Saint Theodore of Canterbury

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Theodore of Canterbury, (also Theodore of Tarsus) (602–90), was probably the most important archbishop of Canterbury between Augustine and Lanfranc both for his organization of the Church in England and as a scholar and teacher. There is no contemporary biography; nearly all we know of him comes from Bede. A Greek by birth (from Tarsus in Cilicia), who had been educated at Antioch and Constantinople and was a monk by profession, Theodore, then resident in Rome, and famous for his contribution to the bitter monothelite controversy, was recommended by Adrian, an African abbot, to Pope Vitalian, who was then looking for a suitable archbishop of Canterbury in 666. This followed the death in Rome of Wighard, the archbishop elect, and the choice of the kings of Northumbria and Kent in the crisis following the Synod of Whitby and an outbreak of plague. Adrian himself had been the pope's choice, but he had refused. Vitalian asked him instead to accompany and help Theodore; but Bede's assertion that this was because Theodore's orthodoxy was suspect seems unconvincing. Theodore was ordained subdeacon at the age of sixty-five; soon after, the other orders were conferred on him. He left Rome with Adrian and Benedict Biscop, consulted Agilbert, bishop of Paris and formerly bishop of Wessex on the way, and reached England in 669. He made a visitation of most of the country, filled vacant sees, set up an important school at Canterbury with Adrian, which soon became the source of several future bishops and attracted students even from Ireland, and held the first synod of the Anglo-Saxon church at Hertford in 672. Its ten decrees were based on canons approved by the Council of Chalcedon, widely adopted in the West. But they dealt admirably with the legacy of division in England between bishops trained by Roman and those trained by Irish masters; they also dealt with the respective rights of bishops and monasteries. A further decision was taken to create more dioceses, which was later implemented by Theodore in Northumbria (at the expense of Wilfrid), in Mercia, East Anglia, and Wessex.

Theodore's work was the unification of disparate elements in the Church, fusing the elements from Rome, Gaul, and Ireland into a single cohesive whole. Although he was high-handed in his division of the Northumbrian diocese, and the papacy upheld Wilfrid against him, his policy, if not the way of implementing it, was sound. In pursuing it, he rightly respected the territorial limits of the regional kings' power by creating a second (or third) diocese within the kingdom, but avoided setting up dioceses with territory in different kingdoms. Towards the end of his long life he sought a reconciliation with Wilfrid and helped towards his partial restoration. According to Wilfrid's biographer alone, he also expressed a desire that Wilfrid should succeed him at Canterbury. This was never realized. Theodore's second synod, at Hatfield, produced a declaration of orthodoxy by the Church in England in the monothelite controversy. The synods later held at Clovesho were the direct result of Theodore inaugurating the series at Hertford which decreed that such yearly synods should be held.

Theodore's school at Canterbury taught not only Latin and Greek (very rare at this time), but also Roman Law, the rules of metre, computistics, music and biblical exegesis on the Pentateuch and the Gospels of the literal school of Antioch. Theodore is also known to have been interested in medicine. But the Penitential ascribed to him cannot be his work as it stands: some elements (e.g. on remarriage after divorce) are in plain contradiction to his known teaching, while others date from after Theodore's death. It is possible that certain elements may go back to Theodore's oral teaching, but the whole work had at least two editors and the original cannot be recovered. Some of his exegesis has been recently studied afresh.

Theodore died on 19 September at the age of about eighty-seven; he was buried close to St. Augustine in the monastery of SS. Peter and Paul, Canterbury. In 1091 his incorrupt body was translated. The oldest evidence of his cult is in the Calendar of St. Willibrord; later his feast is in the Leofric Missal. The fact that no biography of him was written until the late 11th century and the lack of any claim that he was a miracle-worker contributed to his lack of popularity. But Bede's judgement stands that the English churches prospered more than ever before in the episcopate of Theodore, who was the first archbishop of Canterbury willingly obeyed by all Anglo-Saxon England. His great achievement was to give unity, organization, and outstanding scholarship to a divided church on the edge of the civilized world at an age when most men had reached retirement or infirmity. Feast: 19 September, but mainly at Canterbury, which also feasted his Ordination on 26 March.

Bibliography
Click here for a list of abbreviations used in this bibliography.

• AA.SS. Sept. VI (1757), 55–82; Bede, H.E., iv. 1–3, 5–6, 12, 15, 19 and v. 8; Eddius' Life of Wilfrid (ed. B. Colgrave, 1927) cc. 15, 24, 43; F. M. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England (1943), pp. 130–41, 180–3; H. Mayr-Harting, The Coming of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England (1972); P. Fournier, Histoire des Collections canoniques en Occident (1931–2); J. T. M. Neill and H. M. Garner, Medieval Handbooks of Penance (1938); N. Brooks, The Early History of the Church of Canterbury (1984); B. Bischoff and M. Lapidge, Biblical Commentaries from the Canterbury School of Theodore and Hadrian (1994); M. Lapidge (ed.), Archbishop Theodore (1995)