The Rt Revd Christopher Hill writes:

MARK SANTER was born in 1936, son of Canon Eric Santer and Phyllis Barlow. His father was a distinguished incumbent in Bristol diocese and sometime chairman of the Bristol Diocesan Fellowship. Mark was educated at Marlborough, Queens’ College, Cambridge, and Westcott House.

Before ordination, he studied in the University of Utrecht, during which time he attended a sports festival in East Germany which was, in fact, a cover for a meeting of young Christians. There he met Henriette Weststrate, a psychologist from Amsterdam. He was ordained priest in 1964, marrying Henriette in the same year.

He served his title at Cuddesdon, and was also tutor of the college under the principalship of Robert Runcie, who continued to seek his wisdom. Dr Runcie’s significant address to Lambeth 1988 on the nature of unity and on the inclusiveness of the Anglican Communion was drafted in consultation with a small band of trusted collaborators, Mark among them.

In 1967, he became Fellow and Dean of Clare College, Cambridge, and, in 1973, Principal of Westcott House. At his licensing, Professor Charlie Moule spoke of him as “a principal at the height of his powers, outstanding in learning and pastoral ability”.

Westcott had already begun to change under his predecessor, Peter Walker, eventually Bishop of Ely. Mark’s vision developed its reset. He appointed the first woman member of staff, Mary Tanner. And he invited two Mirfield-trained theologians to staff: John Armson and Rowan Williams were not obvious choices; the latter describes his appointment as “a risky invitation to a spectacularly inexperienced candidate”.

This was all part of Mark’s vision of how discipline and liturgical prayer should infuse theological seriousness within a firmly but untheatrically Catholic environment, centred on the daily office and the eucharist. A developing relationship with the sisters at Fairacres and Hengrave Hall, and with the English College, Rome, also became distinctive features of Westcott.

To Westcott he also brought his wife and three young children. Rowan Williams was an occasional babysitter. Mark’s family life with Henriette and their children encouraged others to bring their families into the life of the community.

While Mark steered Westcott in a new direction, this did not deflect an iota from a deep commitment to the Cambridge Ecumenical Federation with Wesley House (Methodist), Ridley Hall (Anglican Evangelical), and Westminster College (Congregationalist). Peter Sedgwick, who was an ordinand at Westcott House from 1971 to 1974, recalls that some people were unable “to work him out”: he was ecumenical and yet Catholic, his vision based on a real knowledge of Reformed systematics and history as well as a commitment to a renewed Catholicism.

In 1981, Mark became Bishop of Kensington, consecrated in St Paul’s Cathedral at the same time as Timothy Dudley-Smith (Gazette, 16 August). The Bishop of London was Gerald Ellison, an establishment prelate if ever there was one but who frequently made imaginative appointments. Mark Santer had made no secret of his left-of-centre politics, his lack of enthusiasm for the establishment of the Church of England, and his anti-nuclear convictions. Ellison had once blessed a nuclear submarine; Mark’s son remembers accompanying his father on CND marches.

In Kensington, Mark established a collegiate relationship with his area deans and archdeacon. He was only 44 when he arrived, and an unknown quantity except for reports of his sharp intellect and teaching abilities. These gifts soon endeared him to the clergy in his area, and he proved to be a wise and sympathetic pastor, always available to his clergy. This led him to establishing a pioneering ministry-development review programme. Initial suspicion evaporated once its purpose was recognised as sustaining clergy rather than examining them.

In 1983, he was appointed as the Anglican co-chairman of the second Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC II), an appointment made by Archbishop Runcie and the Anglican Consultative Council. ARCIC was to occupy him for no less than 15 years. Its agenda was partly set by Rome and by the Lambeth Conference of 1978, and, over the years, it issued five Agreed Statements. Some were more controversial than others.

Mark thought retrospectively that ARCIC II had perhaps gone on for too long. But it was also true that both Churches had lost enthusiasm for ecumenism as they each became embroiled in internecine conflict. The Roman Catholic co-chair of ARCIC was Bishop, and later Cardinal, Cormac Murphy-O’Connor. Mark had spent a formative sabbatical at the English College in Rome, when Cormac was its Rector. Mark reflected on the reconciliation of memories that this sabbatical prompted in an important chapter he contributed to a book he also edited, Their Lord and Ours (SPCK, 1982). Canterbury and Rome had noted this good relationship, and their appointment by the respective authorities was not serendipitous.

