St. Leo the Great, Pope and Doctor of the Church

St. Leo the Great, Pope and Doctor: ca. 400-461 A.D.

Feast day, November 10

Birth, diaconate, and election to papacy
There is no exact nor reliable information about the birth of St. Leo. But it was around the year 400 A.D. that he was probably born in Rome of Tuscan parentage. He served as a deacon under Pope Celestine I and Sixtus III, and achieved a certain eminence. He acted as peacemaker between Aetius and Albinus - imperial generals whose quarrels endangered Gaul from attacks by the barbarians. While in Gaul, Pope Sixtus died, and a deputation was sent to inform Leo that he had been elected to the papacy. St. Leo thus returned to Rome for his consecration on September 29, 440 A.D.

The Eutychian controversy
St. Leo at once began his pastoral duties with a series of ninety-six still extant sermons on faith and charity. He strenuously opposed Manichaeanism, Pelagianism, Priscillianism, and Nestorianism. In 448 A.D., he was faced with the Eutychian problem. Eutyches, an archimandrite in a monastery at Constantinople, denied the two natures of Christ in one person. St. Leo was able to resolve this Eutychian problem through the Council of Chalcedon in 451 A.D. In the Council, St. Leo confirmed the doctrine of the Incarnation against Eutyches, who erred by professing and teaching that Christ had only one nature - His divinity. The bishops of the Council then endorsed the letter of St. Leo as regards this controversy and said: Peter has spoken through Leo.

Invasions by the Huns and the Vandals
In 452 A.D., Attila and his Huns, after overrunning Greece and Germany, invaded the northern cities of Italy, and were about to attack defenseless Rome, when he was dissuaded by Leo in a face-to-face meeting at Peschiera. St. Leo managed to convince Attila to spare Rome by offering him an annual tribute. Three years later, St. Leo was not as successful with the Vandal Genseric from Africa, who plundered and pillaged Rome for fifteen days, but agreeing not to burn the city. On his part, St. Leo ministered to the stricken populace and worked to rebuild the city and the churches. He also sent missionaries to Africa to minister to the captives Genseric took back with him.

Declared Doctor of the Church in 1754 A.D.
The reason St. Leo was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church by Pope Benedict XIV in 1754 A.D., was because of his writings and sermons. Chief among the writings was his Tome, a famous letter he wrote to the Archbishop of Constantinople, Flavian, that expressed the Christian doctrine that Christ had two natures in one person: the human and the divine.

Aside from his major work the Tome, St. Leo produced also one hundred forty-three letters. It was his sermons that the Church prizes so much that it included them in the Office of Readings for such main feasts as Christmas and Epiphany. Five sermons of Leo on the Beatitudes are also included in the Office of Readings. A total of twenty-six of his sermons are thus excerpted in the Office of Readings - the same number as that of St. Ambrose's, and second only to St. Augustine's eighty-two sermons.

St. Leo died in Rome on November 10, 461 A.D., and his relics are now preserved in the Vatican Basilica.

References of this article

• Dictionary of Saints, by John J. Delaney
• The Doctors of the Church vol 1, by John F. Fink
• A Year With the Saints, by Don Bosco Press, Inc.