Saint Theodore of Tarsus

Theodore of Tarsus (Greek: Θεόδωρος Ταρσοῦ; 602 – 19 September 690) was Archbishop of Canterbury from 668 to 690. Theodore grew up in Tarsus, but fled to Constantinople after the Persian Empire conquered Tarsus and other cities. After studying there, he relocated to Rome and was later installed as the Archbishop of Canterbury on the orders of Pope Vitalian. Accounts of his life appear in two 8th-century texts. Theodore is best known for his reform of the English Church and establishment of a school in Canterbury. Theodore's life can be divided into the time before his arrival in Britain as Archbishop of Canterbury, and his archiepiscopate. Until recently, scholarship on Theodore had focused on only the latter period since it is attested in Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English (c 731), and also in Stephen of Ripon's Vita Sancti Wilfrithi (early 700s), whereas no source directly mentions Theodore's earlier activities. However, Bernard Bischoff and Michael Lapidge reconstructed his earlier life based on a study of texts produced by his Canterbury School. Theodore was of Greek descent and was born in Tarsus in Cilicia, a Greek-speaking diocese of the Byzantine Empire. Theodore's childhood saw devastating wars between Byzantium and the Persian Sassanid Empire, which resulted in the capture of Antioch, Damascus, and Jerusalem in 613–614. Persian forces captured Tarsus when Theodore was 11 or 12 years old, and there is evidence that Theodore had experience of Persian culture. It is most likely that he studied at Antioch, the historic home of a distinctive school of exegesis, of which he was a proponent. Theodore also knew Syriac culture, language and literature, and may even have travelled to Edessa. The Syriac Acts of St. Milus of Persia, which was incorporated into the Old English Martyrology, was probably brought to England by Theodore.