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The Archbishop of Canterbury has a large and exacting job. Thrice a year he must preside over week-long sessions of the Church Assembly, which is the parliament of the church. Between sessions he must approve every significant action taken by the church. He is in charge of worldwide missionary work and is senior member, though without direct authority, of the Anglican Communion (estimated membership: 40 million), which calls on him for advice and counsel. He also serves as spiritual adviser to the royal family.
During the Queen's coronation, Geoffrey Fisher became the most widely known archbishop in history and something of a U.S. television idol (Fisher himself regards TV as one of the century's great evils, although Mrs. Fisher loves it). Ceremonial has never been his long suit, and he has been known to stop a procession to speak to a friend, but the world was stirred by the perfection of Fisher's voice and timing, his respectful suggestion of fatherly solicitude for a young woman, his clear demonstration that Elizabeth was Queen only by the Grace of God.
A Humus Chap. Geoffrey Cantuar, as he officially signs himself according to ancient custom, is a natural-born conservative—with a small c, since archbishops are not supposed to have politics in public. One day he entered the House of Lords to find an advocate of artificial fertilizer debating a supporter of humus. "I have not the slightest knowledge of the subject," he later admitted, "but instinctively I support the humus fellow against the artificial-fertilizer chap."
One of the fertilizer chaps who have been a constant trial to Archbishop Fisher is that gaitered fellow traveler, Hewlett Johnson, the "Red Dean" of Canterbury. Foreigners are constantly confusing the dean with the archbishop. In dealing with the Red Dean, Archbishop Fisher has mainly contented himself with humor, e.g., "Dare I say that when he is at home, I wish he were overseas? And still more profoundly, when he is overseas, I wish he were at home."
Not that Communism is a laughing matter to Fisher. In his quiet, casual way, he has rendered a devastating dictum on the subject: "There are only two kinds of people in the modern world who know what they are after. One, quite frankly, is the Communist. The other, equally frankly, is the convinced Christian . . . The rest of the world are amiable non entities . . ."
The Regular Fellow. Fisher can be adamant. Most notable example: his stand against church marriage of the divorced, whether the "innocent party" or not. When, in 1950, the then Queen's niece, Lady Anson, innocent party in a divorce, was to marry Prince George of Denmark. Fisher ordered the clergyman who was to have performed the ceremony not to do so, also advised the Queen not to attend. The wedding was performed by a Danish Lutheran minister while the Queen discreetly cooled her heels in a drawing room.
"One child is not enough, nor is two," according to Fisher. "Three would be all right, because then the children can outvote the parents." He and his wife Rosamond ("Roz"), a greying, matronly and whip-smart delegate to Evanston, have six—all of them boys.* So far they have given the Fishers four grandchildren—all girls. "We just decided to change sexes," explains the archbishop.