Arthur Michael Ramsey, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1988
(native of Cambridge, professor at Cambridge)
Commemoration
26 April

Michael Ramsey was born in Cambridge in 1904, and subsequently studied at Magdalene College, of which his father was the President. He was ordained, and later became vicar of St Bene’t’s church in Cambridge, and after a spell as professor in Durham, Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge and a fellow of his old College, Magdalene. Later he was Bishop of Durham, then Archbishop of York, and was translated to Canterbury in 1961. His Primacy was marked by a great shift in both Church and state and he supported many causes in the House of Lords which earned him the enmity of some of its members. One of his major contributions to Church government was the setting up of the General Synod to replace the old Church Assembly. He piloted measures through the Synod which allowed the Church to provide revised and alternative forms of worship. His work for ecumenism was outstanding, and included the first meeting of an Archbishop of Canterbury with the Pope since the Reformation. He was immensely disappointed by the failure of the vote for Anglican Methodist Unity. His gifts as a teacher of great spiritual depths was reflected in his writings, which expressed a deep faith in the risen Christ and of his Church and of her role in the world. He died on 23 April 1988.

If celebrated as a Lesser Festival, Common of Bishops, EH page 483