Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, March 26, 1990                   TAG: 9003262099
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The Baltimore Sun
DATELINE: LONDON                                LENGTH: Medium

ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY WILL RESIGN

The Most Rev. Robert Runcie, 68, said he hoped to be reunited - before he steps down at year's end - with Terry Waite, his special envoy to the Middle East who was taken hostage in Lebanon three years ago.

Runcie's tenure at Lambeth Palace has involved bitter conflict in the Anglican church over the ordination of women, outspoken criticism of the materialistic elements of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's government, determined pursuit of ecumenism with the Roman Catholic Church and constant tension over Waite's fate.

He prevented the women's ordination issue from splitting the Church of England by endorsing the principle but delaying the practice. It was a typical example of his conciliatory style, which critics viewed as weakness.

Under his tutelage in 1985, the Church of England issued a report on urban poverty, "Faith in the City," which chided the government for its "dogmatic and inflexible stance" and called for greater public spending on social services.

One of the archbishop's most controversial religious initiatives was to ask aloud, during a visit to meet Pope John Paul II at the Vatican last year: "Could not all Christians come to reconsider the kind of primacy the bishop of Rome exercised within the early church?"

The very thought provoked outrage from many Anglicans, and the leader of a church that has been presided over by the English monarch since the days of Henry VIII quickly said that his phrase had only a spiritual meaning.

"It does not imply political supremacy and does not suggest that the pope should administer the affairs of the Church of England," he said.