Who was León I, the Great, “one of the best pontiffs in history”, whose name took the newly chosen Pope

The American cardinal Robert Prevost, who was chosen this Thursday as the new Pope of the Catholic Church, chose for his pontificate the name of Leo XIV, one of the most used in ecclesiastical history through the centuries.

In fact, after Juan, Benedict and Innocent, León has been the name most used by Pedro’s successors.

The last one had been Gioacchino Vincenzo Raffaele Luigi Pecci or Leo XIII, who died in 1903 and whose extensive pontificate and his positions against slavery and labor exploitation made him known in the entire world.

However, another story perhaps even more striking is that of the first Pope who brought this name: Leon I, called the Great.

León, a Roman aristocrat, was chosen in September 440 and his pontificate was characterized by a theological deepening of the church doctrine, in a Christian world convulsed by the schisms and heresies.

It is, together with Gregorio I, the only high pontiff that has been declared a doctor of the Catholic Church.

“His theological writings do not seem like a person from the 5th century, but of someone who lives in the 21st century,” says Onesimo Díaz Hernández, historian and theologian of the University of Navarra, to BBC Mundo.

However, that was not the only important fact: when Atila, the Huno leader who had one of the greatest empires in history, was about to invade southern Italy, León I was able to avoid sweeping with the rest of the territory.

There are few data on the early life of León I. Moreover, it is unknown what is his secular name – although it is believed that he was Leon or Leone in Italian. What is known is that it belonged to an Italian aristocratic family that had very good political and economic relations.

According to the records that exist in the Vatican, León I was born in the La Tuscia region -actual Viterbo, near Roma- in the year 390. When he turns 40 he is ordained a deacon and begins to fulfill missions both for the Empire and for the Church.

At that time, due to his intellectual acuity, he becomes advisor to Pope Sixtus III. And when he dies in 440, León becomes his successor.

“León Magno, as it is known, becomes a potato at a very convulsive moment, in doctrinal terms, because there were many decisions about the nature of Jesus,” says Díaz Hernández.

“Some argued that Jesus was a superman but that he lacked a divine nature, while others denied any human particularity within him,” he adds.

In that sense, there are two aspects that help give an idea of ​​their figure: first it is the text I take Flaviano, a Christology Treaty in which it exposes a position that will define the doctrine over the years.

“One of Leon’s greatest contributions to the doctrine of the Church is that he managed to unify the criterion that Jesus has human and divine nature at the same time. And he achieves it thanks to that text,” says the theologian.

The volume to Flaviano, a kind of epistle to the then archbishop of Constantinople, was read widely during the Council of Chalcedon, made in the year 451, where the concept of divine and human nature of Jesus was ratified.

Díaz Hernández notes that it was a time when Leon I faced several doctrinal currents or even religions such as Manichaeism in Africa or the Christian current of Pelagianism, which proclaimed that man was born without original sin.

“Many of the texts that priests read daily in our prayers or moments of study are sermons or writings of León Magno. He was a man very advanced to his time,” he noted.

For that reason, in 1754, Pope Benedict XIV declared him as one of the 37 doctors of the Church.

And two centuries later, Benedict XVI said that the papacy of León I “was undoubtedly one of the most important in history.”

But, as Benedict XVI also pointed out, they were not only doctrinal issues that tormented Pope Leo I.

It is the year 452. The Roman Empire of the West is in decline and gradually the so -called barbarian invasions are seized from the territory of Rome.

Among all these campaigns, perhaps the most ambitious and successful is the one carried out by Atila, the Huno, known as the “roof of God.”

In that year, Atila had already managed to conquer the northern region of Italy with its army, in addition to other territories in Greece and the Middle East. Rome was fenced and with all the probability was going to fall before the ferocity of the Huns.

Then, León I decides not to travel to Chalcedon, where the council is held, to face the threat of Attila.

“At that time, the Roman Emperor Valentinian III Lucia weak due to the defeats, so the people of Rome put their eyes on the Pope. And Leon I decided to do something,” said Ryan Denison, expert in history of the Church of the Church of the BH Carroll Institute in Texas.

Then, a historical event occurs: Leon I meets Atila in the city of Mantua, about 400 kilometers from Rome.

What is known about the meeting is that León I convinces Attila to give up his invasion to Rome in exchange for the payment of a tribute. Although historians point out that there were several events that played in favor of León I’s efforts, the truth is that Atila retired.

In fact, a few months after this fact, Atila dies after a nasal hemorrhage.

The sum of all these factors makes León I die on November 10, 461, he begins to call them great.

“I think that the great legacy of Leon I is that he was a man who in the face of turbulence, either political or doctrinals, was not held in his dignity, but that he went out to face them with much determination,” says Denison.

And for experts this determination, together with the example of other popes called León, such as Leo XIII, has been key in the choice of the name of the new Roman Pontiff.

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