Runcie, Robert Alexander Kennedy

Related Category: Protestant Christianity: Biographies

(rŭn´sē), 1921–2000, archbishop of Canterbury (1980–91). Bishop of St. Albans from 1970 to 1980, he was enthroned as the 102d archbishop of Canterbury in 1980, succeeding Donald Coggan. Runcie supported the ordination of women and other liberal Anglican positions and was often a critic of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government. He also was noted for developing links with the Orthodox Eastern churches and the Roman Catholic Church and for his work on behalf of the Anglican ministry in Africa. Runcie was created a life peer in 1991.

See biographies by A. Hastings (1991) and H. Carpenter (1996).