(ENI) The heads of more than 330 Protestant, Anglican and Orthodox churches which are members of the World Council of Churches are to be invited to the Zimbabwean capital of Harare in December for a service of recommitment to mark the 50th anniversary of the foundation in 1948 of the WCC.

The service will take place on 13 December as part of the WCC's Eighth Assembly which will meet in Harare from 3 to 14 December. Announcing the plans last week the WCC said that each Church leader would be asked to bring a cross to exchange during the service with the head of another Church to symbolise the recommitment which will be made, and the relationships which the WCC makes possible.

The service will follow a "multi-media" public celebration of the WCC's work over the past 50 years, at which the main speakers will be the former Tanzanian president, Dr Julius Nyerere, and Dr Philip Potter, a former WCC general secretary. The celebration will be moderated by Dr Pauline Webb, who was vice-moderator of the WCC's central committee from 1968 to 1975 and the first woman to be elected as a WCC officer. Dr Webb is the former head of religious broadcasting for the BBC World Service.

The assembly will include a special plenary to consider the results of the Ecumenical Decade of Churches in Solidarity with Women, which was launched in 1988 to encourage Churches to review their structures, their teachings and their practices to promote the full participation of women.

There will also be a special plenary to consider the role in Africa of the international community and of Churches from around the world. The keynote speakers will be Dr Mercy Amba Oduyoye, a former WCC deputy general secretary who is now a professor at the University of Ghana, and Barney Pityana, chairperson of the human rights' commission of South Africa and a former director of the WCC's Programme to Combat Racism.