Patrick Campbell Rodger

Patrick Campbell Rodger (1920–2002) was an Anglican clergyman and ecumenist. He was Bishop of Manchester (1970–1978) and Oxford (1978–1986).

He came from the Scottish Episcopal Church, having served ministries in Edinburgh (including a time as Provost of St Mary's Cathedral). He came from a prosperous middle class family in Helensburgh, Argyll and Bute, Scotland.

Towards the end of the Second World War he served in the Royal Corps of Signals. After a brilliant undergraduate career at Christ Church, Oxford (BA 1947) he studied for ordination at Westcott House, Cambridge. After his first curacy in Edinburgh, he worked for the Student Christian Movement. From 1961 to 1966 he was a member of staff of the World Council of Churches (Executive Secretary for Faith and Order). He returned from Geneva after being nominated (but not elected) as General Secretary of the WCC. In the event the post went to the Revd Eugene Carson Blake. During his service as an Anglican Bishop he was also chair of the Churches' Unity Commission and president of the Conference of European Churches. As Bishop of Oxford he presided over the beginning of an Area scheme which delegated functions from the diocesan to his suffragan or "Area" bishops, in order to decentralise the work of the diocese. In retirement he served as an assistant bishop in the Diocese of Edinburgh. In 1989, he published "Songs in a Strange Land", a devotional book on praying with the Psalms.

His theological position can best be described as a Liberal Orthodox one — liberal in its openness, but orthodox in its sense of the resourcefulness of tradition and in its devotional depth. He was an early advocate of the ordination of women as Deacons and Priests.

In his personal habits he was unassuming, with an acute critical sense usually expressed humbly if precisely. He was a loving family man, whose faith sustained him through the tragically young death of his son Andrew, and his wife, Margaret.