The World Council of Churches (WCC) on 6 February wrote to Eduard Shevardnadze, appealing to the Georgian president to bring to justice those responsible for "violent attacks against those peacefully gathering to mark the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity in the Central Baptist Church in Tbilisi on 24 January".
The first meeting of the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches (WCC), held in Lausanne on 3 August 1927, had very high hopes. Participants believed that the goal of visible unity of the churches was really attainable.