THEODORE, Archbishop of CANTERBURY. — Philosopher, theologian, canonist, b. at Tarsus in Cilicia c. 602, d. at Canterbury on 19 Sept. 690.
He began his education at Tarsus and completed it at Athens (Pope Zachary called him: Graeco-latinus ante philosophus et Athenis eruditus). He came to Italy perhaps in the retinue of Constans II (in 667 he was in Rome); he was a monk in a Basilian monastery but without holy orders, at a time when the Church in England was in crisis due to the conflict between the supporters of Roman usages and the Scots. He died in Rome.
TEODORO, saint, martyr — The martyr T. dressed in a chlamys. Detail from the apse mosaic of the church of SS. Cosmas and Damian (6th cent.) — Rome.
Wighard, who had been designated metropolitan of England, was chosen by Pope Vitalian to succeed him, after the refusal of Abbot Adrian, and on 26 March 668 was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury. Immense was his work of reorganization and discipline of the English Church. At the Council of Hertford (673) he succeeded in having accepted many provisions drawn from the Collectio Canonum of Dionysius Exiguus, and at the Council of Hatfield (680) he enforced the decisions of the Roman Synod against Monothelitism. On his arrival in England, he found only four dioceses; at his death there were more than twelve, which he had established through hard work and prestige in the eyes of the various kings, among whom he often acted as a peacemaker. His importance, however, is chiefly due to his being «the first archbishop to whom the whole English Church was obedient» (Bede); by uniting the bishops (a) as if the diocese of York were directly subject to him, although canonically it was the head of its own province), he standardized English customs and canon law with those of Rome. Theodore also supported Adrian, the master in the school of Canterbury, so that, according to Bede, many students then «were as proficient in Greek and Latin as in their own language»; and under him Adrian reorganized monastic life. Witnesses to his work are the Poenitentialis, the Capitula and the Judicia: although direct authorship cannot be proven, the oldest tradition traces their source back to him. The most recent critical and annotated edition is that of P. W. Einsterwalder, Die Canones Theodori Cantuariensis und Überlieferungsformen, Weimar 1929.