St. Leo the Great

St. Leo the Great, born around the year 400, probably in Tuscany, served the Roman Church as a deacon and trusted counselor before being elected pope in 440. He governed the Church for twenty-one years at a moment when the Western Roman Empire was collapsing, and his steady hand, clear teaching, and pastoral courage earned him a title given to only a few popes in history: "the Great." Leo's most enduring theological legacy is his defense of the full truth about Jesus Christ. In 449 he wrote his famous Tome, a letter setting out the Church's faith that Christ is one divine Person in two complete natures, truly God and truly man. When the Council of Chalcedon adopted this teaching in 451, the assembled bishops are recorded as declaring, "Peter has spoken through Leo." His nearly one hundred surviving sermons and many letters reveal a pastor of remarkable clarity, preaching on the Incarnation, the liturgical seasons, and practical charity toward the poor. Leo was also a defender of his people in temporal danger. In 452 he traveled north to meet Attila the Hun and persuaded him to withdraw from Italy, and in 455, when the Vandal king Gaiseric took Rome, Leo's intervention is credited with restraining the sack and sparing the city from burning and slaughter. He strengthened the authority and pastoral care of the Roman See, articulating more fully than any predecessor the role of the pope as successor of Peter. Leo died in Rome in 461 and was the first pope to be buried at St. Peter's Basilica, where his tomb can still be venerated beneath an altar bearing a great marble relief of his meeting with Attila. Venerated as a saint from early times, he was declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope Benedict XIV in 1754. His feast is celebrated on November 10.