Kobia had announced at the last meeting of the Central Committee in February 2008 that for “personal reasons” he would not seek a second term in office at the head of the Geneva-based grouping that now has 349 member churches, principally Anglican, Orthodox, and Protestant.
The Aug. 26-Sept. 2 meeting of the WCC governing body will also decide the venue for the next WCC assembly, the grouping’s highest governing body, scheduled for 2013.
In addition, the central committee will receive a report from a working group on governance set up in September 2008 to review the WCC’s structure and organization.
Two candidates — one a Korean Presbyterian and the other a Norwegian Lutheran — have been proposed by a search committee for the election to succeed Kobia that takes place on Aug. 27.
The Rev. Park Seong-won, an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church of Korea, is a professor of theology at Youngnam Theological University and Seminary in Kyeongsan, South Korea, and the Rev. Olav Fykse Tveit, an ordained pastor in the Church of Norway, is general secretary of the Church of Norway Council on Ecumenical and International Relations.
In an interview with a German newspaper, Tveit said he would like to see increased contacts between the WCC and the world’s fast-growing Evangelical and Pentecostal churches, and greater cooperation between Protestants and Roman Catholics.
The Catholic Church is not a WCC member but it has members on some WCC committees. Tveit also said that the WCC needed to give greater attention to relations with Islam.
Park, in a statement on his Web site, said that the ecumenical movement requires “a deeper unity of our Church and a deeper fellowship … not only among Christian people, but also for a wider convergence of religious faiths and beliefs through intensive dialogue, wider cooperation, and solidarity.”
Kobia was elected in 2003 to lead the Geneva-based grouping. He was the first African chosen for the post, and took office in January 2004 for a five-year term. After he had announced in 2008 he would not seek a second term, his tenure was temporarily extended.
Note: Jerry L. Van Marter of the Presbyterian News Service will be in Geneva, reporting on the Central Committee meeting for ENI. — Presbyterian News Service
