Maurice Noël Léon Couve de Murville (27 June 1929 – 3 November 2007) was a French-born British Roman Catholic bishop.
He was the seventh Archbishop of Birmingham from 25 March 1982 until his retirement on 12 June 1999, having formerly been a priest of the Diocese of Arundel and Brighton and chaplain of Fisher House, Cambridge.
Maurice Couve de Murville was born in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, west of Paris, into a distinguished French family who moved to Mauritius at the end of the 18th century.
[citation needed] He studied at the seminary of Saint-Sulpice, and earned his Licentiate of Sacred Theology (STL) from the Institut Catholique in Paris.
He was influenced by the worker-priest movement in France, and became lifelong friends with Jean-Marie Lustiger, future Cardinal Archbishop of Paris.
The last years of his episcopate were tarnished by a series of paedophile scandals involving priests in his archdiocese including, in particular, Samuel Penney and Eric Taylor.
He presided at Mass at St Chad's Cathedral for the last time on 26 March 2007, on the 25th anniversary of his episcopal ordination, concelebrating with his auxiliaries with Bishops Philip Pargeter, David McGough and William Kenney.
In October 2007, before embarking on a planned pilgrimage to the Holy Land, he was admitted to hospital and was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, which was recognised as terminal.
On 3 November 2007, aged 78, he died a peaceful death at St Joseph's Nursing Home in Littlehampton, West Sussex.