In conversation with Professor Mona Siddiqui, Professor of Islamic and Interreligious Studies, Assistant Principal Religion and Society, Dean International, Middle East, the University of Edinburgh.
Dr. Rowan Williams is acknowledged internationally as an outstanding theological writer, scholar and teacher. He has been involved in many theological, ecumenical and educational commissions. He has written extensively across a very wide range of related fields of professional study – philosophy, theology (especially early and patristic Christianity) spirituality and religious aesthetics. He has also written throughout his career on moral, ethical and social topics and, since becoming archbishop, he turned his attention increasingly on contemporary cultural and interfaith issues.
He was educated at Dynevor Secondary Grammar School in Swansea, he came up to Christ’s College in 1968. He studied for his doctorate at Christ Church and Wadham College Oxford, working on the Russian Orthodox theologian Vladimir Lossky. His career began as a lecturer at Mirfield (1975-1977).
He returned to Cambridge as Tutor and Director of Studies at Westcott House. After ordination in Ely Cathedral, and serving as Honorary Assistant Priest at St George’s Chesterton, he was appointed to a University lectureship in Divinity. In 1984 he was elected a Fellow and Dean of Clare College. During his time at Clare he was arrested and fined for singing psalms as part of the CND protest at Lakenheath air-base.
Then, still only 36, it was back to Oxford as Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity for six years, before becoming Bishop of Monmouth, and, from 2000, Archbishop of Wales. He was awarded the Oxford higher degree of Doctor of Divinity in 1989, and an honorary DCL degree in 2005; Cambridge followed in 2006 with an honorary DD. He holds honorary doctorates from considerably more than a dozen other universities, from Durham to K U Leuven, Toronto to Bonn. In 1990 he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy. Dr Williams is a noted poet and translator of poetry, and, apart from Welsh, speaks or reads nine other languages. He learnt Russian in-order to read the works of Dostoevsky in the original. This led to a book; he has also published studies of Arius, Teresa of Avila, and Sergii Bulgakov, together with writings on a wide range of theological, historical and political themes.
Elected as Archbishop of Canterbury on 23 July 2002. Confirmed as 104th Archbishop of Canterbury on 2 December 2002 in St Paul’s Cathedral, London. Enthroned as the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury on 27 February 2003 in Canterbury Cathedral.
At the end of 2012 he moved to a new role as Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge.
Cost: £10/£8 (concessions)/£3 (students). For a registration form: contact Neill Walker, 0131 331 4469, mesp2018@hotmail.com
