Sentence:  Indeed , it <WSD>is</WSD> even surprising in the Canon of Christ Church and Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History , who fathered this most peculiar view , and in the brilliant Professor of Medieval and Renaissance English at Cambridge , who inherited it and is now its most eminent proponent . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  have the quality of being; (copula, used with an adjective or a predicate noun)