When Christopher Morgan was a young man aged 22 and living with his family in Cardiff, his three younger siblings would be fascinated by the somewhat eccentric, bearded chap who regularly turned up to partake of their mother's excellent Sunday lunches. Morgan would silence their irreverent giggles with the statement: "You do know that one day this man will be Archbishop of Canterbury." And so it came to pass. But even before that, Morgan had been fascinated by the trappings of high office in Church and State. The play room in the house in Victoria Park became the setting for countless enthronements of archbishops of Canterbury and kings of England, with Morgan invariably playing the lead.

Many predicted that Morgan, with his high intelligence and deep, Anglo-Catholic spirituality, would go far in the Church, and ordination seemed a natural calling. But he felt otherwise, and as he left childhood his apparent ambition for high office left him. Instead, his vocation was to be the ultimate lay person. He took it upon himself to relieve the clergy at St Luke's, the family's parish church, of all responsibilities save those of preaching, presiding and otherwise ministering. Morgan took over organising the choir, managing the rotas, any duties that required paperwork. Passionate about a well-ordered liturgy, he once had a choir of 30 working-class teenagers rehearsing at 4.30pm for that evening's Holy Saturday service nearly five hours later, and rewarded their devotion by organising a memorable outing to Weston-super-Mare.

He took this attitude, one of service for the higher good of God and country, through his life. The concept of service for the greater good underpinned all he did as a radio and television presenter and then royal and religious affairs correspondent for The Sunday Times. An innocent who occasionally veered over into naivety, he found it difficult to believe that anyone born, ordained or elected to high office in Church or State could be in any way defective. Should a senior bishop or politician then emerge as somehow imperfect in the conduct of his office, and particularly in the area of finance, Morgan found this difficult to forgive or understand. Generous beyond a fault, Morgan's love of entertaining his friends and contacts was legendary. His sense of fun and love of gossip made these occasionals memorable for all those privileged to be on his invitation list. He preferred restaurants such as the Gavroche and The Savoy because the prices of his guest's portions were not stated on the menus. But his own finances were not well organised, and he ended up paying for many of the meals himself simply by failing to submit his expenses to the BBC or Sunday Times.

Morgan was assiduous in "working" his contacts and his energy and dedication were seemingly endless. If a guest did not crack over four courses, two bottles of wine and port to follow at the Savoy, he would get what he needed in a series of follow-up phone calls. Friends thus assailed always forgave him, or nearly always, because of the heavenly flattery he tirelessly employed, the beautiful quality of his voice and the native charm inherent to his cultured and "proper" manner of speaking. These were gifts that came from his parents, both bank cashiers, because he was educated wholly in the state system.

He was also renowned for not driving and for rarely walking anywhere. Working for the BBC in Wales on Sunday morning shifts, he would summon a taxi to the family home in Cardiff after work and would then pay for the taxi driver to wait while he showered, shaved and changed. He would then take the taxi the hundred yards up the road to church. Immaculately turned out, he also regularly used taxis to take his shirts to the drycleaners, and to bring them back

Ultimately, in spite of his drive, he was loyal. Rowan Williams was one of his closest friends and he was even best man at the future archbishop's wedding . When Dr Williams was translated many assumed that Morgan would be unstoppable in terms of scoops, but if anything the elevation of his close friend had the reverse effect on Morgan's career as a journalist. He was extremely distressed in the last period of his life by the criticism the archbishop encountered for his apparent betrayal of the liberal lobby over homosexuality and over his controversial speech on Sharia. What was especially upsetting, for a man who had a habit of placing such friends on impossible pedestals, was that he felt some of the criticism might be deserved.

However, he had many scoops that he could and did publish, and he was one of the first journalists to recognise the importance that Islam would assume in British public life. His biggest story was news of the next Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor. He obtained this from a contact in England who had confirmed it with the Vatican. Morgan's other Catholic scoop was that Joseph Ratzinger would be the next Pope. One of his last stories for the Sunday Times, that the Abbot of Pluscarden might succeed Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor when he retires next year, also came via Vatican sources.

