Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury

THEODORE, Archbishop of Canterbury. - Philosopher, theologian, canonist, b. at Tarsus in Cilicia around 602, d. at Canterbury on 19 Sept. 690.

He began his education at Tarsus and perfected it at Athens (Pope Zachary called him: Graeco-latinus ante philosophus et Athénus eruditus). He came to Italy perhaps in the retinue of Constans II (in 667 he was at Rome); he was a monk in a Basilian monastery but without sacred orders, at the time when the Church of England was in crisis because of the conflict between the supporters of Roman usages and the Scots. When Wigard died at Rome, who had been designated metropolitan of England, he 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 (637) he succeeded in having many provisions drawn from the Collectio Canonum of Dionysius Exiguus accepted, and at the Council of Hertford (680) he had the decisions of the Roman Synod against Monothelitism applied. On his arrival in Anglia, he had found only four dioceses; at his death there were more than 12, established by him through hard work and through his prestige before the various kings, among whom he often worked for pacification. More than for this, his importance stands out for his having been "the first archbishop whom the whole English Church obeyed" (Bede); accomplishing unity among the bishops (he acted as if the diocese of York were directly subject to him, although canonically it was at the head of its own province), he conformed English customs and canon law to those of Rome. Moreover T. favored Adrian, master in the school of Canterbury, so that, according to Bede, many pupils then "were as proficient in the Greek and Latin tongues as in their own"; and under him Adrian reorganized monastic life. Witnesses to his work are the Poenitenialis, the Capitula and the Judicia: although their 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.

Augusto Moreschini-Giuseppe Gill