Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury

Theodore, archbishop of Canterbury succeeded Deusdedit, who died in the year 664. When the elected Anglo- Saxon presbyter Wigheard died in Rome, where he had gone to receive ordination, pope Vitalian declared that he intended to-send a worthy substitute. The Roman abbot Hadrian, a native of Africa, refused to be elected, and called attention to Theodore of Tarsuis as a man well qualified in every respect for that position. In March, 668, he left Rome for his new post, and was accompanied by Hadrian, who was to act as his adviser, but who, in fact, was to see that nothing of the Roman ritual was replaced by the Greek. Theodore acted in the spirit of Rome; he founded monasteries and schools, and died Sept. 19, 690 in London. His corpse was the first buried in St. Peter's at York. He left a penitential book and a collection of canons (reprinted in the collection of Latin penitential books of the Anglo- Saxons by Kunstmamu [Mayence, 1844]). See the Introduction to Kunstmann's collection; Baxmann, Politik der Perspste, 1, 180, 184; Theologisches Universal-Lexikon, s.v. (B. P.)