Sydney
10 March 2002
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Dates set for saints
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Prelate retires as Canterbury see reaches 1400th birthday
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Prelate retires as Canterbury see reaches 1400th birthday
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey, and Pope John Paul II in 1999
By Dr Joe Morley
The decision of the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, the Very Rev Dr George Carey to retire as Archbishop and Primate of All England (and head of the worldwide Anglican community) in October comes 1400 years after St Augustine established the See of Canterbury in the year 602.
Pope Gregory the Great (590-604) sent Augustine, with 40 companion Benedictine monks from the Monastery of St Andrew in Rome, on a mission in 596 to convert the then pagan Anglo-Saxon people of England.
Augustine and the monks journeyed through Europe for months before they reached England at Easter in 597, landing at Ebbsfleet on the then Isle of Thanet (19km north-east of Canterbury). There they met King Ethelbert and his Frankish Catholic queen, Bertha.
Ethelbert, influenced by Bertha, gave Augustine permission to preach and possibly convert his subjects by peaceful persuasion. As related in Bede’s A History Of The English Church And People, on the Feast of Pentecost 597 Augustine baptised Ethelbert.
Conversion of tens of thousands of Ethelbert’s subjects followed.
Seeking answers from Pope Gregory to a number of problems that had arisen, Augustine sent two of his monks to Rome.
They returned in 601 with letters and the Pallium that Gregory had conferred on Augustine on June 22, 601.
Augustine established his archiepiscopal see in Canterbury the following year.
Gregory had instructed him to establish his see at London and to create another metropolitan see at York. Because of the more favourable circumstances in Canterbury, Augustine chose it as the locality of his see.
He had established a monastery in Canterbury and begun work on the construction of the original Canterbury Cathedral when he died in 604.
Dr George Carey is the 101st Archbishop of Canterbury (not counting two terms by Thomas Arundel).
From Augustine’s establishment of the See in 602 to the reign of the last Catholic Archbishop (Reginald Cardinal Pole) from 1556 to 1558, there were 68 incumbents.
Seventeen were canonised, nine were cardinals and 12 became Lord Chancellors of England.
Included among them were such famous figures in English history as St Theodore, St Odo, St Dunstan, Lanfranc, St Anselm, Theobald, St Thomas Becket, Hubert Walter, Stephen Langton, St Edmund Rich, Robert Kilwardby, Thomas Bradwardine and Thomas Cranmer.
Archbishop Geoffrey Fisher (1945–1961) became the first Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury to visit a Pope when he visited Pius XII in the Vatican in December 1960.
And each of Archbishop Fisher’s successors – Michael Ramsey (1961– 1974), Donald Coggan (1974–1980), Robert Runcie (1980–1991) and Dr George Carey – has visited the reigning Pope at the Vatican.
In 1982 Pope John Paul II visited England (the first Pope to do so since the Reformation); on May 20 he and Archbishop Runcie prayed together in Canterbury Cathedral at the site of the martyrdom of St Thomas Becket in 1170.
Archbishop Runcie visited Pope John Paul II in September/October 1989, and was accommodated as an honoured guest in the Vatican.
The BBC reported on September 30 that he had appealed to all Christians to accept the Pope as their leader. And that evening Archbishop Runcie accompanied John Paul II to the Augustinian Church of St Gregory the Great in Rome, where they took part in Vespers.
On the next day, Sunday, October 1, Archbishop Runcie and his retinue attended the open air Mass in St Peter’s Square which John Paul II celebrated as part of a beatification ceremony.
At the Kiss of Peace Archbishop Runcie left his seat on the right of the altar and embraced John Paul II. And at the conclusion of Mass he accompanied John Paul II while the Pope made his usual walk among the congregation.
A fascinating twist to history is the speculation that the most favoured bishop to succeed Archbishop George Carey is the Bishop of Rochester, the Right Rev Michael Nazir Ali.
Born in Pakistan, Bishop Nazir Ali was baptised as an Anglican but became a Catholic while attending a Catholic school as a teenager. He returned to Anglicanism at the age of 20.
For the appointment of Dr Carey’s successor, the 16-member Crown Appointments Commission – comprising bishops and Church of England officials – will recommend two candidates to the Prime Minister. He will choose one whom Queen Elizabeth will ratify.