Robert Runcie was the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1980 to 1991, having previously been Bishop of St Albans.
26 Facts About Robert Runcie
2.
Robert Runcie travelled the world widely to spread ecumenicism and worked to foster relations with both Protestant and Catholic churches across Europe.
3.
Robert Runcie was a leader of the Liberal Anglo-Catholicism movement.
4.
Robert Runcie came under attack for expressing compassion towards bereaved Argentines after the Falklands War of 1982, and generated controversy by supporting women's ordination.
5.
Biographer Adrian Hastings argues that Runcie was not a distinguished writer or thinker, but was a good administrator who made shrewd appointments, demanded quality, and recognised good performances.
6.
Robert Runcie was born on 2 October 1921 in Birkenhead, Cheshire, and spent his early life in Great Crosby, Lancashire, to middle-class and rather non-religious parents.
7.
Robert Runcie initially attended St Luke's Church, Crosby, before switching to the Anglo-Catholic St Faith's Church about a mile down the road.
8.
Robert Runcie was educated at Merchant Taylors' Boys' School, Crosby, before going up to Brasenose College, Oxford.
9.
Robert Runcie served with the regiment's 3rd Battalion, then part of the 6th Guards Tank Brigade, as a tank commander, landing in Normandy with his unit as part of Operation Overlord in July 1944, a few weeks after the D-Day landings on 6 June, and fought with the battalion throughout the entire North West Europe Campaign until Victory in Europe Day in May 1945.
10.
Robert Runcie was a member of both Conservative and socialist societies at Oxford, and through that he had his first dealings with the young Margaret Thatcher, a relationship which was to prove pivotal during his archiepiscopate.
11.
Robert Runcie studied for ordination at Westcott House, Cambridge, where he received a diploma rather than a second bachelor's degree in theology.
12.
Robert Runcie was made deacon in Advent 1950 and ordained priest the following Advent, both times by Noel Hudson, Bishop of Newcastle, at Newcastle Cathedral, to serve as a curate in the parish of All Saints in the wealthy Newcastle upon Tyne suburb of Gosforth, then a rapidly growing suburban area.
13.
Rather than the conventional minimum three-year curacy, after two years Robert Runcie was invited to return to Westcott House as chaplain and, later, vice-principal.
14.
Robert Runcie spent 10 years and transformed what had been a rather monastic and traditionally Anglo-Catholic institution into a stronghold of the liberal Catholic tradition of the Church of England.
15.
Robert Runcie was duly consecrated a bishop on 24 February 1970 by Michael Ramsey, the then Archbishop of Canterbury, at Westminster Abbey.
16.
Robert Runcie was selected as Archbishop of Canterbury in 1979, as Donald Coggan approached his retirement from the see.
17.
Robert Runcie was installed as archbishop on 25 March 1980.
18.
In 1981, Robert Runcie officiated at the marriage of Charles, Prince of Wales, to Lady Diana Spencer.
19.
Robert Runcie attempted to give a speech in St Nicholas's Parish Church in Liverpool on 11 March 1982, but was heckled by people upset about the Pope's prospective visit to Britain.
20.
Robert Runcie played down the Queen's role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England:.
21.
Robert Runcie is, as it were, a chief lay person in our church rather than somebody who has a decisive voice in all our appointments.
22.
Much of the middle period of Robert Runcie's archiepiscopate was taken up with the tribulations of two men who had been close to him: the suicide of Gareth Bennett and the kidnapping of Terry Waite.
23.
When Robert Runcie visited Pope John Paul II in 1989, he set out to reconcile the Church of England with the Church of Rome.
24.
Robert Runcie advocated the Papacy as having a "primacy of honour" rather than "primacy of jurisdiction" over the Anglican churches, a proposal consistent with the report of the Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission.
25.
Robert Runcie retired as Archbishop of Canterbury effective 31 January 1991.
26.
Robert Runcie died of cancer in St Albans in 2000, and is buried in the grounds of St Albans Cathedral.