The brilliant Welshman in line to head the Anglican church

They will be sorry to see him go in Wales, but convinced that the right decision has been made if Dr Rowan Williams is selected as the next Archbishop of Canterbury.

Yesterday the church was playing down reports that the Crown Appointments Commission, after a two-day meeting last week, had picked Dr Williams, who is Archbishop of Wales, as its first choice for the post. The commission puts forward two names, in order of preference, to Tony Blair, who makes the final decision.

Viscountess Brentford, a member of the church commission, which is bound by an oath of secrecy, refused to confirm or deny the reports. The archbishop's spokesman, the Rev Gregory Cameron, said yesterday: "It is a speculative piece. The archbishop has said in the past that it would be very unlikely for someone outside the Church of England to become Archbishop of Canterbury."

Yet even if the reports do dress speculation as fact, few would be surprised if Dr Williams were to be the choice. That is presumably why the bookmakers William Hill suspended betting yesterday in the Canterbury stakes when the archbishop was 5/2 second favourite behind the 9/4 favourite, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester.

Dr Williams has a rare combination of an unpious personal holiness with an impressive theological intelligence which does not lose touch with the reality of everyday life. More than that, he has a personal warmth which enables him to deal easily with people of all backgrounds.

Brought up in a Welsh-speaking family he was an academic high-flier who became, at the age of 36, the youngest professor of divinity at Oxford University.

Dr Williams' intellectual interests were as impressively wide-ranging as they were authoritative. He wrote on the Resurrection (and emphasised the role of the women in the Easter story), on the theology of nuclear deterrence, on the mystical Saint Teresa of Avila, on early church heresy, and on Russian Orthodoxy, a subject in which he has a particular expertise.

His fellow dons were therefore taken aback when, after just six years in the job, he left to become Bishop of Monmouth in 1992. But those who knew him well, and understood his pastoral gifts as well as the importance he places on the gospel being made real in the ordinary world, were less surprised.

He proved a good pastor to his priests, a thoughtful administrator and built great affection among the people of the Welsh valleys.

Throughout he continued to produce a stream of high-calibre sermons and books which were always strikingly imaginative – from his vivid Lady Day sermon on Mary as a single mother, to his intellectually rigorous collection of essays, Lost Icons, which tried to tease important traditional values from the tangle of secular post-modern living.

It was this remarkable combination of gifts which, eight years later in 2000, led his fellow bishops in the disestablished Welsh Anglican church to elect him archbishop.

"He never thinks in clichés," said the Right Rev Barry Morgan, the Bishop of Llandaff, who has sat on the Welsh episcopal bench with Dr Williams for 10 years. "He looks at the issues of the day and then comes at them from a different angle, with clarity and integrity.

"He always has something pertinent to say, which is measured, well thought out and original. What he says is accessible and stems from his deep spirituality and a deep reflection on gospel values."

Dr Williams has been outspoken on issues such as sanctions on Iraq and the war in Afghanistan and yet he also produced a tiny book called Writing in the Dust, a penetrating, prayerful and deeply moving account of the 11 September attacks in which he was caught up while lecturing in New York.

Few doubt he would be a prophetic figure at Canterbury. Dr Morgan ranks him with two of the greatest holders of the office in the 20th century. "He has the spirituality of Michael Ramsay with the social conscience of William Temple," he said. "He is a great man."