- Byname:
- Leo the Great
- Born:
- 4th century, Tuscany?
- Died:
- November 10, 461, Rome
- Title / Office:
- pope (440-461)
- Subjects Of Study:
- papal primacy
- two natures of Christ
St. Leo I
What is St. Leo I the patron saint of?
What was the miracle of St. Leo I?
Why is St. Leo I called “Leo the Great?”
How did St. Leo I view papal power?
St. Leo I (born 4th century, Tuscany?—died November 10, 461, Rome; Western feast day November 10 ([formerly April 11]), Eastern feast day February 18) was the pope, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church, from 440 to 461 and a master exponent of papal supremacy. His pontificate—which saw the disintegration of the Roman Empire in the West and the formation in the East of theological differences that were to split Christendom—was devoted to safeguarding orthodoxy and to securing the unity of the Western church under papal supremacy.
Consecrated on September 29, 440, as successor to St. Sixtus III, Leo, one of the few popes termed “great,” immediately worked to suppress heresy, which he regarded as the cause of corruption and disunity. Yet his most significant theological achievement was not his negative suppression of heresy but his positive formulation of orthodoxy.
(Who were the most influential popes in the history of the Roman Catholic Church?)
His treatment of the monk Eutyches of Constantinople provides an example. The monk had founded Eutychianism, an extreme form of monophysitism holding that Christ had only one nature, his human nature being absorbed in his divine nature. Patriarch Flavian of Constantinople excommunicated Eutyches, who then appealed to Leo. After examining the case, Leo sent Flavian (449) his celebrated Tome, which rejected Eutyches’s teaching and presented a precise, systematic doctrine of Christ’s Incarnation and of the union of both his natures. In 451 the Council of Chalcedon (modern Kadikoy, Turkey), summoned to condemn Eutychianism, declared that Leo’s Tome was the ultimate truth. Furthermore, the council recognized Leo’s doctrine as “the voice of Peter” (one of Jesus’ apostles and the first pope according to Roman Catholic tradition). Thus for the church Leo’s Tome established the doctrine that Christ’s natures coexist and his Incarnation reveals how human nature is restored to perfect unity with divine, or absolute, being.
- He was the first pope to be officially recognized with the honorific title “the Great.”
- After his death in 461, Leo became the first pope to be buried in the sacristy of the original St. Peter’s Basilica, which was built by the Roman emperor Constantine in the 4th century. His body was subsequently moved to the Porticus Pontificum (“portico of the pontiffs”) elsewhere in the basilica. In 1715 his body was transferred to its final resting place in the Altar of St. Leo the Great in the current St. Peter’s Basilica.
- He was the first pontiff to choose the papal name Leo, which means “lion” in Latin.
Leo’s 432 letters and 96 sermons expound his precept of papal primacy in church jurisdiction. He held that papal power was granted by Christ to St. Peter alone, and that this power was passed on by Peter to his successors. In one letter, for example, Leo cautioned the Bishop of Thessalonica that although he had been entrusted with office and shared Leo’s solicitude, he was “not to possess the plenitude of power.”
Leo further enhanced the prestige of the papacy and helped to place Western leadership in its hands by dealing with invading tribes. He persuaded the Huns, a nomadic people terrorizing northern Italy, not to attack Rome (452), and the Vandals, a Germanic people, not to sack Rome when they occupied it three years later. Leo was declared a doctor of the church, a title given to saints whose writings have special authority, by Pope Benedict XIV in 1754.