Rowan Williams learned Russian just to read Dostoevsky in the original
Rowan Williams, the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury, speaks or reads around a dozen languages, including Welsh, Syriac and Biblical Hebrew, and picked up Russian to read Dostoevsky. He was also the first archbishop since the English Reformation chosen from outside the Church of England, arriving from the Church in Wales.
Born on 14 June 1950 in Ystradgynlais and raised speaking Welsh, he grew up an only child with Presbyterian parents who became Anglicans in 1961. He grew up in Swansea, took starred first-class honours in theology at Christ's College, Cambridge, and completed an Oxford doctorate on the Russian theologian Vladimir Lossky in 1975. He is modest about his linguistic gifts, calling his spoken German a disaster area.
His academic rise was rapid. After training for ordination at Mirfield and teaching at Westcott House, he became dean of Clare College, Cambridge, and at 36 was named Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at Oxford. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1990, became Bishop of Monmouth in 1991 and added the role of Archbishop of Wales in 1999.
Enthroned at Canterbury on 27 February 2003 as George Carey's successor, he was hailed as someone who could make Christianity credible to thoughtful unbelievers, yet his tenure was dominated by fears that the Anglican Communion would split over homosexuality and the ordination of women. He tried to keep every faction talking. Most dioceses rejected his proposed Anglican Covenant, and at his final general synod a measure allowing women bishops fell short of the necessary majority.
He retired on 31 December 2012, handing over to Justin Welby, and entered the House of Lords as Baron Williams of Oystermouth, named after a district of Swansea, sitting as a crossbencher. He then gave the Gifford Lectures in 2013 and headed Magdalene College, Cambridge, as its Master until 2020, before settling in Abergavenny in his old diocese. Alongside his theology, he writes poetry.
Source: Rowan Williams
