LONDON — Former Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie, the outspoken cleric who led the Church of England through a decade of turmoil and presided over the marriage of Prince Charles and Princess Diana, has died after a six-year battle with prostate cancer. He was 78.
Runcie, a vocal critic of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's government during his 1980-91 tenure at the helm of the church, died late Tuesday night at his home in Hertfordshire outside London.
He led the church through emotional theological debates over the ordination of women, marriage after divorce and the modernization of the liturgy, and he will be remembered, in particular, for his historic invitation to Pope John Paul II to come to Canterbury in 1982.
"He was a wonderful raconteur, a delightful man, and we will all miss him enormously," said the current archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey. "I don't think he really liked controversy in any shape or form, but he was brought into it, as inevitably any archbishop of Canterbury is."
"He encapsulated the Anglican tradition of thoughtful holiness," said John Henry Moses, the dean of St. Paul's Cathedral.
Born in Liverpool in 1921, Runcie served as a tank officer in the Guards Armored Division during World War II and received the Military Cross after the invasion of Normandy in 1944. He attended Oxford before being ordained, eventually becoming Thatcher's surprise choice for archbishop in 1980.
Runcie was initially averse to taking the post, saying he didn't have enough of the skills required.
"That's what made me a reluctant archbishop," Runcie said earlier this year. "I think the archbishop should be among the resolvers, make mission statements, and stand up for them. But that's not what I'm like."
Runcie became a critic of the Thatcher government's fight with striking coal miners in the mid-1980s, accusing the Conservative leadership of treating the miners like "scum."
He called Britain's nuclear arsenal "lunatic" and antagonized the Thatcher administration by routinely praying for all the dead in the Falklands War. He was criticized for underplaying Britain's victory during a thanksgiving sermon he offered at the end of the war in 1982.
On Wednesday, bishops from throughout the church mourned Runcie's death, saying that what they will miss most is his lightheartedness and humor.
