
Jenan Taylor
13 January 2025
Australian Anglicans are mourning the death of a former Melbourne archbishop and pivotal figure in the ordination of women in the Church.
Bishop Keith Rayner died peacefully on 12 January 2025, almost eight weeks after his 95th birthday.
Ordained in the Brisbane diocese in 1953, he eventually went on to be Archbishop of Melbourne from 1990 to his retirement in 1999, and Primate of the Australian Church from 1991 until his retirement.
He was well-known for his contributions to the world-wide Church, his support for Indigenous reconciliation, and for the poor and marginalised, and his role in progressing women’s ordination in Australia.
Anglican leaders expressed sadness about Bishop Rayner’s death and remembered him variously as a significant 20th Century Church leader, and a humble archbishop, marked by profound theological wisdom.
In a bulletin to clergy today, Archbishop of Melbourne Philip Freier noted Bishop Rayner’s important influence on many lay and ordained people.
”He was a key figure, both as Primate and as Archbishop of Melbourne, in the eventual Ordination of the first women to the priesthood in Australia, leading the important National Bishops’ Meeting in 1991, and chairing General Synod and the Melbourne Synod of 1992 which passed the necessary Canon to allow dioceses to ordain women to the priesthood,” Archbishop Freier said.
The Reverends Clem Taplin and Willy Maddock were among the first women to become priests in 1992, their ordinations in Melbourne presided over by then Archbishop Rayner.
Read more: Thirty years on, the church is richer for women’s ordination
Both priests now highlighted his integrity in enabling the passage for finalising the ordination of women.
“There were protests around the ordinations and he was a strong and steady helmsman at that time. He was very much the instrument of God, and he was the one who held the ship steady,” Ms Taplin said.
“A holy man, and highly knowledgeable and educated on the life of the church, he was an archbishop who held the diocese together through that journey.”
Ms Maddock recalled Bishop Rayner’s fierce adherence to proper processes and in particular his careful provision for those who did not support the ordination of women.
“On the day we actually learned that ordination was to proceed, any celebrations we were going to have were cut very short by him, because we had to observe a minute’s silence for those that passage would upset,” Ms Maddock said.
“He was certainly a person who was happy to act according to canonical process. But once he got the bit between his teeth about that was there was no impediment. He was quite prepared to put up with anything that followed from that to make sure that it would work out okay.”
Read more: A multicultural Melbourne ministry: Jim Houston’s legacy
Melbourne Anglican lay leader Dr Muriel Porter said Bishop Rayner was sometimes known as “cautious Keith” and “Captain Keith”, and she regarded him as one of the most significant 20th century leaders of the Anglican Church in Australia.
“At a time when division over the ordination of women was in danger of crushing the national church, he brought sound theological reasoning, deep wisdom and a calming presence, not just to that debate, but in his leadership as both Archbishop of Melbourne and Australian primate,” Dr Porter said.
Bishop Rayner was progressive in his theology but far from radical in his behaviour as he argued the theological reasons for women’s ordination.
He was not going to jump the barriers because of the response from the national church, Dr Porter said.
In a letter to a St Paul’s Cathedral celebration of 30 years of women’s priesthood in Melbourne in 2022, Bishop Rayner remembered the suffering experienced by those women who had been unable to answer the call to priesthood before the first ordinations as deacons in 1986 and as priests in 1992.
Women’s ordination had “…led to a gentler, more inclusive church, better attuned to the needs of the age,” he said.
Australian Primate Geoffrey Smith gave thanks for Bishop Rayner’s tremendous contribution of leadership.
“Keith Rayner’s life was one of service to God’s church, marked by wisdom and grace, and fueled with prayer,” he said.
Melbourne diocese Head of Communications Penny Mulvey recalled Bishop Rayner’s humility.
“My abiding memory of him is meeting him in the foyer of Bishopscourt, wearing an apron, dustpan and broom in hand, sweeping the entrance to the home. I had brought some piece of writing relating to AngliCORD for his approval I think,” Ms Mulvey said.
“It was his servant-hearted nature that I always found remarkable. He was probably the first archbishop I had encountered, and he wasn’t what I was expecting but it should be. One hopes all archbishops and bishops and clergy and all Christians are servant-hearted.”
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