Source: Beliefnet.com

http://www.beliefnet.com/story/142/story_14232_1.html

On March 17, 2004 Beliefnet.com posted a Religion News Service article that reported, "George F.R. Ellis, a South African cosmologist and mathematician who is equally at home in the realm of social criticism and political activism, is the winner of the 2004 Templeton Prize, arguably the most prestigious award for advancing understanding of religion and spirituality. Ellis, a Quaker whose work on the origins of the universe have won him great scientific acclaim and whose anti-apartheid writings won him the ire and condemnation of South Africa's white-minority government during the 1970s and 1980s, becomes the 34th Templeton laureate. With the honor of winning the Templeton Prize for Progress Toward Research or Discoveries about Spiritual Realities, the award's full title, comes an award of 795,000 pounds sterling, the equivalent of more than $1.4 million, making it among the largest annual monetary prizes given to individuals."