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From: "Peter_McCrae" <>
Subject: SMYTHE; Harry Reynolds-22/7/2005-AUS/UK--the telegraph.co.uk
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2005 11:27:30 +0100


The Reverend Harry Smythe
(Filed: 10/08/2005)
The Daily Telegraph & the telegraph.co.uk

The Reverend Harry Smythe, who has died aged 81, was an Australian scholar
who became director of the Anglican Centre in Rome in 1970 and, after
spending 11 years in this key post, settled in England as a librarian of
Pusey House, Oxford.




The Anglican Centre was established in 1966, shortly after the ending of the
Second Vatican Council. It was designed to provide an Anglican "embassy" in
Rome to facilitate contact between Lambeth and the Vatican and also, through
its library, to provide an information centre for Roman Catholic scholars
and others researching Anglican history and theology.

The Centre's location in the magnificent Renaissance Palazzo Doria, in
central Rome, owed everything to the interest and generosity of Princess
Doria Pamphilj and her English husband, with whom Smythe established a most
cordial relationship.

He was the second director of the Centre and the appointment of an
Australian was intended to demonstrate that the enterprise was not simply a
Canterbury affair, but one that represented a commitment to furthering
relations with Rome by the whole of the Anglican Communion.

Although Pope Paul VI was more cautious than his predecessor John XXIII, who
had initiated Vatican II, the spirit of reform was still alive and great
hope was vested in the concept of collegiality, in which papal authority was
more widely shared, and in the newly formed Anglican/Roman Catholic
International Commission (ARCIC). There was therefore plenty for Smythe to
do and he quickly established contacts, many of these leading to friendship,
with curial officials, particularly in the Secretariat for Promoting
Christian Unity, headed at that time by the far-seeing Cardinal Willebrands.

The arranging of official visits to Rome by Anglican leaders from all parts
of the world was an important part of Smythe's brief and sometimes called
for considerable diplomatic skill. In 1977 Archbishop Coggan of Canterbury
ruffled feathers by using, without warning, a sermon in a Roman church to
call for Intercommunion between the two churches. Smythe helped to smooth
things over and the visit ended happily with Pope and Archbishop meeting in
the Sistine Chapel to sign a declaration commending the work of ARCIC to the
serious attention of all parts of their churches.

Earlier Smythe had taken pains to explain to the Vatican the significance of
the development of liberal theology in the Church of England and the
ordination of some women priests in America and Canada - moves that were
causing some papal anxiety.

Harry Reynolds Smythe was born in Sydney on October 9 1923. He read Theology
at Sydney University, then moved to Oxford to take a First in Theology at St
Peter's Hall and to complete a DPhil at Christ Church. In 1951 he was
ordained to a curacy at Tavistock, Devon, then spent a year in Exeter before
returning to Australia.

He had by now grown away from the Puritan tradition of Sydney diocese in
which he was nurtured, and from 1954 to 1960 was vice-warden of St John's
College, Morpeth, in the neighbouring diocese of Newcastle. When he moved to
be vicar of St James's, East St Kilda, in Victoria, he also became a
lecturer in New Testament at Ridley College, Melbourne, and a tutor in
Melbourne University.

After 10 years of this Smythe was ready for a change, but the chance to move
to a unique post in Rome came to him as a complete surprise; the effect of
spending the next 11 years there was to leave him reluctant to return to
Australia. He hoped for a senior post in England and was disappointed when
none was forthcoming, so he spent a couple of years in his home country
before securing a librarianship at Pusey House, Oxford, where he served from
1983 to 1991. The post placed him in a congenial community in Oxford and
allowed him opportunities for further study and some teaching.

He retired to Canterbury and until recently assisted at services in the
cathedral there. In Rome he had found relaxation in the cultivation of a
beautiful roof garden at the Anglican Centre.

He died, unmarried, on July 22.














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