Littlehampton – 21 November 2007. The Chancery regrets to announce the death of The Most Reverend Maurice Couve de Murville, Emeritus Archbishop of Birmingham and an Ecclesiastical Knight Grand Cross of Grace of the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George. Archbishop Couve de Murville was invested into the Order on 12 July 1994.
Archbishop Couve de Murville was born in St Germain-en-Laye, France, into a distinguished French family originally from Mauritius. He was educated at Downside School in Bath, and read history at Trinity College, Cambridge (MA). He studied at the seminary of Saint-Suplice, and earned his STL from the Institut Catholique in Paris.
The Archbishop was ordained a priest on 29 June 1957, for the Diocese of Southwark. His f irst appointment was as curate at St Anselm’s, Dartford (1957-60), and as curate at St Joseph’s, Brighton (1960-61). He later served as Priest-in-Charge at St Francis, Moulescoomb (1961-64). In 1961, he was also appointed as chaplain at the University of Sussex. He established a Catholic chaplaincy in Brighton in 1964, called Howard House.
Archbishop Maurice received an MPhil in Assyro-Babylonian studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London in 1975, and moved to Cambridge in 1977, when he was appointed chaplain at Cambridge University, based at Fisher House. He remained in Cambridge until the surprise announcement from the Holy See on 22 January 1982 that he was to succeed Archbishop George Patrick Dwyer as Archbishop of Birmingham, the third most senior post in the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales. He was ordained as Archbishop at St Chad’s Metropolitan Cathedral on the Feast of the Annunciation, 25 March 1982. One of his first duties was to welcome Pope John Paul II at Coventry Airport on Pentecost Sunday, 30 May 1982, the third day of the Pope’s Pastoral Visit to Great Britain.
The Archbishop was particularly involved in developing religious education of the laity in his Archdiocese, and helped to establish the Maryvale Institute, near Birmingham, as an international Catholic College for Theology, Religious Education and Catechesis. Cardinal Newman established the English Congregation of the Oratory at Maryvale on 1 February 1848. With validation from the Pontifical University, Maynooth and the Open University, it now offers undergraduate, postgraduate and research degree programmes.
He was Chairman of the Governing Body of the Newman College of Higher Education in Birmingham. In 2007, it was announced that Newman College would become a University College and obtain degree-awarding powers. He fostered ties between Oscott and the Catholic University of Louvain, and established links with Birmingham University.
Archbishop Maurice was a member of the Friends of Cardinal Newman, and supported the Fathers of the Birmingham Oratory in the Cause for his beatification and canonisation of their founder, the Venerable John Henry Cardinal Newman. In 1999, following a prostate operation, he submitted his resignation to the Pope, who permitted him to retire five years early, on health grounds.
In retirement, the Archbishop returned to Sussex and lived in Horsham. He was the Principal Chaplain of the British Association of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (1987-1991, 2001-2007). He became an Honorary Doctor of Divinity at Birmingham University in 1996.
Requiescat in pace.