Saint Leo of Catania

Saint Leo of Catania, nicknamed the Thaumaturgus (May 709 – 20 February 789) was the fifteenth bishop of Catania, famed also for his love and care toward the poor. His feast day occurs on February 20, the day of his death in which he is venerated as a saint both by Roman Catholics and by the Orthodox Church. He lived in the lapse of time between the reigns of the Emperors Justinian II and Constantine IV. He struggled especially against the paganism and sorcery still prevalent in the Byzantine Sicily.

He left the memory of prodigies and charitable deeds, an admirable apostolate that deserved him his Greek epithet. For the natives of Catania he was simply Leone " il Maraviglioso" (the Wonderworker or He who performs Miracles).

Catania dedicated to him a peripheral suburb built around the homonymous Catholic Parish but even the name of the sole Eastern Orthodox church of the city, harboured in a temple that still maintains the primal name of Saint Michael the Lesser, restored recently and consecrated again to the purpose.

He is, moreover, the patron saint of the Sicilian localities of Rometta, Longi and Sinagra. The hamlet of Saracena in Calabria celebrates him twice a year in spring and in late summer.

Leo was born at Ravenna and very young he became a Benedictine, then he moved and betook himself to Reggio Calabria in Southern Italy where the local bishop Cyril nominated him archdeacon. Thereat he stayed till his episcopal election for the vacant Diocese of Catania.

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