St Cross College, Oxford

Diarmaid MacCulloch, Professor of the History of the Church and Fellow of St Cross College, was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Virginia Theological Seminary, in Alexandria, Virginia, at their annual Academic Convocation held on 4 October 2011. Professor MacCulloch was made a Doctor in Divinity, honoris causa, by the Rt Rev. James J Shand, bishop of the Diocese of Easton and chair of the Seminary’s board of trustees. Founded in 1823, Virginia Theological Seminary is the largest of the 11 accredited seminaries of the Episcopal Church and offers a number of professional degree programmes and diplomas.

The award is in recognition of Professor MacCulloch’s studies on Christian history, particularly the English Reformation.  He gave a lecture to the seminary on Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, about whom he has written a comprehensive and critically acclaimed biography, and the doctorate was then conferred during choral evensong.  During the trip he also gave the Roland Bainton Memorial Lecture in Church History at Yale Divinity School, on the theme 'What if the Arians had won?  A Reformation historian revisits the medieval Western Church'.   A webcast of this is available here.

The College congratulates Professor MacCulloch on this recognition of distinction.