The forthcoming visit of the General Secretary of the World Council of Churches, the Rev Dr Samuel Kobia, to the UK and Ireland will facilitate many opportunities for new insights into the life and current work of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland's member churches, the WCC has said.

Kobia will travel from England to Wales and then Scotland before heading across to Ireland and back to England again, bringing him into contact with church leaders and workers engaged in such diverse fields as interfaith relations, work with refugees and asylum seekers, racial justice initiatives, and ecumenical theological education.

In the area of mission, the 2010 centennial celebration of the 1910 World Mission Conference in Edinburgh, widely considered as the symbolic starting point of the contemporary ecumenical movement, will be the focus of a visit to that city. Kobia is scheduled to speak on "Edinburgh 2010" at the opening session of a planning conference for this major event.

During his trip, the WCC general secretary will address several gatherings on a variety of topics including "Global migration and new ecclesial realities", "Hope and the healing of memories", and "Called to be one", and will respond to a lecture on "Prisoner abuse: from Abu Ghraib to the passion of the Christ".

The WCC general secretary will be accompanied on his visit by WCC executive committee members Mr Graham McGeoch of the Church of Scotland and Archbishop Nifon of Targoviste of the Romanian Orthodox Church, Mr Colin Ride, Conference of European Churches central committee member and Europe secretary of the Methodist Church of Britain, and WCC staff members Ms Sydia Nduna (Migration and Social Justice) and Rev Jacques Matthey (Unity, Mission, Evangelism and Spirituality).

The WCC has 12 member churches in the UK and Ireland. They are the Baptist Union of Great Britain, the Church in Wales, the Church of England, the Church of Ireland, the Church of Scotland, the Methodist Church, the Methodist Church in Ireland, the Presbyterian Church of Wales, the Scottish Episcopal Church, the Union of Welsh Independents, the United Free Church of Scotland, and the United Reformed Church.

Three ecumenical "bodies in association" with CTBI - Churches Together in England, Action of Churches Together in Scotland and Cytûn: Churches Together in Wales - are WCC associate councils, as is CTBI itself.