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Robert Dalziel Runcie F/Mc Married Married: 1907 Anne Bensonc | ||||||||
| Robert Alexander Kennedy Runcie [CFT #2592] Born: 1921 Died: 2000 |
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| b Great Crosby, Liverpool d St Albans, Hertfordshire More than 2000 people are expected at the funeral today of Lord Runcie, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, who died last week of cancer. As the choir sings a Russian kontakion for the dead and the coffin is borne from St. Alban's Cathedral for internment nearby, the man who knew Lord Runcie as tutor, bishop, archbishop and, foremost, as an unfailingly amusing friend, will say a prayer of commendation. It is a role that the Bishop of London, the Rt Rev and Rt Hon Richard Chartres, describes modestly as "a walk-on part," yet it was he whom Robert Runcie's family summoned to anoint and pray over the former Primate at his deathbed. For Bishop Chartres it was the final chapter, in this world at least, of a 32 year friendship. "The family phoned and I was happy to go," says Bishop Chartres who was Bishop Runcie's Domestic Chaplain at St Albans from 1975 to 1980, and Archbishop's Chaplain at Lambeth from 1980 to 1984. Bishop Chartres was quickly on his feet last week to praise "the gold" of Lord Runcie's character, but now he is settling his gangly frame into a tiny arm chair at the Old Deanery, near St Paul's Cathedral, and taking as his text Donald Coggan's prunes. This, it turns out, is an anecdote Lord Runcie liked to tell. Archbishop Coggan, his predecessor at Lambeth, turned up at a garden party lured by the promise of a strawberries and cream tea and was handed a slip as he approached the gate which said "Owing to the unseasonable unavailability of strawberries, prunes will be served." "Lord R was in huge demand for memorial services," Bishop Chartres says, "and often began his remarks with this story as his way of saying, 'Well, youknow, I'm just a substitute really.' It put people on his side." It was typical, he says, both of Lord Runcie's ability to draw humour from life and his modesty. On the face of it, the bishop's friendship with Lord Runcie was a strange pairing. Robert Runcie presided over the introduction of the Alternative Service Book and paved the way for women priests; Bishop Chartres is a traditionally-inclined, Prayer Book bishop who will not ordain women. "That was the great thing about him. He never used his power to marginalise those with whom he disagreed." The men first met in 1968 when the fresh-faced Bishop Chartres was interviewed by Robert Runcie, then Principal of Ripon College, Cuddesdon, Oxon. Towards the end of his stay, Lord Runcie was called to be Bishop of St Albans, the diocese sponsoring Bishop Chartres as ordinand. "We kept in touch, and in 1975 he asked me to be his Domestic Chaplain. It was a role many had turned down. He already knew me, knew the worst. I was always described in those days as opinionated." Over the next eight years, Bishop Chartres saw Archbishop Runcie tested to breaking point. There were the clashes with the Thatcher government over the miners' strike, the "Marxist" 'Faith in the City' report on inner-city deprivation, and the Falklands thanksgiving service in which Archbishop Runcie included prayers of reconciliation. Did Archbishop Runcie court controversy? "No, I think it was inescapable in role. For instance, the Falklands service, he had to do it, really, it was a national thanksgiving. "What he said was immensely patriotic and understanding because he was, after all, somebody who had very unusual experience for an archbishop - of the battlefield. "I was with him at the time of the Falklands and at no point did he say to me, "Well, that was a mistake'." But the criticism wounded Archbishop Runcie more than the public realised. "He was a sensitive person," says Bishop Chartres, "so, of course, it hurt, but less so on areas like 'Faith in the City', where he was so clear it was the right thing to do. "He was the right man at the right time; a man of extraordinarily wide sympathies and an appropriate and modern archbishop for an age when people were spiritually hungry." The Bishop of London talking to P J Bonthrone on 22nd July 2000. |
1: 1959 James Runciec W/C 2: 1962 Rebecca Runciec H/C | |||||||
| 2 Children | ||||||||
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