As Archbishop of Canterbury in the late 600s, Theodore of Tarsus was fearless. Already in his mid-sixties when the Pope set him over the Anglo-Saxons, he set about reorganizing the Church's life, crushing people who were using their power to abuse others, lifting up into prominence those who had been oppressed, and all with a wisdom that made him, as Bede says, "the first of the archbishops whom the whole English church the son of David, to set us free. consented to obey."
