We believe that this assembly will become one of the very significant events in the Korean ecumenical movement. Two Korean churches, who are member churches of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, are also pivotal and active churches in the National Council of Churches in Korea. We truly hope that through this assembly, all the participants as well as the Korean churches can share their experiences and confessions rooted in their own contexts.

As one of the opportunities to have contact with Korean Christians' aspirations, we want to invite you to one Korean ecumenical worship. This is dated on August 13. The date of August 15 is a very paradoxical day for the Korean people. On that day in 1945, Korean people were liberated from the yoke of Japan. But at the same time, our nation was divided into north and south, which is the source of acute suffering for Korean people because our nation has continued to be united for about 1200 years. The division has separated ten millions of family members. And since then, they have heard nothing about the whereabouts of their family members.

We, the NCCK, have tried to cure this suffering and overcome the established division in solidarity with the churches of the world. For the last few years, we have had contact with north Korean Christians with the cooperation of ecumenical families. And finally, we Christians in north and south have agreed on the celebration of a common day of prayer, Sunday just before August 15, using the common prayer text of the last meeting of 1989 which was held in Glion, Switzerland by the World Council of Churches. The ecumenical family also decided to commit themselves to sharing the suffering of the Korean people by celebrating this prayer day. This year we celebrate this day as the first common prayer day, which is also the first since 1945. We have already proclaimed the year of 1995 as the year of Jubilee for Peace and Reunification, and until that year we will continue to pray for reconciliation of the Korean people.

On this significant day, we hope that all the participants in this assembly can share our prayer with us...