The head of the World Council of Churches has praised the work of South Korean lay church leader Kang Moon-Kyu who strove for democracy and reunification in his country before his recent death.

"An ardent advocate of democratization and human rights in Korea, he demonstrated a clear vision on churches' participation in wider social issues," the general secretary of the World Council of Churches, Rev. Olav Fykse Tveit, said in a letter to Kang's wife, Prof. Kang Kim Sook Ja,

"His commitment to justice and peace and inter-Korean reconciliation will long be remembered by churches and ecumenical movement in Asia," Tveit, a Norwegian Lutheran thanking God for Kang's lifework, said Wednesday.

The South Korean church leader who died recently worked tirelessly to mobilize humanitarian and development assistance to various Asian countries, especially to North Korea, East Timor, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Myanmar said the WCC leader.

Dr Kang was a lay member of the Presbyterian Church in the Republic of Korea (PROK) and a former regional president for Asia in the WCC, a grouping representing more than 500 million Christians.

He was also a member of the WCC's Commission of the Churches on International Affairs.

"As a member of the CCIA he was actively involved in the planning and preparation of the Tozanso process of the Korean unification and the first international ecumenical conference on peace and reunification of the Korean peninsula organized by WCC in 1984," said Tveit.

He was also actively involved in the organization of the WCC-sponsored World Convocation on Justice, Peace, and the Integrity of Creation (JPIC) held in Seoul, Korea in 1990.

Kang had also served as the Asia Pacific regional secretary of the World Student Christian Federation, general secretary of the Korean YMCA and as a general committee member and treasurer of the Christian Conference of Asia.