The English speaking world had a truly great Nation Builder in its foundation times. A World Heritage hero. He did much to shape the world that descended to us.

However, we appear to have lost him.

Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, 668-689.

He built a proto-national church around which developed the nation of the English. Brokered a nation-building peace. And set up Christian teamworking amongst the proto-English which went on to help shape the Europe that descended to us.

But have you even heard of him? Time to recover him, I think.

From 597 to 668, a momentous Christian Awakening had been transforming every small Anglo Saxon kingdom. It was imparting a new sense of shared identity. The older shared identity glorified fighting. The new shared identity glorified God. However, by 668, the Christian Awakening was foundering. In Kent: internecine strife amongst the royals, and its Christian leadership vacant nearly five years from 664. In the North: different Christian traditions in contention since 664, and the political leaders of the North and Midlands more generally edging towards war. Other kingdoms: losing some of their originating Christian spark. Many monasteries were in good spiritual shape. But Christian leadership as it engaged with the many small kingdom Kings was vacant in nearly every kingdom. As at 668, the Anglo Saxons could easily have reverted to pagan tradition and, with it, continued small kingdom fragmentation.

Enter Archbishop Theodore.

When he came to Canterbury, Theodore was already old by the standards of his times; an intellectual in warrior times; not the choice of the Kings; nor the preference of the Pope. And the early planting of Christian Identity, begun by St Augustine of Canterbury from 597, was at risk of dying. However, Theodore, in his twenty one improbable years to cultivate it, ended his days with it planted firm and sure.

Theodore was Archbishop of Canterbury 668 – 689. He was 66 when appointed. That would mean he was born in the year the first Canterbury Cathedral was consecrated, 602. He was born in the Tarsus of the Apostle Paul and educated in the Antioch of the first great Gentile church. He commanded Greek, Syriac and Latin languages; was a scholar of Bible exposition; and had experience of Persian and Byzantine culture. Coming to the Anglo Saxons, I think of him as a spaceship landed amongst the barbarians.

Theodore went on to create a consistent proto-national church in each small kingdom. He took great care in the appointment of bishops to each small kingdom. He blended together, in the bishops, Gaelic, Frankish, Latin, Greek and North African Christian influences. In so doing he planted an indigenous Anglo Saxon fusionchurch. He did not “Romanise”. He blended. There was a vigorous “Romaniser” in the North, one Bishop Wilfrid. He was uprooting the old Gaelic Christian foundations and sowing contention. Theodore greatly reduced his power and substantially re-Gaelicised the Christian ways of the North. You can read more details in my book, “The Mustard Seed”.

The various bishops were appointed into diocesan structures which are recognisable to this day. The various small kingdom Kings participated in the proto-nationally run church councils. Slowly but surely, the proto-national ways of the church, as witnessed by the kings in the councils, gained traction. The effect was to lay the earliest foundation for unitary nation building. And besides all that, under the surface, the Christian ways of the peoples were fusing. Northumbria and Mercia, for example, powerful warlike rivals, were becoming of one consistent Christian way under the surface. This would come to matter in 679, as I shall soon show you.

Here are the circumstances of Theodore’s appointment to Archbishop of Canterbury. A candidate named Wigheard was sent to Rome by two Anglo Saxon Kings in 667 for Papal confirmation. However, Wigheard died there. Pope Vitalian cast around for alternatives, asking a North African scholar, Hadrian, to become Archbishop. Hadrian declined, thinking it a responsibility beyond him. He suggested an alternative, but that person also declined. The Pope asked Hadrian to reconsider. Hadrian alighted on Theodore. He was willing but the Pope was not sure: might be too Greek in his ways. However, Vitalian agreed, provided that Hadrian would also go along as number two, to make sure Theodore kept to the Roman straight and narrow. Hadrian agreed. Appointed in 668, Theodore got under way in the Cathedral early in 669, and Hadrian became the Abbot (head) of the nearby St Augustine’s Abbey. Thus the people who became the Early English received a world class two-for-the-price-of-one double act.

Turning to the Northumbria/Mercia peace deal which Theodore brokered in 679, this was a significant step on the road from Anglo Saxon tribalism to unitary English nation. These rival powers were warrior-to-the-bone. They had been fighting ever since the Mercians had settled in what we now call the Midlands of England in the early 600’s; and quite likely long before that in the old Germanic homelands. But… and this point seems to be much overlooked … by 679 the two powers were coming to share a common fusion Christian Identity. It had started up before Theodore’s time. Northumbrian Christian leaders who had a fusion Romano Gaelic Christian spirituality were being well received in Mercia. Theodore therefore took care, within the appointment of bishops, to reinforce the fusion. Notably, in 670, he appointed the Gaelic-tradition St Chad to Mercia. And in 679, following an outbreak of war, he brought the powers to peace around the commonly held fusion Christian Identity. Few things have been more unifying in English history. More details, including an accompanying phenomenon around the bones of Saint King Oswald of Northumbria, are in my book.

After that, and in his late old age, Theodore took trouble to bring peace to a Northumbrian Kingdom which was internally divided. Now, much material about this period seems to focus on the contention between Roman and Gaelic Christian ways. And North/South divide is embedded in UK culture these days. However, this Southerner blessed and restored the North. Again, more details are in my book. But can you imagine it? You’re Theodore. In your late old age, exposed to the elements, you’re repeat-voyaging from the warmer South to the colder North to sort things out. The Romanising chief bishop doesn’t want you there. But the Gaelic-tradition-loving warrior Northumbrian Kings greatly respect you. As to yourself, you’re a Gaelic-tradition-sympathising Greek, would you believe? And you do what you already did in Mercia in 670 with St Chad. In 685, you promote Gaelic-tradition St Cuthbert. In 687, you also promote Theodore-fusion-ideal St John of Beverley.  Peacemakers, the pair of them. And, after your death, thanks to those two and others like them, and to King Aldfrith – who was King of Northumbria but a product of Gaelic Christian Iona – things work out in such a way as to promote a Christian culture in which Northumbria becomes a chief civilising light in all of Europe.

It doesn’t end there. In the mid-700’s a mission combining Wessex and Northumbrian Christian vigour, with Kentish Christian learning in the mix, takes the Christian message into the ancient Germanic Anglo Saxon homelands. These are then one of the last pagan redoubts of Europe. The mission prevails. The transforming Christian Identity helps to shape Europe from that day until modern times. And where does the teamwork originate from? – The proto-national teamworking ways of Archbishop Theodore.

Truly, Archbishop Theodore was a lost World Heritage hero and a Nation Builder.