The title requires some explanation. There is no satisfactory generic term to cover the institutions and groups discussed in this paper. I have opted for ‘International Protestant Community’, because it he seems on the whole less unsatisfactory than the term ‘ecumenical movement’, which in contemporary parlance at least must include within its scope Catholics as well as non-Catholics. Even the narrower term has its defects, however, since many of the Anglicans who played prominent roles within these international organisations would have considered themselves more Catholic than Protestant, while the Orthodox who figured in at least some of them would not have considered themselves Protestant at all. But in the period reviewed here the dominant influences within this international community were undoubtedly Protestant and the description, International Protestant Community, though inadequate, is probably the least inadequate available.