Richard Rutt - Anglican Ministry

Anglican Ministry

Rutt was ordained an Anglican priest in 1952. After a curacy at St George’s Cambridge he went to South Korea as a missionary in 1954 together with Roger Tennant. In 1965 he was appointed Archdeacon of West Seoul. In June 1966 he was appointed an assistant bishop of the Diocese of Daejeon by the Archbishop of Canterbury. In February 1968 he became Bishop of Daejeon. He was named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1973.

Feeling that the time had come for Koreans to take charge of their portion of the Anglican Communion, in 1973 Rutt offered his resignation as Bishop of Daejeon, intending to continue serving as a simple parish priest in the country he had come to love so much. That proved to be impossible and in January 1974 he was appointed suffragan bishop of the Church of England's Diocese of Truro with the title Bishop of St Germans. While in Cornwall he learned the Cornish language in order to celebrate weddings in Cornish. In October 1979 he was named Bishop of Leicester.

In 1982 Rutt, who was always strongly inclined to Anglo-Catholicism, voted against the unity covenant with the Methodist, Moravian and United Reformed churches. In July 1985 he was introduced into the House of Lords. He retired in 1990 and went to live in Falmouth, in the Cornwall he had come to love. He died in his 87th year at Treliske Hospital, Truro.