Richard Harries, Baron Harries of Pentregarth

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The Rt Revd and Rt Hon
 The Lord Harries of Pentregarth 
Bishop of Oxford

Speaking at the Friends meeting house, Oxford, in 2004
Church Church of England
Diocese Diocese of Oxford
Enthroned 1987
Reign ended 2 June 2006 (retired)
Predecessor Rt Revd Patrick Rodger
Successor Rt Revd John Pritchard
Other posts Gresham Professor of Divinity
1 September 2008–present
Orders
Ordination 1963 (deacon); 1964 (priest)
Consecration 1987
Personal details
Born 2 June 1936 (1936-06-02) (age 75)
Nationality British
Denomination Anglican
Spouse Josephine Bottomley
Children 1 son, 1 daughter
Profession Army officer; theologian
Alma mater Selwyn College, Cambridge

Richard Douglas Harries, Baron Harries of Pentregarth (born 2 June 1936) is a retired bishop of the Church of England. He was the 41st Bishop of Oxford from 1987 to 2006. Since 2008 he has been the Gresham Professor of Divinity.

Contents

[edit] Education and army career

Harries was educated at the private Wellington College and Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Royal Corps of Signals on 16 December 1955[1] and was promoted to lieutenant two years later.[2] He left the active Regular Army on 12 September 1958 (transferring to the reserve of officers),[3] and went up to Selwyn College, Cambridge, where he read theology (BA 1961, MA 1965), before going on to Cuddesdon College (1961–63) to study for ordination. He formally resigned his original army commission on 18 March 1965,[4] but was immediately recommissioned as Chaplain to the Forces 4th Class[5] in the Territorial Army,[6] on 29 October 1969 he once more transferred to the reserve.[7]

[edit] Church ministry

Harries was made deacon in 1963, becoming assistant curate of Hampstead St John in the Diocese of London (1963–69). He was ordained priest the following year and later combined his ministry at St John's with the chaplaincy of the former Westfield College (now part of Queen Mary, University of London) (1967–69). He became a Tutor at Wells Theological College (1969–71) and was then Warden of the new Salisbury and Wells Theological College (1971–72).

He returned to parish ministry as Vicar of All Saints', Fulham (1972–81) and reverted to academia as Dean of King's College London (1981–87). He was appointed Bishop of Oxford in 1987,[8] taking a seat as a Lord Spiritual in the House of Lords in 1993. In 1999 he was appointed to the Royal Commission investigating a possible reorganisation of the House of Lords.[9] He retired on 2 June 2006, his 70th birthday. In the previous week, on 26 May 2006, Downing Street announced that he was to be made a life peer, and he was gazetted as Baron Harries of Pentregarth, of Ceinewydd in the County of Dyfed on 30 June 2006.[10] He sits as a cross-bencher. On 4 August 2006 he was appointed to the Court of Ecclesiastical Causes Reserved for a period of five years.[11]

[edit] Other activities

In 1986 Harries took up a subsidiary appointment as Consultant to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York on Inter-Faith Relations. As Bishop of Oxford he became a founder member of the Oxford Abrahamic Group, bringing together Christian, Muslim, and Jewish scholars. He chaired the Council of Christians and Jews from 1992 until 2001. In 1988 he was president of the Johnson Society, delivering a Presidential Address on Johnson – A Church of England Saint. He has been a member of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (including serving as Chair of the HFEA Ethics and Law Committee) and a member of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, as well as chairing the House of Lords Select Committee (Westminster System) on Stem Cell Research. He was Chairman of the Church of England Board for Social Responsibility (1996–2001) and Chairman of the House of Bishops' Working Party on Issues in Human Sexuality and has served on the Board of Christian Aid. He was also a member of the Royal Commission on the Reform of the House of Lords (the Wakeham Commission). A regular contributor to the Today programme on BBC Radio 4, including many appearances on Thought for the Day, he has published three books of radio talks. He is a patron of POWER International (www.powerinternational.org) a charity working with disabled people in poor countries.

