Daily Reading for September 19 • Theodore of Tarsus, Archbishop of Canterbury, 690
Theodore arrived in England on Sunday 27 May 669, a year to the day after he had set out from Rome, and Hadrian arrived the following year. We can scarcely imagine their first impressions of England, though the sight of tiny wooden churches dotting the landscape must surely have evoked memories in Theodore of Hagia Sophia and Hagia Eirene in Constantinople, . . . and of the great basilican churches in Rome. Nevertheless, they set determinedly and expeditiously about reconstructing the administrative organization—if not the architectural fabric—of the English church. Their first undertaking was, as Bede tells us, a visitation of those parts of the island inhabited by the English. During this tour, Bede goes on to say, they gave instruction in the “correct” manner of the Christian life and in the “canonical” custom of celebrating Easter. . . .
When Theodore arrived, his own see had been vacant for nearly five years, and there were similar vacancies in episcopal sees in the kingdoms of Mercia, Wessex and East Anglia. Indeed the only three bishops in office in the whole country were Wini, bishop of London, Ceadda, bishop of York, and Wilfrid, bishop of Ripon. Theodore set about repairing this desperate situation with the urgency of an old man in a hurry. . . With the English episcopate restored, Theodore was able to summon a general synod at Hertford in September of either 672 or 673. The synod was attended by all English bishops (excepting only Wini, who probably took umbrage at Theodore’s ruthless authority, and Wilfrid, who however sent proxies). Theodore produced a liber canonum or book of canon law, and from it promulgated the canons or rules designed to secure the unanimity of the English church in matters of orthodox belief, such as Easter dating and marriage and divorce, or of jurisdiction, such as the intrusion of bishops into the dioceses of others or into the affairs of monasteries. Such measures brought a degree of stability to the English church. . . .
Theodore’s thought and learning had a longlasting influence on ecclesiastical legislation. To cite one example from many: Theodore’s sacrament for the ordination of a monk was incorporated whole by the tenth-century compilers of the Romano-German Pontifical, whence it spread throughout the western church. In this respect, as in so many others, Theodore played a pivotal role in the transmission of eastern ideas to the Latin West.
From Biblical Commentaries from the Canterbury School of Theodore and Hadrian by Bernhard Bischoff and Michael Lapidge, Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England 10 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).