A new partnership statement has been agreed by the Scottish Episcopal Church (Anglican), the Methodist Church and the United Reformed Church in Scotland. It was was sealed by leaders of the churches at a service in St Ninian’s Cathedral, Perth.

The Philip A. Potter Library (formerly the Ecumenical Library) consists of more than 120,000 volumes, 1,300 specialized periodicals, some over a century old, and more than 12,000 boxes of archives containing nearly 20 million irreplaceable documents related to the history of the ecumenical movement.

Despite setbacks and constraints, the cause of greater Christian unity and outward-looking cooperation in Britain and Ireland is still strong, a gathering of ecumenists has said.

The World Council of Churches has identified two candidates – one a Korean Presbyterian and the other a Norwegian Lutheran – for the post of its general secretary in 2010.