Rowan Douglas Williams, Baron Williams of Oystermouth (born 14 June 1950), is a Welsh Anglican bishop, theologian and poet, who served as the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury from 2002 to 2012. Previously the Bishop of Monmouth and Archbishop of Wales, Williams was the first Archbishop of Canterbury in modern times not to be appointed from within the Church of England.
Williams's primacy was marked by speculation that the Anglican Communion (in which the Archbishop of Canterbury is the leading figure) was fragmenting over disagreements on contemporary issues such as homosexuality and the ordination of women. Williams worked to keep all sides in dialogue. Notable events during his time as Archbishop of Canterbury include the rejection by a majority of dioceses of his proposed Anglican Covenant and, in the final general synod of his tenure, his unsuccessful attempt to secure a sufficient majority for a measure to allow the appointment of women as bishops in the Church of England.
Having spent much of his earlier career as an academic at the universities of Cambridge and Oxford successively, Williams speaks three languages and reads at least nine.
Williams retired as Archbishop of Canterbury on 31 December 2012 and was succeeded by Justin Welby. On 26 December 2012, 10 Downing Street had announced Williams's elevation to the peerage as a life peer, so that he could continue to speak in the House of Lords. Following the creation of his title on 8 January and its gazetting on 11 January 2013, he was introduced to the temporal benches of the House of Lords as Baron Williams of Oystermouth on 15 January 2013, sitting as a crossbencher. Oystermouth is a district of Swansea.
Williams delivered the Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh in 2013 and served as Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge, between 2013 and 2020. He took up the position of chancellor of the University of South Wales in 2014. He retired from the House of Lords on 31 August 2020 and from Magdalene College that autumn, returning to Abergavenny in his former Diocese of Monmouth.
Williams was born on 14 June 1950 in Ystradgynlais, now in the county of Powys, Wales, into a Welsh-speaking family. He was the only child of Nancy Delphine (known as "Del") (née Morris) and Aneurin Williams – Presbyterians who became Anglicans in 1961. In 1954 the Williams family relocated to Swansea where he attended the state sector Dynevor Secondary Grammar School, before reading theology at Christ's College, Cambridge, graduating with starred first-class honours. He then went to Wadham College, Oxford, where he studied under A. M. Allchin and graduated with a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1975 with a thesis titled "The Theology of Vladimir Nikolaievich Lossky: An Exposition and Critique".
Williams lectured and trained for ordination at the College of the Resurrection in Mirfield, West Yorkshire, for two years (1975–1977). In 1977, he returned to Cambridge to teach theology as a tutor (as well as chaplain and director of studies) at Westcott House; he was made a deacon in the chapel by Eric Wall, Bishop of Huntingdon, at Michaelmas (2 October). While there, he was ordained a priest the Petertide following (2 July 1978), by Peter Walker, Bishop of Ely, at Ely Cathedral.
On 4 July 1981, Williams married Jane Paul, a writer and lecturer in theology. They have two children.
Williams speaks or reads eleven languages: English, Welsh, Spanish, French, German, Russian, Biblical Hebrew, Syriac, Latin, and both Ancient (koine) and Modern Greek. He learnt Russian in order to be able to read the works of Dostoevsky in the original. He has since described his spoken German as a "disaster area" and said that he is "a very clumsy reader and writer of Russian". He also stated that he knows some Italian, which means he knows twelve languages.
Early academic career and pastoral ministry
Williams did not have a formal curacy until 1980, when he served at St George's, Chesterton, Cambridge, until 1983, after having been appointed a university lecturer in divinity at Cambridge. In 1984, he became dean and chaplain of Clare College and, in 1986 at the age of 36, he was appointed to the Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at Oxford, a position which brought with it appointment to a residentiary canonry of Christ Church Cathedral. In 1989, he received the degree of Doctor of Divinity (DD) and, in 1990, was elected a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA).
On 5 December 1991, Williams was elected Bishop of Monmouth in the Church in Wales: he was consecrated a bishop on 1 May 1992 at St Asaph Cathedral and enthroned at Newport Cathedral on 14 May. He continued to serve as Bishop of Monmouth after he was elected to also be the Archbishop of Wales in December 1999, in which capacity he was enthroned again at Newport Cathedral on 26 February 2000.
In 2002, he was announced as the successor to George Carey as Archbishop of Canterbury — the senior bishop in the Church of England. The Archbishop of Canterbury in England acts as a focus of unity recognised as primus inter pares ("first among equals") but does not exercise authority in Anglican provinces outside the Church of England. As a bishop of the disestablished Church in Wales, Williams was the first Archbishop of Canterbury since the English Reformation to be appointed to this office from outside the Church of England. His election by the chapter of Canterbury Cathedral was confirmed by nine bishops in the customary ceremony in London on 2 December 2002, when he officially became Archbishop of Canterbury. He was enthroned at Canterbury Cathedral on 27 February 2003 as the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury.
The translation of Williams to Canterbury was widely canvassed. As a bishop he had demonstrated a wide range of interests in social and political matters and was widely regarded, by academics and others, as a figure who could make Christianity credible to the intelligent unbeliever. As a patron of Affirming Catholicism, his appointment was a considerable departure from that of his predecessor and his views, such as those expressed in a widely published lecture on homosexuality were criticised by a number of evangelical and conservative Anglicans. The debate had begun to divide the Anglican Communion, however, and Williams, in his new role as its leader was to have an important role.
As Archbishop of Canterbury, Williams acted ex officio as visitor of King's College London, the University of Kent and Keble College, Oxford, governor of Charterhouse School, and, since 2005, as (inaugural) chancellor of Canterbury Christ Church University. In addition to these ex officio roles, Cambridge University awarded him an honorary doctorate in divinity in 2006; in April 2007, Trinity College and Wycliffe College, both associated with the University of Toronto, awarded him a joint Doctor of Divinity degree during his first visit to Canada since being enthroned and he also received honorary degrees and fellowships from various universities including Kent, Oxford, and Roehampton.
Williams is also a poet and translator of poetry. His collection The Poems of Rowan Williams, published by Perpetua Press, was longlisted for the Wales Book of the Year award in 2004. Besides his own poems, which have a strong spiritual and landscape flavour, the collection contains several fluent translations from Welsh poets. He was criticised in the press for allegedly supporting a "pagan organisation", the Welsh Gorsedd of Bards, which promotes Welsh language and literature and uses druidic ceremonial but is actually not religious in nature.
In 2005, Prince Charles married Camilla Parker Bowles, a divorcee, in a civil ceremony. Afterwards, Williams gave the couple a formal service of blessing. In fact, the arrangements for the wedding and service were strongly supported by the Archbishop "consistent with the Church of England guidelines concerning remarriage". The "strongly-worded" act of penitence by the couple, a confessional prayer written by Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, to King Henry VIII, was interpreted as a confession by the bride and groom of past sins, albeit without specific reference and going "some way towards acknowledging concerns" over their past misdemeanours.