Reformed Churchmen

We are Confessional Calvinists and a Prayer Book Church-people. In 2012, we remembered the 350th anniversary of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer; also, we remembered the 450th anniversary of John Jewel's sober, scholarly, and Reformed "An Apology of the Church of England." In 2013, we remembered the publication of the "Heidelberg Catechism" and the influence of Reformed theologians in England, including Heinrich Bullinger's Decades. For 2014: Tyndale's NT translation. For 2015, John Roger, Rowland Taylor and Bishop John Hooper's martyrdom, burned at the stakes. Books of the month. December 2014: Alan Jacob's "Book of Common Prayer" at: http://www.amazon.com/Book-Common-Prayer-Biography-Religious/dp/0691154813/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417814005&sr=8-1&keywords=jacobs+book+of+common+prayer. January 2015: A.F. Pollard's "Thomas Cranmer and the English Reformation: 1489-1556" at: http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Cranmer-English-Reformation-1489-1556/dp/1592448658/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1420055574&sr=8-1&keywords=A.F.+Pollard+Cranmer. February 2015: Jaspar Ridley's "Thomas Cranmer" at: http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Cranmer-Jasper-Ridley/dp/0198212879/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1422892154&sr=8-1&keywords=jasper+ridley+cranmer&pebp=1422892151110&peasin=198212879

Friday, September 19, 2014

19 September 690 A.D. Theodore of Tarsus Died—One of the Good Archbishops of Canterbury (7th of 105)…Scholarly, Pastoral, Kindly & Christian


19 September 690 A.D.   Theodore of Tarsus Died—One of the Good Archbishops of Canterbury (7th of 105)…Scholarly, Pastoral, Kindly & Christian

Editors. “Saint Theodore of Canterbury.”  Encyclopedia Britannica.  18 Jun 2013. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/590646/Saint-Theodore-of-Canterbury.  Accessed 22 May 2014.  

Saint Theodore of Canterbury,  (born c. 602, Tarsus, Cilicia, Asia Minor—died Sept. 19, 690, Canterbury, Kent, Eng.; feast day September 19), seventh archbishop of Canterbury and the first archbishop to rule the whole English Church.

Appointed by Pope St. Vitalian, Theodore was consecrated in 668 and then set out from Rome with SS. Adrian, abbot of Nerida, Italy, and Benedict Biscop, later abbot of Wearmouth and Jarrow, Durham. In 669 they reached Canterbury, where Theodore made Adrian the abbot of SS. Peter and Paul monastery, afterward named St. Augustine’s. There they created a famous school influential in the lives of such brilliant scholars as the celebrated historian St. Bede the Venerable and the skilled church architect St. Aldhelm.

Theodore organized the English Church, many sees of which were vacant on his arrival and others of which needed to be divided. In 672 he called at Hertford the first general synod of the English Church to end certain Celtic practices and to divide dioceses. The division issue was postponed, but the synod imposed the date of the Roman Easter, established obedience for clerics and monks, forbade bishops to interfere in other dioceses, and reaffirmed the church teaching on marriage and divorce.

During this period Theodore came into sharp conflict with Wilfrid, whom he had made bishop of York but whom he soon deposed. Wilfrid went to Rome in 677/678 to protest. Meanwhile, in 678, Theodore helped settle relations between King Aethelred of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia and King Ecgfrith of Northumbria, whom Aethelred had defeated in battle. Theodore’s synod at Hatfield in 679 cleared the English Church from associations with the heresy of the Monothelites. In 686 he mended the conflict with Wilfrid by admitting his error and effecting Wilfrid’s restoration. Theodore’s Penitential, a collection of his rulings made by his disciples, became influential in England and on the Continent.

Theodore’s greatest achievement was to adapt the Roman ideal of a centralized church to English conditions. His establishment of a centralized church under the archbishopric of Canterbury in close alliance with secular rulers was maintained by his successors. No biography of Theodore has survived.

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