Williams takes over 'battered' Wales

It was an unusually swift election. The electoral college locked itself into Holy Trinity Church, Llandrindod Wells, on Tuesday morning, and could have spent three days in closed session. But the announcement was made from the steps of the church shortly after noon. The archbishop-elect has 42 days to signify his acceptance, but this is a formality.

"It is marvellous news," said Sylvia Scarf, a leading laywoman in the Church of Wales. "Every one of our six bishops would have been capable of being a good archbishop, but Rowan will be a very great archbishop. He is an international figure as a theologian, but he is also spiritual and holy."

International: Dr Williams at the Lambeth Conference last year. Photo Jeff Sells

Dr Williams knows he is inheriting a Church with a declining population and low morale. One of its biggest problems, he said on Wednesday, was its deep conservatism, yet it had had to suffer many changes in a short period. The ordination of women, new rules on marriage after divorce, and new faculty regulations had "left the clergy feeling very battered".

There was also the steady draining away of the rural population where old farming patterns were breaking up, and church people were left feeling very isolated. "They have to be helped to feel that things are possible, and it will be an important task to convey what new things are happening and can happen."

His priority, he says, will be to look at new models of a "mixed economy" of ministry. "People's patterns of belonging are so varied that we need ministries to meet their needs: perhaps more church-planting and lay evangelists." The Church is already involved in ways of counteracting stress among the farming community, and is encouraging new initiatives in diversification and organic farming.

Dr Williams referred to the last meeting of the Governing Body of the Church in Wales, and its debate on the rural crisis, in which many members were able to speak from their personal knowledge and involvement. The Governing Body needs many more debates like that, he said, instead of giving so much time to church structures. "There is general agreement that there is a need to streamline the Governing Body, and enable it to have more substantial discussions."

The new Archbishop will have major demands made upon him. As an internationally acclaimed theologian (he was given a standing ovation at the Lambeth Conference after his address on making moral choices), a diocesan bishop, and now Primate. "I will have to work out what kind of practical help I will need in the diocese," he said.

Dr Williams is 49, with a working wife (she teaches at Trinity College, Bristol), and two children, Rhiannon, 12, and Paul, 4. He is a Welshman who has learned to speak fluent Welsh in later years. With a first degree from Cambridge, he obtained his doctorate at Wadham College, Oxford, and trained for the priesthood at the College of the Resurrection, Mirfield. He returned to Cambridge in 1977 as tutor at Westcott House, and later was dean and chaplain at Clare College. Back at Oxford, he became a residentiary canon at Christ Church, and was Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity from 1986 to 1992. He was made a doctor of divinity in 1989, and a Fellow of the British Academy in 1990.

Since 1991 he has been Bishop of Monmouth. He was approached to be Bishop of Southwark in 1997, but declined. His election as Archbishop of Wales is undoubtedly popular. Despite the fact that he is a well-known liberal, the news has also pleased the Revd Nigel Cahill, a member of Credo Cymru, the Welsh equivalent of Forward in Faith. "He is a man of incredible intellect which can only enhance the Church in Wales," he said. "He is not a divisive person, and I am sure that reconciliation will be one of his prime tasks."