Had England clung to the Irish Church it must have remained spiritually isolated from the bulk of the Western world.

Fallen as Rome might be from its older greatness, it preserved the traditions of civilization, of letters and art and law.

Its faith still served as a bond which held together the nations that sprang from the wreck of the Empire.

To fight against Rome was, as Wilfrid said, "to fight against the world." To repulse Rome was to condemn England to isolation.

Dimly as such thoughts may have presented themselves to Oswiu's mind, it was the instinct of a statesman that led him to set aside the love and gratitude of his youth and to link England to Rome in the Synod of Whitby.
[Sidenote: Theodore] Oswiu's assent to the vigorous measures of organization undertaken by a Greek monk, Theodore of Tarsus, whom Rome despatched in 668 to secure England to her sway as Archbishop of Canterbury, marked a yet more decisive step in the new policy.