Thaddeus (bishop of Caffa)

Thaddeus (or Tadeos) was an Armenian bishop and friar. He was consecrated as the Armenian Apostolic bishop of Caffa[lower-alpha 1] by the Caucasian Albanian catholicos Stepanos IV in or before 1321. The papal bull Doctor gentium egregius of Pope John XXII, dated 22 November 1321, refers to him as "the son of perdition ... who separated from unity with the church." He opposed the sitting Latin bishop, Jerome of Catalonia. In 1322, however, he converted to Roman Catholicism and joined the Dominican Order. He may have been promised in exchange the right to succeed Jerome when the latter died.[1] The question of the chronology of the Catholic bishops of Caffa in this period is somewhat confused.[lower-alpha 2]

Later in 1322, Thaddeus travelled with Jerome to Avignon to see the pope.[1] He was still there in 1323. In a letter to King Leo II of Armenia dated 1323, Marino Sanudo Torsello writes that "Brother Thaddeus and his associates, your envoys, who are now at the Roman curia, will be able to report to you orally when they return to you" about how Sanudo was pleading for assistance to the Armenian kingdom.[4] In 1328, Thaddeus was appointed Latin bishop of Corycus. In 1334, he succeeded Jerome as bishop of Caffa.[1] He served until his death in 1357.[2]

Thaddeus translated part of the Dominican Breviary into Armenian.[5] Paul Riant, in editing the Ystoria de desolatione et conculcatione civitatis Acconensis et tocius terre sancte, a Latin account of the fall of Acre in 1291, proposed that its author, Thaddeus of Naples, was identical to Thaddeus of Caffa. This hypothesis is considered very unlikely.[6]

Notes
  1. See Armenians in Crimea.
  2. According to Patrick Zutshi, documents of indulgence from 1322–1323 and 1327 show both Jerome and Thaddeus as bishop. Zutshi suggests that they were joint bishops until Thaddeus was appointed to Corycus in 1328.[2] The indulgence Zutshi dated to 1327 is dated to July–September 1326 by Peter Linehan, who published an edition of the text. It lists a Thadeus Caphensis, but no Jerome. According to Linehan, Thaddeus had succeeded as bishop by April 1326.[3] Sherman Roddy has Thaddeus succeeding Jerome in 1323.[4]

References
  1. Roman Hautala, "Catholic Missions in the Golden Horde Territory," in Ovidiu Cristea and Liviu Pilat (eds.), From Pax Mongolica to Pax Ottomanica: War, Religion and Trade in the Northwestern Black Sea Region (14th–16th Centuries) (Brill, 2020), pp. 39–65, at 57–58.
  2. Patrick Zutshi, "Collective Indulgences from Rome and Avignon in English Collections," in Michael J. Franklin and Christopher Harper-Bill (eds.), Medieval Ecclesiastical Studies in Honour of Dorothy M. Owen (Boydell Press, 1995), pp. 281–297, at 292.
  3. Peter Linehan, "The Beginnings of Santa María de Guadalupe and the Direction of Fourteenth-Century Castile", The Journal of Ecclesiastical History 36.2 (1985): 284–304. doi:10.1017/s0022046900038756
  4. Sherman Roddy, The Correspondence of Marino Sanudo Torsello, PhD diss. (University of Pennsylvania, 1971), pp. 120–121.
  5. Marshall W. Baldwin, "Missions to the East in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth centuries," in N. P. Zacour and H. W. Hazard (eds.), A History of the Crusades, Volume V: The Impact of the Crusades on the Near East (University of Wisconsin Press, 1985), pp. 452–518, at 504.
  6. Luigi Russo, "Taddeo di Napoli", Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Vol. 94 (Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana, 2019).

Further reading
  • Loenertz, Raymond-Joseph. "Deux évêques dominicains de Caffa: frère Thaddée d'Arménie et frère Matthieu Manni de Cortone." Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum 5 (1935): 346–357.
  • Richard, Jean. "Deux évêques dominicains agents de l'Union arménienne au Moyen-Âge." Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum 19 (1949): 255–265.
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