Theodore’s Mercy Mission

Five of the first six archbishops of Canterbury to be consecrated were not native to England. None, however, came from as far afield as the seventh: Theodore, born in 602, was a Greek-speaking monk from Tarsus – birthplace of St Paul and now the Turkish city of Gözlü Kule – in what was then a province of the Byzantine Empire. Educated in Antioch and Edessa, Theodore spent some time in the empire’s capital Constantinople before arriving in Rome.