Leo the Great
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Pope Saint Leo I |
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| Papacy began | 29 September 440 |
| Papacy ended | 10 November 461 |
| Predecessor | Sixtus III |
| Successor | Hilarius |
| Personal details | |
| Birth name | Leo |
| Born |
c. 400 AD Tuscany, Western Roman Empire |
| Died | 10 November 461 Rome, Western Roman Empire |
| Sainthood | |
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| Venerated in | |
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Papal styles of Pope Leo I |
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| Reference style | His Holiness |
| Spoken style | Your Holiness |
| Religious style | Holy Father |
| Posthumous style | Saint |
Pope Saint Leo I (c. 400 – 10 November 461), also known as Saint Leo the Great, was pope from 29 September 440 to his death in 461.
He was a Roman , and was the first pope to have been called "the Great". He is perhaps best known for having met Attila the Hun in 452 and persuading him to turn back from his invasion of Italy. He is also a Doctor of the Church, most remembered theologically for issuing the Tome of Leo, a document which was a major foundation to the debates of the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon. The Council of Chalcedon, the fourth ecumenical council, dealt primarily with Christology, and elucidated the orthodox definition of Christ's being as the hypostatic union of two natures, divine and human, united in one person, "with neither confusion nor division". It was followed by a major schism associated with Monophysitism, Miaphysitism and Dyophysitism.
According to the Liber Pontificalis, he was a native of Tuscany. By 431, as a deacon, he occupied a sufficiently important position for Cyril of Alexandria to apply to him in order that Rome's influence should be thrown against the claims of Juvenal of Jerusalem to patriarchal jurisdiction over Palestine unless the letter is addressed rather to Pope Celestine I. About the same time John Cassian dedicated to him the treatise against Nestorius written at his request. Near the end of the reign of Pope Sixtus III, Leo was dispatched at the request of Emperor Valentinian III to settle a dispute between Aëtius, one of Gaul's chief military commanders, and the chief magistrate Caecina Decius Aginatius Albinus. These two men were the two highest officials in Gaul. Leo's work helped to solidify political and religious unity in his area of the Roman Empire.
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