Leo I

Who they were

Leo was elected Pope on 29 September 440. In 452, with Attila's Huns having sacked Aquileia, Padua and Milan, he led a delegation from Rome to meet Attila on the Mincio near Mantua and persuaded him to turn back; legend, painted by Raphael in the Vatican, says Attila saw the apostles Peter and Paul with swords behind the Pope. In 455 he met the Vandal king Genseric at the gates of Rome: the city was plundered but not burned, and the people who took refuge in the basilicas of St Peter, St Paul and St John were spared.

His pontificate of twenty-one years had many firsts: the first Pope named Leo, the first called 'the Great', the first whose sermons have come down to us. He died on 10 November 461 and was perhaps the first Pope buried inside St Peter's, where his relics still are.

The miracles

There was never a formal cause: Leo has been honoured as a saint since his death. In 1754 Benedict XIV declared him a Doctor of the Church - one of only two popes, with Gregory the Great, to hold the title.

Why that counted as sanctity

Leo defended the faith and his people with nothing but his authority and courage, facing Attila and Genseric unarmed, and taught the Church in his sermons with a clarity that still speaks.

Connected on this site

• Gregory I Saint
  “Additionally, he is the first of the three Popes listed in the Annuario Pontificio with the title "the Great," alongside Gregory I and Nicholas I.” — Wikipedia
• Nicholas I Saint
  “Additionally, he is the first of the three Popes listed in the Annuario Pontificio with the title "the Great," alongside Gregory I and Nicholas I.” — Wikipedia