Archbishop Trevor Huddleston, who devoted much of his life to the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, died in Mirfield, Yorkshire, yesterday at the age of 84.
The Most Rev Ernest Urban Trevor Huddleston was born in 1913 and educated at Lancing and Christ Church, Oxford. After working as a curate in Swindon for two years, he became a monk in the Community of the Resurrection on Mirfield in 1941, and spent 13 years as a missionary in the townships and slums of South Africa from 1943 to 1956.
The life-long friends he made in South Africa included the future President Nelson Mandela, Mr Oliver Tambo and the future Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who named his eldest son Trevor after him.
In the aftermath of the controversy over his book Naught for Your Comfort, he was recalled to England, and became novice master and later prior of the community's London house. In 1959, he became one of the founders of the Anti-Apartheid Movement with Canon John Collins, but he returned to Africa a year later when he was consecrated Bishop of Masasi in Tanzania.
He returned to England once again in 1968, serving as Bishop of Hackney for 10 years. He became a missionary once more in 1978 with his appointment as Bishop of Mauritius and Archbishop of the Indian Ocean.
When he retired to England in 1983, he became an active President of the Anti-Apartheid Movement. With the end of apartheid, he claimed his citizenship in South Africa, but he was never happy there and returned to live in Mirfield. Earlier this year, he was knighted for his role in ending apartheid.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who knew him for more than 50 years, said he was greatly saddened at the death of a person who had been "my mentor and inspired me and many others".
"He was just an incredible person and the world is a very much better place for there having been a Trevor Huddleston," he said. "If you could say that anybody single-handedly made apartheid a world issue then that person was Trevor Huddleston."
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey, said Archbishop Huddleston was a great campaigner for social justice. "He was a man of simple lifestyle and a tireless compassionate advocate for the poor and marginalised. This commitment grew out of his deeply rooted Anglo-Catholic incarnational theology."
"Prophets are rarely comfortable to live with," Dr Carey said. "But he will be remembered with deep thankfulness for a life lived so powerfully within the Gospel of Jesus Christ," Dr Carey said.