THE Very Rev Dr Robert Craig, Moderator of the General Assembly of the
Church of Scotland, 1986-87, was the principal who guided the University
of Zimbabwe (previously of Rhodesia) through the country's transition to
legal independence.
He was also Minister of the Scots Church in Jerusalem, but was never a
parish minister in Scotland.
Born in 1917 and brought up in Markinch, he was educated at Fife
schools and St Andrews University, where he graduated in Arts.
He was ordained in 1942 to be an Army chaplain after his Divinity
degree and serving briefly as assistant at St John's Kirk, Perth.
At the Normandy landings he was chaplain to the 5th South
Staffordshires and was mentioned in despatches. Transferred to the 15th
(Scottish) Division, he later served with the Royal Scots Fusiliers
before going to the Middle East with the 1st King's Own Scottish
Borderers.
He left to study at New York's Union Theological Seminary and, after a
spell as deputy leader of the Iona Community under George MacLeod, took
a PhD at St Andrews.
In 1950, he went to South Africa as Professor of Divinity at the
University of Natal in Pietermaritzburg, moving to a chair in religion
at Smith College, Massachusetts, in 1958.
He was unhappy with the impact of apartheid on South African
universities, but felt the pull of Africa.
''It seems to call you back,'' he said, and returned in 1963 as
Professor of Theology in the multi-racial University College of Rhodesia
and Nyasaland at Salisbury.
He became vice-principal, acted twice as principal, and did so well in
1969 he became obvious choice as permanent principal and
vice-chancellor, 1971-80.
He then served for four years as minister of St Andrew's, Jerusalem.
He retired to Falkland in Fife.
In 1981, he was appointed CBE for his work in Zimbabwe.
He was married in 1950 in St Columba's, Pont Street, to Olga Strzelec.
They had a daughter and son.
R D Kernohan
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