Dr Rowan Williams

He was ordained in Ely Cathedral, elected a Fellow and Dean of Clare College, University of Oxford, and later Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity. In 1991 he became Bishop of Monmouth, followed by Archbishop of Wales, and from 2002-2012 he was the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury. He became the 35th Master of Magdalene College, University of Cambridge in 2013 and is an Honorary Professor of Contemporary Christian Thought. Williams is a noted poet and translator of poetry, and, apart from Welsh, speaks or reads nine other languages.

He learned Russian in order to read the works of Dostoevsky in the original. This led to the book Dostoevsky: Language, Faith and Fiction; he has also published studies of Arius, Teresa of Avila, and Sergei Bulgakov, together with writings on a wide range of theological, historical and political themes. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, the Royal Society of Literature and the Learned Society of Wales. In 2013, he was made a life peer, becoming The Rt Rev. and the Rt Hon. the Lord Williams of Oystermouth. He retired from the House of Lords in August 2020.