Henry Chadwick was born on 23 June 1920 in Bromley, England. A theologian and leading Early Church historian, he was a prominent member of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission. Ordained Deacon by the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1943 and Priest in 1944, he served a curacy in Croydon nearing the end of Second World War. He became Assistant Master at Wellington College, and then Canon of Christ Church and Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford in 1959. Moving to Cambridge in 1979, he took up the position of Regius Professor of Divinity, retiring in 1983.
Fellow of the British Academy in 1989, he became Knight of the British Empire in 1989. His contribution to the academy and the church was recognised with two Festschriften. An accomplished musician, he chaired the board of the publisher, Hymns Ancient & Modern. Notable works include Origen: Contra Celsum (1953), Early Christian Thought and The Classical Tradition: Studies in Justin, Clement, and Origen (1966), Augustine (1986), The Early Church (1967), and The Church in Ancient Society: From Galilee to Gregory the Great (2001).