Not least of the achievements of ARCIC during Mark’s time was the neglected statement on morals (almost totally eclipsed at the time by Pope John Paul II’s encyclical Veritatis Splendor), and a visionary statement on authority. During Mark’s time, Pope John Paul II visited the Commission; and there was also a meeting with the man who was to be his successor, the then Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. In a debate enjoyed by both theologians, Ratzinger ceased for a time being a doctrinal watchdog and relished explorative theological discussion.

Mark was also a member of the Church of England’s Faith and Order Advisory Group. This included work on an important document on the ordained priesthood, of which he drafted the patristic chapter. He was also a member of the commission that led to the Meissen Agreement between the German Protestant Churches and the Church of England. He was an all-round ecumenist.

Mark was translated to Birmingham in 1987, amid speculation that Margaret Thatcher, then Prime Minister, had chosen him in preference to Jim Thompson, Bishop of Stepney (News,16 April 1987). Thompson was said to be “too left-wing” for some Conservative MPs, but, in Mark, Birmingham certainly did not get a Conservative. In retrospect, the diplomatic skills of Archbishop Runcie can be detected in the two names offered to the Crown; Thompson went to Bath & Wells in 1991.

Mark’s first days in Birmingham indicated his future policy. He spoke of Birmingham’s inheritance of faith in both its Congregational history and that of John Henry Newman. He also attacked selfishness turned into acceptable social principle, earning disapprobation in The Daily Telegraph and criticism of “turbulent priests” (News, 5 October 1987). Then followed a sermon to the West Midlands Judiciary, challenging them to press for a reform of sentencing policy and the issue of overcrowded prisons. Again, there was right-wing press criticism, but the following day, Douglas Hurd, then Home Secretary, asked for a private meeting to discuss the issues that Mark had rightly raised. When the Gulf War started, he invited Muslim leaders to his house.

In Birmingham, the monthly staff meetings were humane, convivial, and effective. He would as readily serve at the eucharist as preside. Breakfast and lunch followed, the latter with wine, except in Lent. (He was a member of the Wine Society.) Among the bishops, he was early in recognising the seriousness of safeguarding issues.

He is remembered — not just at staff meetings but also at dinner parties — for dashing impetuously to his study for a folio volume (usually Augustine) and rattling out a Latin quotation to illustrate a theological point.

Although Mark Santer was sensitive to others, his intellectual sharpness could occasionally lead to irritation. He did not tolerate muddle or shoddy thinking. At an induction at a fashionable church in Birmingham, he once endured over-long and pompous civic greetings. He was overheard remarking that he hoped that the welcomes had some substance to them. At a more serious civic level, he developed excellent relations with both the Leader and Chief Executive of the City Council. He assiduously served the NHS Trust for the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, including becoming its vice-chair in retirement.

There were difficulties. The Bishop of Aston, Colin Buchanan, had booked the Aston Villa stadium for an evangelistic rally, with disastrous financial consequences, against the advice of the DBF chair, who also happened to be chair of the Football Club. Mark accepted Colin Buchanan’s resignation. But there were also honours: DDs from Birmingham University in 1998 and Lambeth in 1999, and a D.Univ. from the University of Central England in 2002.

In retirement from 2002, Mark also enjoyed caring for the parish of Kings Heath during an interregnum, becoming a parish priest at the end of his ministry rather than its beginning. His beloved Henriette died in 1994. Mark later, in 1997, married a close friend of hers and of the family for 30 years, Sabine Bird. She died in 2021.

He moved to Poole in 2022 to be closer to his family, still able to enjoy drives, walks, and talking to close friends on the telephone. He died peacefully at home on 14 August, aged 87, was able to speak with his family up until his last hours, receiving communion shortly before he died. He is survived by a sister and brother, three children, three stepchildren, and 15 grandchildren. His funeral and requiem eucharist took place at St Aldhelm’s, Branksome, on Wednesday 4 September. He chose words from Augustine for his funeral:

“There we shall rest and we shall see; we shall see and we shall love; we shall love and we shall praise.

“That is what shall be in the end without end. For what is our end but to arrive at the kingdom which has no end?”

The author is indebted to friends and colleagues of Mark from Westcott House, Kensington, and Birmingham for much of this obituary, not least Mark’s children Hendrika, Miriam, and Diederick.