The Venerable Bede was the greatest medieval theologian and historian. His “Ecclesiastical History of the People of the English” is a valuable source on English history. The work covers the period from the first contacts with the Romans under Gaius Julius Caesar to the year 731. Particular attention is paid to religious history: it describes the baptism of the British Isles, the formation and development of the church organization, and the state of church life at the time the work was created. Each of the five books includes the lives of saints and church traditions.
In 1978 Bede was canonized by Metropolitan Antony (Bloom) and is locally venerated as a saint of the Surozh diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church.