour of human history.

This aide-mémoire laid the ground for the very important next step. As mentioned before the Central Committee of the WCC in its meeting at Addis Ababa 1971 decided to establish the sub-Unit DFI. At the same meeting the Central Committee accepted an 'Interim Policy Statement and Guidelines on Dialogue with People of Living Faiths and Ideologies'. For Stanley Samartha, the appointed Director of DFI, this meant a possibility to start with the implementation of the program towards which he had striven from the very beginning of his work in Geneva. During the years 1968 till 1971 Samartha had already made many contacts with people of different faiths by means of extensive journeys. Ajaltoun had given a strong impulse. Now the real work could start. In that work Samartha always followed two lines of action: in the first place he organized an impressively long series of dialogical encounters - or inspired others to do so - and in the second place he promoted an ongoing reflection by Christians about interreligious dialogue, its necessities and its theological consequences.

I do not think it necessary to discuss all the work Dr Samartha has done during his period in Geneva nor to give an impression of all the conferences he organized and attended. I will just highlight some of the most important meetings and in that way show Samartha's merits in promoting dialogue with people of living faiths. All these meetings I attended myself and so I had an opportunity to get fully acquainted with his ideas and strategies.

The first meeting I would draw attention to, is the multilateral dialogue in Colombo 1974. This time all the people that attended were in a minority position as far as their religion was concerned. The list of participants shows the names of 7 Hindus, 8 Buddhists, 10 Muslims and 17 Christians, whereas - unlike Ajaltoun - 4 Jews also took part. The theme of the conference was 'towards world community: resources and responsibilities for living together'. I remember Colombo as a very lively encounter. Of course there were items on which the participants could not agree (as for instance the definition of spirituality), but remarkably enough, at the end the conference came out with an unanimously accepted statement (which had not been the case at the Ajaltoun conference). In the publication entitled 'The Colombo Papers' Dr Samartha mentions some tensions and polarities, but also some positive gains. He finds the fact that people of five different faiths met together under the auspices of the WCC for sustained reflection on a mutually accepted theme is in itself significant. No one was interested in 'syncretism', but the participants looked for a larger framework in which responsibilities for living together in community could be accepted without in any way ignoring particularities.

The next important meeting was the assembly of the WCC at Nairobi in 1975. Two new developments occurred. In the first place there was a special Section on the theme 'Seeking Community: the Common Search of People of Various Faiths, Cultures and Ideologies' (Section III). That meant that people of different faiths were no longer regarded as just the 'other ones', but as fellow-seekers for world community. It was clearly a result of Samartha's efforts and an evidence of the fact that his work began to have an impact on the program of the WCC. In the second place, for the first time in the history of the WCC five guests of other faiths were invited to attend the assembly, a Hindu, a Buddhist, a Jew, a Muslim and a Sikh.

However, contrary to the expectations of the staff and the member of the Working Group of DFI the Nairobi assembly proved to create a serious crisis in the history of DFI. The guests of other faiths were not very welcomed by many of the participants of the assembly. They were not allowed to speak in plenary sessions, not even to say a few words of gratitude after they had been officially welcomed by the moderator of the assembly. The members of Section III came out with a report on the Common Search of People of Various Faiths, Cultures and Ideologies. That report was severely criticized in the plenary session, mainly by participants from Europe. It was considered to be in opposition to the mission of the Church and to show traces of syncretism. As a result of this first plenary discussion the report was sent back to Section III for reconsideration.

Understandably the mood of Section III was gloomy. I remember that Prof. Hans Jochen Margull, the then moderator of DFI, said to me that the staff of the sub-unit (Dr Samartha and his two colleagues) better look out for a new job, because he expected that DFI was going to be killed. But Samartha did not give up that easily. Section III did not change its report, but it added a preamble. The two most important points in that preamble were that the Great Commission of Jesus Christ to make disciples of all nations should not be abandoned or betrayed, disobeyed or compromised, nor be misused and further that we are all opposed to syncretism, if by syncretism we mean attempts to create a new religion composed of elements taken from different religions.

The combination of the preamble with the report was not very satisfactory, but in any case at the next plenary session the report was carried. This time participants from Asia defended the program of interreligious dialogue very strongly. The work of DFI could continue after Nairobi. Samartha thought it wise to learn from the experience of Nairobi and to convene a meeting of Christian thinkers to discuss together the theological implications of dialogue with people of living faiths. That meeting was held at Chiang Mai, Thailand, in April 1977. Samartha found it the most satisfying of all the meetings which he had organized during his ecumenical years. And indeed, it was remarkably successful. Among the sixty participants was the study secretary of the World Evangelical Fellowship and also two Norwegian theologians who had opposed dialogue very strongly at Nairobi. Also five Roman Catholics took part. In spite of the variety of the participants we ended with an unanimously accepted statement, which was approved in 1979 by the Central Committee of the WCC and is known under the title 'Guidelines on Dialogue with people of living faiths and ideologies'.

During all his years in Geneva, Dr Samartha organized a long series of interreligious encounters with Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims (Consultations with Jews were organized by a sub-committee of DFI, named 'Consultation of the Church and the Jewish people). Let me just mention one special occasion. In 1979 a small group of six Muslims and six Christians met at Chambésy to discuss developments in dialogue and cooperation under the heading 'Christians and Muslims living Together'. At a certain moment Dr Ezeddin Ibrahim came out with a kind of ultimatum: if the WCC did not prohibit Christian mission among Muslims, dialogue would cease. As moderator of the meeting I could only suggest that we take a tea break and ask Dr Samartha and Dr Ibrahim to sit together and try to formulate a statement that would be acceptable to both parties. They came out with a generally accepted statement which read: "Organized missionary activities generate tensions between Christians and Muslims and are causing increasing concern. In order to build trust and confidence and for the sake of future relations between us these activities should be restrained. However, proper understanding of each other's beliefs, teachings and attitudes should be facilitated". The meeting was saved and again Samartha's wisdom had prevailed.

When I look back at Stanley Samartha's time in Geneva, I remember him as a very wise man. He had a clear idea in his mind of the program he wanted to implement and in spite of criticism and opposition he succeeded in realizing that program. Soon after his arrival he became a man with great authority in the staff of the WCC. In his theological thinking he practised a certain restraint. That again was wise. I have the impression that after his return to India in 1980 Samartha felt freer to develop his ideas about what might be called a pluralistic model of theology. Within the framework of the ecumenical movement Samartha's contribution was most important. He laid the basis for interreligious dialogue, both by building a broad network of relations with people of living faiths and by promoting a reflection on dialogue and its many problems. We may hope that the results of his efforts will be lasting. In a time when some people speak about a 'clash of civilizations' interreligious encounter and cooperation are more necessary than ever before.

Let me end by mentioning that Dr Samartha's work received special attention in my own country, the Netherlands. In 1986 Samartha was conferred the degree of Doctor Honoris Causa by the University of Utrecht and in 1992 Ebuwout Klootwijk obtained a doctor's degree with a very thorough thesis on the Interreligious Dialogue and Theology of Religions in the Work of Stanley J. Samartha. It was titled 'Commitment and Openness'.