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World Council of Churches considers six candidates for general secretary
Although it did not release the list, sources linked to the Ecumenical Centre, where the WCC has its Geneva headquarters, identified six likely candidates. The council has 349 member churches -- principally Anglican, Orthodox and Protestant -- representing 560 million Christians. The names that have been mentioned are:
* the Rev. Robert Anderson, a minister of the (Presbyterian) Church of Scotland and chief executive of the Scottish Churches World Exchange;
* the Rev. Daryl Balia, a South African Methodist who is international director of Edinburgh 2010, an event to mark the centenary of the World Mission Conference that took place in Edinburgh, Scotland, seen as marking the start of the 20th century movement for church unity;
* the Rev. Fernando Enns, a Mennonite theologian who is director of the Institute for Peace Church Theology at Hamburg University, and who was born in Curitiba in Brazil;
* the Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon, an Irish Anglican who has been secretary general of the Anglican Communion since 2005;
* the Rev. Seong Won Park, a Korean theologian and former secretary for cooperation and witness of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches; and
* the Rev. Olav Fykse Tveit, the general secretary of the (Lutheran) Church of Norway's council on foreign and ecumenical relations.
The current general secretary, the Rev. Samuel Kobia, a Methodist from Kenya, announced in 2008 he would not seek another term. The WCC has said his successor will be named at the end of August, during a meeting of the church council's central committee, its main governing body.
The WCC, which held its first general assembly in 1948 in Amsterdam, has never had a woman leader, although it seeks to ensure that its governing bodies have a percentage of female representatives.
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