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Study After Evensong. Ramsey and his wife Joan (they have no children) live weekdays in Lambeth Palace, the archiepiscopal residence in London across the Thames from Parliament. His life at Lambeth is an almost monastic blend of work and prayer. His day begins with private prayer and Holy Communion in the palace chapel (the archbishop, in Eucharistic vestments, is the celebrant on Tuesdays and Thursdays, receives the Host and chalice from the hand of one of his chaplains on other days) and ends after Evensong and dinner with a long night of reading and study. Most of his archiepiscopal work takes the form of correspondence and discussions with the endless stream of visitors he receives in his book-lined study. Every once in a while he pops out to a nearby bookstore, where he is known as the best customer.
The archbishop spends more time at Canterbury than any other primate in recent memory; he makes the 70-mile trip to his cathedral almost every weekend to preside at Sunday Matins and Communion. Ramsey loves to visit country parishes, and often startles passers-by with his opening conversational gambit: "I'm the archbishop. Who are you?" He takes his honors lightly. When a U.S. newspaper photographer last year asked, "Archie, could you look this way, please?", Ramsey equably answered: "The name is Mike."
Ramsey enjoys worldwide renown for his lack of small talk. When Ramsey was subwarden of Lincoln Theological College, recalls Canon Herbert Waddams of Canterbury Cathedral, he had occasion to receive a young man seeking admission to the seminary. Outside, the clock struck 2:45. Silence reigned: awed youth, shy priest. Presently the clock struck 3. At last Ramsey spoke. "I think you'll find Lincoln a rather quiet place," he said.
In spite of his retiring ways, Ramsey has already made considerable impact on the English Church. Like his predecessor, now Lord Fisher of Lambeth, he is a convinced ecumenicist, and serves as one of six co-presidents of the World Council of Churches. Last year he visited Moscow and Istanbul for theological discussions with Orthodox prelates on the prickly question of intercommunion. A close personal friend of Liverpool's Roman Catholic Archbishop John Heenan, who is the odds-on favorite to become the next English cardinal, Ramsey last year became the first Archbishop of Canterbury to lecture at Belgium's Catholic Louvain University. He hopes to visit Pope Paul VI in Rome after the Vatican Council ends.
Greater Liberty. Within the Church of England, Ramsey has chosen to achieve his goals by conciliation and diplomacy rather than blunt attack. Many of his clergy favor a complete separation of church and state. But Ramsey supports antidisestablishmentarianism, although he wants the church to have "greater liberty to order its own affairs." Recently, Parliament passed a Ramsey-inspired measure that frees church courts from final appeal to the Privy Council. He hopes now to get parliamentary approval for a revision of canon law, which was last codified in 1604, and for the right of bishops to experiment with new liturgical services. His long-range goals: selection of bishops by the clergy, rather than by the Crown, and a revised Prayer Book.