Thomas (bishop of Finland)

[1] The lands may be related to the papal permission from Pope Gregory IX in early 1229 that authorized the church to take over all non-Christian places of worship in Finland.

[citation needed] During Thomas' episcopate, Finland is listed among the lands under the papal legate in the Baltic region, originally the Bishop of Zemgale, Baldwin, and then William of Modena, first on 28 January 1232 and last on 15 July 1244.

[citation needed] On 24 November 1232, the pope asked the Livonian Brothers of the Sword to provide forces for the unnamed bishop of Finland to defend the country against Novgorodian attacks.

[13] Most commonly, Thomas is speculated to have been the unnamed Bishop of Finland to whom Pope Gregory IX replied in January 1229 with several letters of great importance to the church,[14] in the aftermath of major Finnish losses in the battle against the Republic of Novgorod.

A surviving letter by Pope Gregory IX directly to the chaplain of Nousiainen on 20 October 1232 makes the Finnish see appear vacant.

[18] Violent anti-church clashes in Tavastia, central Finland, mentioned in a letter by Pope Gregorius IX in 1237, have been attributed to Thomas' harsh methods of Christianization, but without direct evidence for that conjecture.

Information about the uprising originated from the temporarily sidelined archbishop, who seems to have used the occasion to remind the pope about Uppsala's earlier contributions to the missionary work in the north.

However, as the Chronicle also lists the very unlikely Norwegians as allies,[20][citation needed] the information is regarded as mid-14th century propaganda, depicting Sweden as being in control of Norway, Finland and Tavastia.