Harries was appointed a Fellow of King's College London (FKC) in 1983, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1996, and an Honorary Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2004. In 1994 he became a Doctor of Divinity honoris causa of the University of London and in 2001 he was honoured with the degree of Doctor of the University (DUniv) by Oxford Brookes University. He was a member of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics 2002-2008. In 2002 he was Visiting Professor at Liverpool Hope University College. In 2008 he replaced Keith Ward as the Gresham Professor of Divinity.[12]

[edit] Legacy and reputation

As Bishop of Oxford and now as Lord Harries of Pentregarth, Harries has been known as a liberal reformer noted for his opposition to Section 28 and for his appointment of the gay priest, Canon Jeffrey John as Bishop of Reading in 2003, from which Canon John subsequently withdrew amid controversy over homosexual clergy. Some mistakenly believe that John was not appointed because of the threat to the financial stability of the Oxford diocese by traditionalist churches withdrawing their support if he were made bishop.[citation needed] Much more significant was the pressure by conservative provinces in Africa and South America on the Archbishop of Canterbury.[citation needed] They threatened an impaired communion with Canterbury if the consecration went ahead.[citation needed] Their justification for such an action was that a covenant had been broken, a church covenant made between the two sides of the argument which agreed that practising homosexual clergy would not be appointed. Another factor was the threat of legal action against both the archbishop and the Bishop of Oxford by senior conservative churchmen within the Oxford diocese.[citation needed] This threat of legal action caused senior advisors to the archbishop, including his provincial registrar, John Rees, to persuade the archbishop to ask Canon John to withdraw his nomination by the Crown.

His passion for social justice informed his liberal views. At the start of his episcopacy, he brought legal proceedings challenging the Church Commissioners' policy on investment.[13] He and his co-plaintiffs argued that the Church Commissioners placed too much emphasis on purely financial considerations and insufficient emphasis upon the promotion of the Christian faith. Although this challenge failed - the Commissioners already had an ethical investment policy, albeit one which excluded a smaller part of the UK share market than the plaintiffs had wanted to exclude - the Court recognised that it was proper for charities to consider whether their investment strategies would alienate the charity's financial supporters.[14] In 2002 Harries joined the biologist Richard Dawkins in denouncing the Emmanuel Schools Foundation for teaching creationism.

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] See also

[edit] References

 Constructs such as ibid., loc. cit. and idem are discouraged by Wikipedia's style guide for footnotes, as they are easily broken. Please improve this article by replacing them with named references (quick guide), or an abbreviated title. (October 2010)
  1. ^ London Gazette: (Supplement) no. 40719. p. 1222. 24 February 1956. Retrieved 2008-10-10.
  2. ^ London Gazette: (Supplement) no. 41254. p. 7343. 13 December 1957. Retrieved 2008-10-10.
  3. ^ London Gazette: (Supplement) no. 41517. p. 6161. 7 October 1958. Retrieved 2008-10-10.
  4. ^ London Gazette: (Supplement) no. 43632. p. 4000. 20 April 1965. Retrieved 2008-10-10.
  5. ^ 4th Class Chaplains wear the same rank insignia as captains in other corps of the British Army.
  6. ^ London Gazette: (Supplement) no. 43657. p. 5063. 21 May 1965. Retrieved 2008-10-10.
  7. ^ London Gazette: (Supplement) no. 44982. p. 12235. 8 December 1969. Retrieved 2008-10-10.
  8. ^ London Gazette: no. 50902. p. 5541. 27 April 1987. Retrieved 2008-10-10.
  9. ^ London Gazette: no. 55419. pp. 2543–2544. 4 March 1999. Retrieved 2008-12-05.
  10. ^ London Gazette: no. 58037. p. 9193. 6 July 2006. Retrieved 2008-10-10.
  11. ^ London Gazette: no. 58062. p. 10685. 4 August 2006. Retrieved 2007-11-21.
  12. ^ Report in the Camden New Journal
  13. ^ [1992] 1 Weekly Law Reports 1241
  14. ^ Ibid 1247

[edit] Further reading

  • Brierley, Michael (ed.) (2006). Public Life and the Place of the Church: Reflections to Honour the Bishop of Oxford. Aldershot: Ashgate. ISBN 0-7546-5300-5. 
  • Peart-Binns, John S. (2007). Heart in My Head: A Biography of Richard Harries. London: Continuum. ISBN 0-8264-8154-X.  Forthcoming.

[edit] External links

Church of England titles
Preceded by
Patrick Rodger		 Bishop of Oxford
1987–2006		 Succeeded by
John Pritchard
Early modern
Late modern
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