Pope Leo III

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Santa Susanna
Sainthood
Feast day12 June
Venerated in
Other popes named Leo

Pope Leo III (died 12 June 816) was

Adrian I, Leo subsequently strengthened Charlemagne's position by crowning him emperor. The coronation was not approved by most people in Constantinople
, although the Byzantines, occupied with their own defenses, were in no position to offer much opposition to it.

Rise

According to the

iconoclast adversary of John of Damascus.[4]

Leo seems to have known Greek.

vestiarius, or chief of the pontifical treasury, or wardrobe.[5][6]

He was

consecrated on the following day. It is quite possible that this haste may have been due to a desire on the part of the Romans to prevent any interference by the Franks. With the letter informing the Frankish ruler Charlemagne that he had been unanimously elected Pope, Leo sent him the keys of the confession of St. Peter, and the standard of the city, and requested an envoy. This he did to show that he regarded the Frankish king as the protector of the Holy See.[5] In return, Charlemagne sent letters of congratulation and a great part of the treasure which the king had captured from the Avars.[7]

Pontificate

Charlemagne's gift enabled Leo to be a great benefactor to the churches and charitable institutions of Rome. While Charlemagne's letter is respectful and even affectionate, it also exhibits his concept of the coordination of the spiritual and temporal powers, and he does not hesitate to remind the pope of his grave spiritual obligations.[7]

Attack on Leo in 799

Prompted by jealousy, ambition, or the thought that only someone of the nobility should hold the office of pope, a number of relatives of Adrian I formed a plot to render Leo unfit to hold his office. On the occasion of the procession of the

Karolus Magnus et Leo Papa
.

Leo was accused by his enemies of

oath of purgation concerning the charges brought against him, and his opponents were exiled.[5]

Coronation of Charlemagne

Detail from The Coronation of Charlemagne by Raphael (1517)

Charlemagne's father, Pepin the Short, defended the papacy against the Lombards and issued the Donation of Pepin, which granted the land around Rome to the pope as a fief. In 754 Pope Stephen II had conferred on Charlemagne's father the dignity of Patricius Romanus, which implied primarily the protection of the Roman Church in all its rights and privileges; above all in its temporal authority which it had gradually acquired (notably in the former Byzantine Duchy of Rome and the Exarchate of Ravenna) by just titles in the course of the two preceding centuries.[7]

Two days after his oath, on Christmas Day 800, Leo crowned Charlemagne as emperor. According to Charlemagne's biographer, Einhard, Charlemagne had no suspicion of what was about to happen, and if informed would not have accepted the imperial crown.[8] There is, however, no reason to doubt that for some time previous the elevation of Charlemagne had been discussed, both at home and at Rome, especially since the imperial throne in Constantinople was controversially occupied by a woman, Irene of Athens, and since the Carolingian dynasty had firmly established its power and prestige.[7] The coronation offended Constantinople, which had seen itself still as the rightful defender of Rome, but Empress Irene, like many of her predecessors since Justinian I, was too weak to offer protection to the city or its much reduced citizenry.

In 808, Leo committed Corsica to Charlemagne for safe-keeping because of Muslim raids, originating from Al-Andalus,[9] on the island.[10] Nonetheless, Corsica, along with Sardinia, would still go on to be occupied by Muslim forces in 809 and 810.[11]

Episcopal policy

Leo helped restore King

archbishops of York and Canterbury.[5] He also reversed Pope Adrian I's decision in the granting of the pallium to Bishop Hygeberht of Lichfield. He believed that the English episcopate had been misrepresented before Adrian and that therefore his act was invalid. In 803, Lichfield was a regular diocese again.[12]

Theological policy

Pope Leo III unambiguously supported the current theological position in the West in his time: that

creed which he said was the product of the "divine illumination" of the council fathers, and considered not everything needed for salvation was in the creed. Leo III "placed two silver shields in Rome with the uninterpolated creed in both Greek and Latin."[13] The Liber Pontificalis states Leo III put those shields at the top of St. Peter's entrance "in his love for and as a safeguard for the orthodox and catholic apostolic faith".[14]

Anastasius the Librarian, an exact contemporary with Pope Leo III, and chief archivist at Rome under several later Popes, stated that the Latins understood the Filioque to be in reference to the temporal mission (missio), and not an eternal procession.

Death and legacy

Leo III died in 816 after a reign of more than 20 years. He was originally buried in his own monument. However, some years after his death, his remains were put into a tomb that contained the first four popes named Leo. In the 18th century, the relics of Leo the Great were separated from his namesakes, and he was given his own chapel.[15]

Leo III was

Clement X, who, in 1673, had Leo's name entered in the Roman Martyrology.[16]

See also

References

  1. ^ Philipp Winterhager, Migranten und Stadtgesellschaft im frühmittelalterlichen Rom: Griechischsprachige Einwanderer und ihre Nachkommen im diachronen Vergleich (De Gruyter, 2020), p. 261.
  2. ^
    doi:10.1515/byzs.1985.78.1.56
  3. ^ Hans-Georg Beck, "Die Herkunft des Papstes Leo III", Frühmittelalterliche Studien: Jahrbuch des Instituts fur Frühmittelalterforschung der Universität Münster, 3 (1969): 131–137.
  4. Prosopography of the Byzantine Empire, Vol. 1 (641–867) (Online ed., 2014), s.v. Atzuppius 1 (which presumes that Leo III's father was also a native of Rome) and Atzypios 1
    .
  5. ^ a b c d e f  Mann, Horace Kinder (1910). "Pope St. Leo III". In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 9. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
  6. ^ Miranda, Salvador. "Leone (?-816)". The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church – Biographical Dictionary. Florida International University. Archived from the original on 25 April 2018. Retrieved 24 April 2018.
  7. ^ a b c d e  Shahan, Thomas; Macpherson, Ewan (1908). "Charlemagne". In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 3. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
  8. ^ Einhard (1880). "Charlemagne Crowned Emperor". The Life of Charlemagne. Translated by Turner, Samuel Epes. New York: Harper & Brothers.
  9. ISBN 9780853234791
    .
  10. ISBN 9780812200911
    .
  11. ISBN 9781135030179
    .
  12. ^  Moyes, James (1908). "Councils of Clovesho". In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 4. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
  13. OCLC 344061951
    .
  14. OCLC 222145811.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link
    )
  15. ISBN 9781476602318
    .
  16. ^ Baring-Gould, Sabine (1874). The Lives of the Saints. J. Hodges. p. 156. Retrieved 24 April 2018.

External links

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Catholic Church titles
Preceded by
Adrian I
 Pope
795–816 		Succeeded by
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