Morgan had been ill for some time and at one point was sectioned, but when his Catholic archbishop succession story appeared a few weeks ago, many of his friends read it as a sign that he was on the mend. Sadly, this was not the case. Like all his siblings he had been deeply affected by the death of their mother nearly three years ago. She was a remarkable woman who adored all her children and Morgan telephoned her at least three times a day. Lacking the support of a spouse or children, he was perhaps affected more deeply than the others. However, he strived to maintain the highest of standards in journalism across a number of media, but confided to friends that he was tired of the sheer hard slog of finding news stories. The gravity of his struggle to come to terms with one of life’s ultimate bereavements was becoming clear to his family and friends. Always private about his personal life, he became reclusive and difficult to reach. At 55, he decided to end his own life on a railway line in north London.

Morgan was educated at Cardiff High School, Atlantic College (the International Sixth Form College) and the University of St Andrews where he graduated as a master of theology in 1976. He then became treasurer of The National Union of Students working alongside Charles Clarke.

In 1977 he began his career in broadcasting in the BBC’s religious department headed up by John Stuart Roberts. In 1978 he moved into news and current affairs working as a reporter and presenter for BBC Wales radio and television while regularly contributing to news programmes on BBC One and BBC Radio 4. This experience led him to become one of the main presenters on the BBC Wales flagship regional news programme ‘Wales Today’. In 1990, Morgan moved to London where he worked as a reporter for Thames News and TV-am.

Between 1990 and 1997, he presented BBC Radio 4’s ‘Sunday’ programme focusing on religious news and moral issues. Acclaimed reports included his coverage of the moral questions raised by the 1991 Gulf War and the genocide and ethnic cleansing campaign conducted in Bosnia. Coverage of Islam was also a specialist subject in this period.

In 1997, he became religious affairs correspondent for The Sunday Times and was responsible for providing analysis and reporting about important church news. From the year 2000, he began contributing to a number of television news programmes on religious affairs appearing regularly on BBC News 24, Sky News and CNN.

He was also active in service in the church and in local politics. Posts he held in the 1970s included membership of the All Saints’ Church Vestry, St Andrews, of the University Court at St Andrews, president of the Students’ Representative Council at St Andrews, national treasurer of the NUS and chairman of Endsleigh Insurance Limited and until 1988, he was a member of the Governing Body of the Church in Wales. In the 1980s he also served as lay representative of the Church in Wales at Canterbury Cathedral for the visit of Pope John Paul II, as a member of the Electoral College of the Church in Wales - charged with electing a new Bishop of Llandaff in 1985 - and as liturgical director of St Luke’s Church, Cardiff. He was also a churchwarden there and lay minister of Holy Communion. In the late 1990s he became a governor of South Camden Community School, northwest London and in 2005 was guest lecturer at a symposium on Muslim-Christian relations in Cairo.

In St Andrew's in the 1970s he stood as a Labour candidate for the local authority and in the 1980s he campaigned successfully to help to open Lansdowne Hospital in Cardiff and achieve the building of a new unit for the elderly and mentally infirm. In 1985 he succeeded in persuading the Conservative-controlled city council to remove large amounts of asbestos heating systems from an estate in Cardiff West.

In spite of the way it ended, there is much about Morgan's life that was glorious. It will be celebrated in a way he would have loved. His brother John Morgan, managing director of the advertising agency JM Creative and a master at television production, is orchestrating the Requiem Mass to end all Requiem Masses. On a date yet to be announced, it will be at Llandaff Cathedral and at least one, possibly two, Archbishops will be in attendance. All Morgan's friends are most welcome to come, remember and say goodbye to him there.

Christopher Morgan, religious affairs correspondent for The Sunday Times, was born on July 29 1952. He died on May 30, 2008.