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The popes · No. 45 of 267

St Leo I (the Great)

The pope who met Attila the Hun and sent him home.

Pope 440 to 61

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Alessandro Algardi’s marble relief in St Peter’s Basilica: Pope Leo meets Attila, with Peter and Paul in the sky above.

Gary Todd from Xinzheng, China, 2019. Wikimedia Commons, Public domain.

Home / The popes / St Leo I (the Great)

Near Mantua, northern Italy, AD 452

Attila’s army has torn through northern Italy, and Rome is next.1

An unarmed bishop rides out to meet him by the river Mincio.1

His name was Leo, and he came back with a promise that the Huns would leave Italy.

01St Leo I (the Great)

Facing the Huns

Leo went in 452, with two Roman officials, to meet Attila near Mantua and obtained his promise to withdraw from Italy and negotiate peace.1

In 455, when the Vandals captured Rome, Leo’s intercession won a promise that the city’s people would be spared.1

Alessandro Algardi’s marble relief in St Peter’s Basilica: Pope Leo meets Attila, with Peter and Paul in the sky above.
The altar of St Leo the Great in St Peter’s Basilica, where his relics rest beneath Algardi’s relief of the meeting with Attila. Gary Todd from Xinzheng, China, 2019. Wikimedia Commons, Public domain.

02St Leo I (the Great)

Peter has spoken

Leo’s pontificate is counted, with that of Gregory I, the most significant in Christian antiquity.1

His letter on the two natures of Christ was received at the Council of Chalcedon in 451.1

The Church professes that Christ is one person in two natures, true God and true man, as Chalcedon taught.2

Leo defended a city with his courage and the faith with his pen. The second mattered longer.

A century and a half later, a monk would become pope in a plague year.

Notes

  1. Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), “Pope St. Leo I (The Great)”. New Advent edition. newadvent.org
  2. Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 467. vatican.va

The Catholic Encyclopedia (1913) is in the public domain; we quote the New Advent edition. Texts of the Holy See are quoted briefly from vatican.va. Scripture: Douay-Rheims, Challoner revision (public domain). Photographs: Wikimedia Commons, credited under each image; full list on the photo credits page.

Lines in the narrator’s voice, without a note, are our reflection, not a historical claim. Stone & Incense restates Church teaching in plain words; our wording is not an official Church text. Report an error.