Theodore of Tarsus

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Theodore of Tarsus (* 602 in Tarsus , Eastern Roman Empire , † September 19, 690 ) was the seventh Archbishop of Canterbury .

Theodore was a Greek and was born in Tarsus, the capital of the late Roman province of Cilicia . He left the city to study in Antioch , where he learned Syrian, among other things. When the Sassanids temporarily conquered the region around 620, Theodore went to Constantinople , where he studied Roman law and learned Latin before entering the service of the Church. Because of his language skills, he was finally sent to Rome by the Patriarch.

After Wighart was initially supposed to be the successor of the Archbishop of Canterbury , Deusdedit , who died in 664 , but died before his consecration, Hadrian of Niridianum proposed Theodore. Pope Vitalian consecrated Theodor of Tarsus on March 26, 668 and commissioned Hadrian to accompany him. While Hadrian was detained in the Frankish Empire by the Neustrian caretaker Ebroin , because he was believed to be an imperial spy, Theodor reached England in May 669 . According to the report of the Beda Venerabilis , Theodore traveled all over England to monitor the observance of the Roman Easter custom and the monastic rules. He was also the first Archbishop of Canterbury to whom all "Churches of the Angles " were subordinated.

Theodore resisted the establishment of a separate church province for York and consecrated the bishops of East Anglia (Bisi), Rochester (Putta), Wessex (Hlothhere) and Mercia (Ceadda) himself . Since at the same time the iro-Scottish mission was in decline, Theodor succeeded in bringing the Church in the Anglo-Saxon territories together for the first time under the suzerainty of Canterbury, which was to keep this position from then on. This created the first Roman church outside of the Mediterranean.

When this consolidation had largely taken place, Theodor became chairman of the first synod of the Anglo-Saxon Church in Hertford in 673 . On this occasion, numerous Irish-Scottish remnants were banned from the liturgy and the structure of the archdiocese was consolidated. In particular, this included the stabilitas loci of the clergy, in contrast to the wandering Irish-Scottish monks, and the establishment of the powers of the bishops as the highest ecclesiastical authorities in their respective dioceses. Theodore then renewed the diocese of Essex by installing Earconwald there . His intervention in the Church of Northumbria and with the Picts (678) aroused resistance from Wilfrid . In the war between Northumbria and Mercia in 679 he managed to broker a peace. In 680 and 684 he chaired the Synods of Hatfield and Twyford , which strengthened the ties between the Anglo-Saxon and the Roman Church. In the late phase of his rule, Theodor divided several dioceses in order to obtain smaller ecclesiastical units.

literature

  • Michael Lapidge (Ed.): Archbishop Theodore. Commemorative Studies on his Life and Influence. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1995.

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ On the life and career of Theodor, see especially Michael Lapidge: The career of Archbishop Theodore. In: Michael Lapidge (ed.): Archbishop Theodore. Commemorative Studies on his Life and Influence. Cambridge 1995, pp. 1ff.
  2. ↑ Michael Lapidge: The career of Archbishop Theodore. In: Michael Lapidge (ed.): Archbishop Theodore. Commemorative Studies on his Life and Influence. Cambridge 1995, here p. 25f.
  3. ^ David Hugh Farmer: Dictionary of Saints. 5th edition. Oxford 2011, ISBN 978-0-19-959660-7 , pp. 412 f.
  4. ↑ Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the year 673, cf. also Michael Lapidge: The career of Archbishop Theodore. In: Michael Lapidge (ed.): Archbishop Theodore. Commemorative Studies on his Life and Influence. Cambridge 1995, here p. 26.
  5. ^ Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the year 680
predecessor Office successor
Deusdedit Archbishop of Canterbury
668–690 		Bertwald
personal data
SURNAME Theodore of Tarsus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION eighth Archbishop of Canterbury
DATE OF BIRTH 602
PLACE OF BIRTH tarsus
DATE OF DEATH September 19, 690