Speakers at Forum 2022

The Most Revd and Rt Hon Justin Welby became the Archbishop of Canterbury in 2013 and one of CTE’s Presidents. He was previously Bishop of Durham, Dean of Liverpool Cathedral and a Canon of Coventry Cathedral, where he worked extensively in the field of reconciliation.

Before he began training for ministry in 1989, Archbishop Justin worked in the oil industry for 11 years – five in Paris and six in London.

Archbishop Justin has three main priorities for his ministry – Evangelism and Witness; Prayer and the Renewal of Religious life; and Reconciliation. He is a member of the High-Level Advisory Board on Mediation for the United Nations.

Cardinal Vincent Nichols is the eleventh Archbishop of Westminster.

Born in Crosby, Liverpool, in 1945, Vincent Nichols studied for the priesthood at the Venerable English College in Rome from 1963 to 1970, gaining licences in philosophy and theology at the Gregorian University. He was ordained priest in Rome in December 1969 for the Archdiocese of Liverpool.

As General Secretary of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, he played a key role in the ‘Not Strangers But Pilgrims’ process which led to the establishment in 1990 of the then new ecumenical instruments including Churches Together in England.

On 21 May 2009 he was installed as the eleventh Archbishop of Westminster and therefore became one of CTE’s Presidents. He was elected President of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales by unanimous acclamation on 30 April 2009.

Professor Anthony G Reddie is the Director of the Oxford Centre for Religion and Culture in Regent’s Park College, in the University of Oxford. He is also an Extraordinary Professor of Theological Ethics and a Research Fellow with the University of South Africa. He is the first Black person to get an ‘A’ rating in Theology and Religious studies in the South African National Research Foundation. This designation means that he is a leading international researcher. He is a prolific author of books, articles and chapters in edited books. He is the Editor of Black Theology: An International Journal. He is a recipient of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s 2020 Lambeth, Lanfranc Award for Education and Scholarship, given for ‘exceptional and sustained contribution to Black Theology in Britain and Beyond’.

Revd Dr Tessa Henry-Robinson is a Minister of the Word and Sacraments in the United Reformed Church (URC).

She is a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Practical Theology, a member of the Board of Governors at Northern College, Manchester and a Womanist Practical Theologian who is interested in the empowerment of ethnically-minoritised communities, women in particular.

Alongside other gatherings of lay and ordained ministers and Church related community workers (CRCW) in the URC, Tessa is a founding member of Cascades of Grace (COG). COG is a group set up through URC Global and Intercultural Ministries (GIM) to empower minoritised women, to be present and audible in the denomination.

She is a contributor to the URC Prayer Handbook.

Dr Ralph Lee MBE first went to Ethiopia in 1990, and then again in 1997 to teach Chemical Engineering in Ethiopia’s northern Amhara, dominated by Orthodox Christianity. Attending the Orthodox Church and learning modern and classical languages led to deep interest in Ethiopia’s Christianity and its heritage, and he joined the Ethiopian Orthodox Tawahido Church.

Studies at SOAS in Orthodox Christianity led to a third period teaching at the Ethiopian Church’s Holy Trinity Theological College in Addis Ababa, where he furthered his interest in Ethiopian theology and biblical interpretation.

Since 2014, Ralph and his family have lived in Cambridge, and he has worked on research on 1Enoch at Ludwig-Maximilian University and has taught on Eastern Christianity at SOAS and Cambridge. He currently supervises students at the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies, and at the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies, where he also runs projects on Orthodox mission. Ralph is facilitator for the Lausanne-Orthodox Initiative and a representative of Navigators UK.

Dr Ruth Valerio is Global Advocacy and Influencing Director at Tearfund.

An environmentalist, theologian and social activist. Ruth holds a doctorate from King’s College London, and honorary doctorates from the Universities of Winchester and Chichester. She is Canon Theologian at Rochester Cathedral and her home church is part of the 24/7 Prayer Network. She enjoys living sustainably – practising what she preaches and inspiring others as she does so – in the South of England with her family. She is the author of L is for Lifestyle:Christian Living that doesn’t cost the earth and Just Living:Faith and Community in an age of Consumerism, and has written the Archbishop of Canterbury’s 2020 Lent book, entitled Saying Yes to Life. Ruth is a regular contributor on Radio 4 and the BBC World .