Rowan Williams

The Right Reverend and Right Honourable The Lord Williams of Oystermouth PC FBA FRSL FLSW
Archbishop of Canterbury Primate of All England
Williams in 2007
Church	Church of England
Province	Canterbury
Diocese	Canterbury
Elected	2 December 2002 [1]
Installed	27 February 2003
Term ended	31 December 2012 (retired) [2]
Predecessor	George Carey
Successor	Justin Welby
Other post(s)	Archbishop of Wales (2000–2002) Bishop of Monmouth (1992–2002)
Orders
Ordination	2 October 1977 (deacon) by Eric Wall 2 July 1978 (priest) by Peter Walker
Consecration	1 May 1992 by Alwyn Rice Jones
Personal details
Born	Rowan Douglas Williams (1950-06-14) 14 June 1950 (age 74) Swansea, Glamorgan, Wales
Denomination	Anglicanism
Parents	Aneurin Williams Delphine née Morris
Spouse	Jane Paul ​ (m. 1981)​
Profession	Bishop, theologian
Alma mater	Christ's College, Cambridge Wadham College, Oxford
Motto	Cultus Dei Sapientia Hominis (The worship of God is the wisdom of man)
Signature
Coat of arms
Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge
In office January 2013 – October 2020
Preceded by	Duncan Robinson
Succeeded by	Sir Christopher Greenwood
Member of the House of Lords (life peer)
In office January 2013 – 31 August 2020
Academic background
Education	Dynevor School, Swansea
Alma mater	Christ's College, Cambridge Wadham College, Oxford College of the Resurrection
Thesis	The Theology of Vladimir Nikolaievich Lossky: An Exposition and Critique (1975)
Academic work
Discipline	Theology
Sub-discipline	Church Fathers moral theology
School or tradition	Affirming Catholicism
Institutions	College of the Resurrection Westcott House, Cambridge Clare College, Cambridge Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge Christ Church, Oxford Faculty of Theology and Religion, University of Oxford Magdalene College, Cambridge

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 on the verge of fragmentation over disagreements on contemporary issues such as homosexuality and the ordination of women. Williams worked to keep all sides in dialogue.^[1] 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.^[3] After standing down as archbishop, Williams took up the position of chancellor of the University of South Wales in 2014 and served as master of Magdalene College, Cambridge between 2013 and 2020. He also delivered the Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh in 2013.

Williams retired as Archbishop of Canterbury on 31 December 2012, succeeded by Justin Welby.^[2] On 26 December 2012, 10 Downing Street announced Williams's elevation to the peerage as a life peer,^[4] 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,^[5] he was introduced to the temporal benches of the House of Lords as Baron Williams of Oystermouth on 15 January 2013,^[6] sitting as a crossbencher. Oystermouth is a district of Swansea. He retired from the House on 31 August 2020^[7] and from Magdalene College that Autumn, returning to Abergavenny, in his former diocese (Monmouthshire).^[8]