Is pyridine a reducing agent? If so, is it a strong or weak reducing agent?

My question relates to Darzen's procedure to prepare monohalides by reacting an alcohol with thionyl chloride in the presence of pyridine.


Pyridine is the reason why this reaction follows an SN2 mechanism. That means pyridine is a reducing agent since it abstracts the hydrogen from electropositive oxygen (while the reaction is in process) before the electronegative chlorine (from $\ce{SOCl2}$) can. So my question is, 



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> Is pyridine a reducing agent? If so, is it a strong reducing agent or a weak one?
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Pyridine has two roles in this reaction but neither of them are as reducing agent.


Firstly it mops up $\ce{H^+}$ (it does not deprotonate OH, it is not a strong enough base for that).


Secondly it acts as a nucleophilic catalyst by reacting with thionyl chloride to give $\ce{[pyridinium - SO2 - Cl]^+}$ which is more reactive than thionyl chloride towards ROH.


<http://www.chemtube3d.com/Pyridine%20-%20Nucleophilic%20Catalyst.html>


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